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most concerned about it?
ARCHBISHOP ANTJE JACKELÉN: We are most concerned because, as the church, we are part of a global movement, and we have relationships with people of—Christian people and people of other faiths in other parts of the world who are already affected and ask the questions of justice. And the question of justice is at the heart of the Christian Church. So, it’s a question of climate justice, as well. That’s just one reason why we do this.
The other reason is that it is not just an issue you can solve with technology and science. We need that, of course. It’s not just an issue about economy, although we need a lot of development in the economy. But it is also an issue of what do we believe, what can we hope for, what is the role of the human being in the world. So it’s utterly an existential and religious question, and we should address it as people of faith. And we should ask the question: What really is realistic to hope for?
AMY GOODMAN: You know, I saw something amazing this morning. It was politicians here in Visby questioning heads of business about what kind of regulations they want to see around climate, around conservation. I mean, in the United States, the politicians—businesses pay to lobby politicians. Here, politicians were asking businesses how they want to be regulated.
ARCHBISHOP ANTJE JACKELÉN: Yeah, I mean, a lot of things have happened. And, of course, compared to the United States, Sweden has been ahead and trying to mobilize all the good forces in society to work for this purpose. But what we haven’t done is that we have taken into it the existential and religious questions and drawn from that capital, so to speak.
AMY GOODMAN: What is being done in Sweden? How are you addressing the issue of climate change?
ARCHBISHOP ANTJE JACKELÉN: Well, in this book, we are doing it in a way that we first ask the question: What do we really know? And what are we not really certain about? And how do we go about these uncertainties? And we also ask the question: What did get us into this? So, as a church, we have 2,000 years of history, which allow us to look at the big changes and say, “This is what has contributed to where we are today.” And if you know that, your history, then you can also move into the future. We also address the question of existential anxiety and how do you speak to young people and children about this when they are anxious about climate. We also say—
AMY GOODMAN: How do you?
ARCHBISHOP ANTJE JACKELÉN: Well, the first thing to do is actually talk about it. Talk about it. Children who get to talk about this with their parents and other adult persons actually fare better. They are better informed, and they have better measures to handle the anxiety and to mobilize, actually, hope, that allows action to happen.
And then we also address what does it mean for a person of faith to address these questions. And we end up with putting a number of challenges before ourselves, before the society at large, business life, corporate life, before the U.N. climate convention, before global church and religious leaders and so on.
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you say, as a role model, if you see Sweden as a role model, are the most important measures Sweden has already taken around climate change?
ARCHBISHOP ANTJE JACKELÉN: Well, we are thinking about cutting the emissions, of course, and divestment from the fossil fuel industry, and encouraging alternative ways of handling energy, and again and again also addressing the questions of justice and also gender equality, because we know that women are often those who contribute the least of the emissions but often the one who have to carry the heaviest burdens.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you on another issue, the issue of Islamophobia. You have been very outspoken against Islamophobia. You’re a fan of Twitter. And you’re also a target of those who want to—who express hate towards people of the Muslim faith.
ARCHBISHOP ANTJE JACKELÉN: Yes. Well, again, what we can do is try to be as clear as possible and try to give the complexity—I mean, what these people do, they have a black-and-white view of the world—and being very energetic and enthusiastic about saying, “No, there is so much complexity in this. And let us address the complexity of these issues and never compromise the issue of human dignity.”
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, what do you say to U.S. politicians? You know, there’s a major debate in the United States whether climate change is induced by human beings. Can you talk about how you address this issue?
ARCHBISHOP ANTJE JACKELÉN: Well, yes. What we see is things are happening. And we know—well, most people in the United States have insurance on their homes, don’t they? And the risk that your home is burning is actually not very high, and yet you get your insurance. So if you take the same measure of risk around the climate, it’s much higher, and still there are people saying, “Oh, I don’t care.” So that’s not very consistent behavior. So, if you’re the less cautious, so do get going on addressing these issues.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us. The archbishop of Sweden, Antje Jackelén, has been with us. She is the first female archbishop of the church. She was elected in 2013 as Sweden’s first female archbishop.
Yes, this is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. We are broadcasting from Almedalen. This is a major open-air democracy festival. In the United States, it would be all the conventions together. We’re going to take a break, and when we come back, we’ll be joined by a young man who has been arrested in Sweden a number of times protesting weapons manufacturers. It might surprise some to know that Sweden is one of the largest arms exporters in the world. We’ll also be speaking with the head of one of the oldest peace organizations in the world. Stay with us.Women-only gyms and workout areas have a devoted — and growing — clientele in Metro Vancouver, two industry veterans said Thursday.
“A lot of ladies-only clubs have closed and I put that down to poor management,” said Chuck Lawson, president and CEO of the She’s Fit! Group of Clubs.
“And a lot of coed clubs that say they have a ladies’ section within the club don’t do a good job of it. The joke is that it’s a graveyard for old equipment. We put in the same equipment that’s in a coed club except it’s sized for women.”
While a number of Curves facilities that cater to fitness newcomers have closed in Metro Vancouver, former members are showing up at She’s Fit!, he said.
“Looking at the number of women who are joining the ladies-only clubs — women who have the choice to join a coed club or just a women’s club — we’re having a grandiose year,” Lawson said in a phone interview as he prepares to open a new facility in Maple Ridge next week.
Fourteen She’s Fit! locations in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley have between 85,000 and 90,000 members, he said.
The Steve Nash Fitness World and Sports Club location at Davie and Howe streets in downtown Vancouver announced this week it has decided to get rid of its women-only area. A company spokeswoman explained Wednesday that most members of the club wanted the space to be “inclusive” and “gender neutral.”
Lawson has heard all about gender issues on the gym floor when his company — then called Just Ladies Fitness — ended up in front of the BC Human Rights Tribunal in 2005 because it denied membership to a man. The tribunal later ruled in favour of the club, saying that opening it to men would cause a hardship to female members.
During the hearing, University of B.C. sociologist Gillian Creese submitted an expert opinion to the tribunal which defined the “male gaze” as “the ways in which men routinely judge and appraise women’s bodies in everyday interactions.”
That’s still a factor, Lawson says.
“It’s not just middle-aged women or women who aren’t in great shape. There are a lot of younger women who are in terrific shape working out on the women’s side. It’s referenced by Dr. Creese. Some call it the ogling factor — a lot of women don’t want to work out in front of men.”
Lawson founded Just Ladies Fitness 1992, bought out B.C.’s Spa Lady locations in 2002 and changed the chain’s name to She’s Fit! in 2007. His company owns of all the stand-alone clubs and is a co-owner with Club 16 Trevor Linden Fitness Group in locations that feature both gyms.
Ironman Canada founder Ron Zalko, creator of the 20,000-square-foot gym named for him at Burrard and First streets in Vancouver, says he’s had a women-only area for more than 35 years and isn’t about to change.
“Fitness is important and we provide an avenue for everyone to be comfortable,” said Zalko. “The way God created us, sometimes men don’t care how they look when they do certain exercises, but women sometimes don’t feel comfortable and I understand it. That’s the way it is.”Former Malaga director Mario Husillos insists the Argentine was the clear successor to Tito Vilanova and feels he will have no problems adapting to European football
Pellegrini prior to his move to Camp Nou, and believes the Argentine is without a doubt the correct choice to replace Tito Vilanova.
" I would be lying to you if I said I was surprised by his move to Barcelona. When it became clear that Vilanova could not continue it was his name that came to mind," Husillos told Marca.
"I thought he would be one of the clear candidates to replace Vilanova. I saw a lot of what he did at Newell's and I know where that club came from when he took over.
"He will continue the work already done, he won't fail his players. He can bring normality which is something that is not given enough press within the game.
"He is truly humble and people will respect him for that."
Doubts remain over whether Martino will be able to adapt swiftly to the European game having never coached outside South America in the past, but Husillos has dismissed any such anxieties.
"I have no doubts at all, he is very well prepared and you have to remember that he made things very difficult for Spain in the World Cup," he continued.
" Martino's sides respect the ball and play football and that is what made the difference in Argentina. His side played the best football and there was a marked difference with the rest of the sides.
"He is a winner with a specific way of playing and I think he has the ability to do well. He likes a passing style of football with emphasis on touch."
Barcelona begin the defence of their La Liga crown against Levante on Sunday.Russian President Vladimir Putin receives flowers from students as he visits the Moscow Pedagogical State University, September 1, 2001. Reuters MOSCOW (Reuters) - A week after angering many in Russia by burning illegally imported Western food, authorities have started feeding Dutch flowers to the flames.
Officials say blooms from the Netherlands, which supplies much of Russia's $2.5 billion flower market, pose safety risks because they may be infected.
Critics say the "flower war" marks a new low in relations with the West and is Moscow's retaliation for a Dutch investigation into the downing of a Malaysian airliner over rebel-held east Ukraine in July last year.
Whatever the reason, ordinary Russians, already struggling with unemployment and inflation, can expect higher flower prices in the next few weeks when demand soars as children returning to school traditionally give flowers to their teachers.
"These are freshly cut flowers from the Netherlands infected with western Californian flower thrips," Russian agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor's chief sanitary inspector, Yekaterina Slakova, explained as television showed workers burning boxes filled with roses.
Authorities are now considering a ban on flowers from the Netherlands, which sends up to 5 percent of its flower sales to Russia.
"We just have to check every shipment of the flowers ourselves," said the Russian agricultural watchdog's spokesman, Alexei Alexeyenko.
"POLITICALLY MOTIVATED"
A woman places flowers outside the Dutch embassy to commemorate the victims of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 plane crash a year ago in Kiev Thomson Reuters Relations between Russia and the Netherlands collapsed following the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. Dutch investigators blame Moscow-backed separatists for shooting the airliner down with a Russian-made missile.
Russia denies involvement and blames Ukraine for the tragedy, which killed all 298 people on board. Most of the dead were Dutch.
Last month, Russia vetoed a resolution co-sponsored by the Netherlands to set up a U.N.-backed tribunal to prosecute the culprits.
"The Russians are searching for any reason not to let our flowers in. We know this is politically motivated," said a spokesperson for a Dutch flower firm, who asked not to be named.
"No flowers will be sent to Russia until the situation changes. Our red line is that the flowers are inspected on Dutch soil rather than in Russia," the person added.
Following the downing of the plane, the West imposed sanctions on Russia. Moscow retaliated by imposing a ban on most Western food imports, which backfired by spurring inflation.
Dutch investigators and an Emergencies Ministry member work at the site where the downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed, near the village of Hrabove in Donetsk region Thomson Reuters Last week, Russian TV showed quantities of illegally imported European cheese being bulldozed while workers threw boxes of European bacon into an incinerator.
Russia insists the issue with Dutch flowers is that they contain bugs that the European Union does not recognize as dangerous.
"Cut flowers infected with these organisms pose a serious threat...," agricultural supervisory body Rosselkhoznadzor said.
Robert Roodenburg of the Association of Wholesale Floricultural Products, who negotiates on behalf of Dutch producers, said Russia was heavily dependent on Dutch imports.
"As prices spike, we expect the Russians to initiate a solution to the problem," he said. "At the moment, we don't have the means to exterminate all the organisms that are unwanted by the Russians. We want to use biological, not toxic means to eliminate these organisms and developing that technology will take time."
VGB says Dutch flower exports to Russia were worth 107 million euros in the first half of 2015 but other estimates put the figure higher due to black market trades.
Russia mostly imports roses, chrysanthemums and tulips with foreign supplies accounting for more than 80 percent of overall sales, one third of which come from the Netherlands.
Analysts think prices could jump by over 50 percent if an import ban is imposed, although Russian growers and exporters in Kenya, Ecuador, Colombia and Israel could benefit.Unless there is a last-minute development, Reilly Smith will not be present for the start of Bruins training camp Thursday.
Smith, 23, a restricted free agent, is not close on an extension, according to agent Anton Thun. The team’s No. 2 right wing is coming off his three-year entry-level contract, worth $900,000 annually. He would be the first holdout in Peter Chiarelli’s nine seasons as general manager.
Smith and defenseman Torey Krug, who also is unsigned, are skating and working out together in Connecticut. It’s expected that Krug also will not be present for camp’s opening. Lewis Gross, Krug’s agent, was unavailable for comment.
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Neither Smith nor Krug is allowed to negotiate with other teams. They do not have three seasons of pro experience with 10 or more games. They are ineligible to sign offer sheets.
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Smith had 20 goals and 31 assists in 82 games last season as a first-year Bruin. The ex-Dallas Star, part of the Tyler Seguin trade in 2013, spent most of last season on a line with Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron. Smith scored six of his goals on the power play, where he worked the point on the No. 2 unit.
Camp begins with fitness testing Thursday. The first day of on-ice sessions is Friday at Ristuccia Arena.
Fluto Shinzawa can be reached at fshinzawa@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeFlutoChapter 234: Mob Mentality
As I approach the city, I could see fires blazing even from afar.
The people were not evacuating. They were taking refuge in the mansion Melty was using as her residence on the outskirts of the village.
The Justice Zombies were attacking while shouting out negative propaganda about me and the country.
These brainwashed people would usually be difficult to distinguish at a glance.
However, if they took a sufficient amount of damage, and the host’s consciousness faded, then the bodies would continue to walk around like typical zombies without wills.
Their behavior is also a problem.
The situation has devolved as such: The zombies would attempt to climb the stone walls surrounding the mansion, while the people inside would knock them down with wind magic or physical force.
And within the fire, Ren and Firo were taking the initiative, going around and knocking out the insurgents.
The others would then use rope to tie them up.
“Are you alright!?” (Naofumi)
“Ah, Master~! Well, you see…” (Firo)
“Naofumi, how did your side go? Did you find Itsuki?” (Ren)
“No.” (Naofumi)
I summarize the events of the village while I step in front to act as the shield I am.
These brainwashed people should have a sense of priority instilled within them.
They should be prioritizing killing me or Melty.
“For the sake of Justice, Perish!” (Merchant)
A merchant who had been laughing and conversing with me just yesterday thrusts a dagger at me.
And without a word, I activated Erst Strike Shield and Change Shield, creating a combo that inflicted Paralysis.
“What about the people you’re supposed to be protecting?” (Naofumi)
“Ah, this kid says that matter is fine.” (Ren)
“Well, you see. I somehow know.” (Firo)
I see, so Firo can sense it with her feral instincts.
She can sense the actions of the other Filo Rials and their support.
“And this is that dagger?” (Ren)
“Yeah.” (Naofumi)
I take out the dagger and present it to Ren.
Of course, in order for him to analyze it.
Trying to insert it into my shield seems dangerous, so I’ll have Ren make a Copy of it.
It’s a dangerous item, but if he makes it his own… It might be fine.
“Try holding it for a second.” (Naofumi)
“Okay.” (Ren)
Ren grasps the hilt of the dagger, and his sword shines for a moment.
“Curse Series… The Dagger of Mob Mentality?” (Ren)
So it comes down to that.
And wait, it’s a Curse Series?
There’s more than the 7 Deadly Sins?
I see, so this dagger makes one’s mind a single part of a whole and prevents an individual from making decisions on their own.
“Wait a second… Let me check it for more details.” (Ren)
Ren opens his status screen and reads through it.
“I apologize, I don’t really know what this is supposed to mean.” (Ren)
He answers as he knocks down several zombies with his sword.
“Does it have any strange effects?”
“Equipment Bonus… Release by Brainwashing; Mutual Understanding; Don’t worry, I understand you.”
… That’s seriously suspicious.
Ren probably thinks so as well. He has a complicated expression.
“This is Release? Mutual Understanding? Can you even call that understanding?” (Ren)
“Does it mean your troubles will fade away?” (Naofumi)
So it stains you with the ideology of another…
Anyone who objects to that psychology is an enemy, and if you infect them, they’ll be comrades once more.
This isn’t a game…
This is quite a disgusting dagger.
“Where is Eclaire-san?”
Rishia looks around and asks Ren.
Eclaire… Is that Female Knight?
She’s probably being useful around now.
I mean, the girl knows nothing but how to fight.
“Ah, she is…” (Ren)
Ren’s face darkens.
And he points to the mansion.
“Is she defending from the mansion?” (Rishia)
“It seems that she received quite a shock upon seeing the strange actions and speech of the enemy.” (Ren)
“What?” (Naofumi)
“How can I get them to understand me? The Justice I seek is nothing like this. She couldn’t raise her hands against her former comrades.” (Ren)
Ah, Female Knight had a strong sense of justice.
If the enemy takes on the name of Justice and spouts incomprehensible nonsense, I guess she would get mad.
The citizens she vowed to protect were fighting her.
Though they were being controlled by others, they still maintained some of their selves. It would be impossible to attack at full power.
They may even pretend to be allies.
This possibility could lead to suspicion and infighting.
This really is an annoying ability.
“’A world without Slavery or Discrimination. An equal world,’ she said as the amount of turned allies around her increased. It must have been tough.” (Ren)
Well, she does have a point.
In this country’s eyes, it is impossible for humans and Demi-Humans to live side by side. If a Demi-Human is officially treated as an equal, then people accuse the government of giving them preferential treatment.
One side says that I’m doing the brainwashing, while they spread their argument through brainwashing. There’s no end to it.
This village had no one who could undo the brainwashing, so there’s no helping it.
Equal? No Discrimination? Those are some expressions that make me sick to my stomach.
Even in my ‘equal’ world, there’s been no one who’s been able to practice true equality.
Superiority exists in all worlds.
When someone is born, he’s already being judged. Equality is a laughable concept.
(TL Note: Yoraikun does not endorse any views offered by our protagonist. )
The quest to make an impartial, equal world without war is merely a trigger to unleash more war.
It’s like when she beat up and performed minorly tortured Ren in order to teach him a lesson.
Anyways, what does the word Equality even mean?
The meaning I know has all humans treated equally without discrimination or favorable treatment.
It’s unattainable and merely something to be strived for.
But in a world with Slavery as a set system, if such things are preached, no one will lend their ears.
My world only got rid of slavery recently.
If anyone actually supported such a cause, they would have ulterior motives.
And the reason slavery became extinct in my world was largely due to the changing times; slaves were no longer needed. (TL: He’s talking about Japan here)
This world is still in need of some form of labor.
To try and preach such a concept that’s realistically impossible, I can only see her as a child.
That’s a concept that the Three Heroes Church and the Revolutionary faction would simply use to their advantage.
“I’ll put lecturing Female Knight off to a later date. Do you think we’ll be able to manage here?” (Naofumi)
“The enemy numbers are too great. At this rate, we can tie all of them up, but it will take too long.” (Ren)
“I see…” (Naofumi)
Even if the people I brought along also fight, it will still take a long time.
“Naofumi-cha~n.” (Sadina)
… Ah, right. Sadina was with us.
“Hey… Sadina. Do you have a way to take out the overflowing mass of brainwashed children and put out the fire all at once?” (Naofumi)
“Leave it to me! Everyone!” (Sadina)
Sadina began swinging her harpoon like a conductor’s baton.
Perhaps because she brought along more people this time, I can feel the magic in the air condensing to greater levels than before. It’s already a large scale magic formation.
Ah, this person is comparable to Firo in useful abilities.
Hm? Firo?
“Firo, mobilize the other Filo Rials to cast Choral Magic as well!” (Naofumi)
“Got it~! N… Nn…” (Firo)
Firo cleared her throat and began singing.
And in response to that, the other Filo Rials in the area began chirping.
“Naofumi-chan, go evacuate the children who aren’t brainwashed.” (Sadina)
“Understood.” (Naofumi)
By my orders, I evacuated everyone who was still sane.
I won’t let the situation devolve to the level it was before.
“Wait!”
“Submit to the will of justice!”
“Devil of the Shield!”
All the brainwashed people say the same things.
“Ren!” (Naofumi)
“Leave it to me! 「Hundred Sword!」” (Ren)
The pursuing slaves are blocked by countless strikes from Ren’s area of effect skill.
Heroes with offensive capabilities sure are useful.
「「「Tidal Wave!」」」
「「「Sweet Song!」」」
Upon Sadina’s magic, a large wave washes away the Justice Zombies in front of the mansion, and upon hearing Firo’s song, other Zombies turn white-eyed and fall down on the spot.
It’s probably a magic with a sleep effect.
It seems that Firo’s singing ability has reached magical levels.
“I guess that we succeeded in the surpression for now.” (Naofumi)
“No, not yet.” (Ren)
Ren points deeper into the city.
And from that direction, Brainwashed Zombies continue to pour in, one after the other.
Where the hell did these people come from anyways!?
They must have grown in number from the inhabitants of this village.
“… The person leading all of them probably isn’t here.” (Naofumi)
In a situation like this, the person leading the charge, like the Magic User in my village, probably retreated already.
“No, there’s one suspicious place.” (Ren)
Ren signals towards the village plaza.
Hm? For some reason, I see a Gaelion-like object breathing fire all over the place.
On its back is someone who looks like Taniko.
“Naofumi, there was a church built behind there, right?” (Ren)
“Yeah.” (Naofumi)
“The Brainwashed army’s built up their defenses there. We can almost break through. Won’t you come with us?” (Ren)
“I see.” (Naofumi)
Itsuki may be there. Maybe…
“We’re going over to the church. You guys should continue to bind the defeated enemies. Find a way to contain them all.” (Naofumi)
“Understood, Naofumi-chan.” (Sadina)
Yeah, it’s best to leave the defenses to her.
It would be bad if we thinned our forces enough for them to break through.
And the constant battle has fatigued both sides.
Just raising one’s level doesn’t change sustained injury, fatigue, or hunger.
“Then Firo and the Filo Rials will go over to where Gaelion is fighting!” (Naofumi)
“Eh?… I have to go to Gaelion?” (Firo)
Firo states her opinion.
It seems the other Filo Rials agree.
“Just shut up and go.” (Naofumi)
“Oka~y…” (Firo)
“Is Melty alright?” (Naofumi)
“Yeah. Melty-chan is strong, so she’s fine.” (Firo)
“I see. Well, she was strong enough to blow away my house.” (Naofumi)
A militaristic princess… It’s a common theme in literature, but it makes me see just how much Melty has changed.
Even though I’m the cause.
But that doesn’t matter for now. I just need to find a way into the church.
I get on Firo’s back and gallantly rush onto the battlefield.
Ren is with us.
On the way, we encounter attacks from brainwashed people, but they are no match for Firo’s speed.
My place’s Filo Rials sure are high class.
Though, besides Firo’s first disciple, Motoyasu raised them all.
Is he going to become the Filo Rial Master?
What would I do if he actually becomes one…FCC fines Marriott $600,000 for jamming hotel Wi-Fi
A Nashville convention center figured out how to boost its revenue from selling Internet service: it illegally jammed guests' and exhibitors' Wi-Fi networks. Glenn Fleishman explains the technical scam and why it earned a six-figure smackdown.
The Marriott-run Gaylord Opryland resort in Nashville was faced with a dilemma. Like all hotels and exhibition centers, it charges exhibitors and conference organizers exorbitant amounts for Internet access on trade-show floors, as well as nightly fees for guests. Nearly all conference centers charge thousands of dollars for a few days of access, per exhibitor, and all they get is a couple of megabits per second at their booth. Google for the price sheets: you'll need an emesis bag handy.
Thanks to fast cellular networks and portable WiFi hotspots, though, these halls are losing their extortionate edge. A carryover from the days of a captive audience who had no other choice, the wheeze was always factored in as a cost of participating in trade shows and other events. Now, however, the 4G LTE standard--whose frequency range penetrates buildings far better than most older cellular technologies--offers data rates in the tens of Mbps.
The Gaylord Opryland came up with a clever plan. Some level of hotel management understood that its Wi-Fi intrusion-mitigation system came with a feature that could kick people off networks — and not just their own. So, as the FCC explains in a press release and consent order [PDF] released today, Marriott staff at the facility made it impossible for people in the vicinity to use personal hotspots, portable routers, and the like. This is a big no-no: a violation of Section 333 of the Communications Act. A clever visitor to the convention center — likely someone irritated at being knocked off his portable router over and over again — discovered the deauth behavior and reported it in March 2013 to the FCC.
The technique employed, according to the FCC release, is deauthentication. It's a common attack vector used by malicious parties to push clients off legitimate access points and get them to connect to "evil twins," look-alike Wi-Fi networks that are hives of villainy, or to cause denial of service. The aircrack-ng software, for instance, lets you type in a very simple sequence that shoots the correct sequence of packets at a client and a router, and forces the two to stop talking, at least for a moment.
There is no authentication of deauth, ironically enough, although the kind of intrusion-detection and -mitigation hardware and software used by companies like Marriott can detect these attacks. (More irony in using a mitigation system to attack others.) Vendors of such products boast about the use of deauth — in regards only to booting unwanted people from their clients' own Wi-Fi networks.
The FCC found this not clever at all, and Marriott (which acquired the property in 2012) is paying a $600,000 fine, and under the terms of the consent decree, must halt its Wi-Fi blocking and implement and report on a compliance plan at all its properties in America. The FCC report doesn't say whether Marriott was engaged in similar activities elsewhere, but I suspect geeks will now be on high alert to check for it whenever they can't maintain a Wi-Fi connection to their own gear at or near a hotel or convention center.
This is a wonderful and strong affirmative approach by the FCC asserting consumer rights. The head of the FCC's enforcement bureau said bluntly in the news release: "Consumers who purchase cellular data plans should be able to use them without fear that their personal Internet connection will be blocked by their hotel or conference center." Convention centers will have to adapt and figure out new ways to ream exhbitors — the FCC doesn't regulate breathing, does it?Over 70 athletes converged on Houston to try out for the Houston Strikers Major League Rugby team in an open combine on Saturday.Players were put through a series of physical tests, fitness tests, and skills tests to see if they might potentially make the club at the Athlete Training Health facility.Neil McMillan, who played pro rugby in Ireland and coached extensively in the USA, is the director of training systems at Athlete TH and helped administer the combine's workouts, including a five-set shuttle run known as the Bronco Test."This has been a pretty tough day," McMillan said. "We went through… linear speed, timed 40, lateral agility, T-drill -- and they just finished a nice easy Bronco Test. Professional rugby players need kind of a little bit of everything. We need strength endurance. We need speed endurance. In general, the Bronco's probably one of the tests we look at the most probably because stamina is [needed] across the board for every position in rugby."Strikers assistant coach Sam Windsor said he was "overwhelmed with the success" of the combine and impressed with "the participation numbers, and, more important, the effort the boys put in."It was a hot day with temperatures in the triple digits, but the athletes worked hard and, Windsor added, listened."The attitude was probably the biggest [positive]," he said. "We asked a lot of the boys and we needed them to buy into the whole day. There's a lot of responsibility on them."All of the combine participants competed under the watchful eye of the coaches, especially Strikers head coach Justin Fitzpatrick.As for what Fitzpatrick and his coaches saw, Windsor said, "Some of the results we got in the physical testing were really impressive, and the skill level was very high standard as well."Five players from the Cy Fair High School program showed up, and Windsor said the young group fit right in during the tryout. The Strikers do expect to select some players from this combine.After seeing what the athletes had to offer, Windsor said, "We're even more excited now."You know the story – director hits the back of the net with a little-anticipated movie that becomes somewhat of a cult hit and suddenly his doormat could be renamed Scriptsville. So what next? Does he make the sequel or move on to one of the sweet offers that are chirping out from his cell phone on a daily basis?
Well, if he’s Guillermo Del Toro, he does the latter.
After the commercial success of the first Hellboy movie, the sequel was bound to surface. The only problem is, with no committed cast or budget, it has not come fast enough for helmer Del Toro to commit to it – so Sony have dropped the flick which was set to be called Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.
Variety reports that with movies such as the gothic thriller Killing On Carnival Row already set to go at New Line, Del Toro’s calendar is already backlogged. This means a sequel to the graphic novel adap is now slipping into limbo and probably won’t resurface unless another studio gets involved.All across the country, public services are increasingly outsourced to private contractors in the name of efficiency and cost savings. But a new report from the non-profit research group In the Public Interest (ITPI) shows that outsourcing public services hurts middle and working class communities as well as workers.
The report, "Race to the Bottom: How Outsourcing Public Services Rewards Corporations and Punishes the Middle Class," makes the case that when private contractors make huge profits from taxpayer dollars, money is often sucked out of local communities. Dollars that used to go to employees are sent to shareholders instead, harming communities as local workers have less to spend. Taxpayers take another hit when employees, who used to have access to health care and good wages, now have to rely on food stamps and Medicaid to survive.
“False promises of privatization trigger a race to the bottom. CEOs do well, but middle class jobs are replaced with poverty wages,” says ITPI’s Donald Cohen.
Privatization Fuels a Race to the Bottom
The "Race to the Bottom" report documents how when federal, state, and local governments pay hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to contractors for jobs that pay so little, they leave employees dependent on the social safety net. These costs are not being taken into account by governments. For example, the report cites a 2010 study that showed contracted school cafeteria employees in California received an average of $1,743 in public assistance--in effect, an additional public subsidy for a private contractor's low wages.
Mary Sparrow was a housekeeper for the Milwaukee County Courthouse when it was privatized under then-Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker in 2010. She was offered a new job by the new contractor, but her wages would have dropped from $14.29 with benefits to $8 without benefits. She searched for a better job, but in the meantime her unemployment benefits went to maintaining her healthcare benefits through COBRA and she had to dip into her son’s college savings account.
“Privatizing has had a devastating effect on our community. It is not just what we get paid, but what we spend in our communities. Privatizers get ahead, but not the front line workers,” said Sparrow.
The personal toll is high. "I still get calls from friends who want to give up,” says Sparrow, choking up. “This has been awful for us and I hope that any community or any state would think twice before privatizing.”
Governments are Helping to Create Inequality with Growth in Contracting and Subcontracting
Decades ago, the public sector offered stable jobs with family-supporting wages and important benefits like health insurance, sick leave, and pensions.
“Government historically created a ladder of opportunity by paying family-supporting wages and providing important benefits,” said Shar Habibi, author of the report. “This is especially true for women and African-Americans, allowing millions of them to reach the middle class." Outsourcing "turns middle class careers into poverty-level jobs, and taxpayers inadvertently support the dismantling of our once-robust middle class."
Habibi noted that there was a growing body of |
question again; why aren’t economists demanding the ECB cut rates? Why don’t they demand the Fed do level targeting, and try to make up for the ultra low inflation over the last 4 years? Why the silence?
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This entry was posted on July 12th, 2012 and is filed under Monetary Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.18th episode of the second season of SpongeBob SquarePants
"Sailor Mouth" is the first segment of the 18th episode of the second season, and the 38th overall episode of the American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. The episode was directed by Andrew Overtoom, and was written by Walt Dohrn, Paul Tibbitt, and Merriwether Williams. Dohrn and Tibbitt also served as storyboard directors, and Carson Kugler, William Reiss, and Erik Wiese worked as storyboard artists. It originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on September 21, 2001.
The series follows the adventures and endeavors of the title character and his various friends in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom. In this episode, SpongeBob reads a "bad word" off a dumpster behind the Krusty Krab, but does not know what it means.[note 1] Patrick explains to him that it is a "sentence enhancer" which is used "when you want to talk fancy." The two start using it in every sentence they speak. However, when Mr. Krabs hears them, he warns the two never to use the word again or any of the 13 bad words. Later on, SpongeBob accidentally swears again. Patrick then runs to tell Mr. Krabs with SpongeBob trying to stop him. However, when Mr. Krabs accidentally injures his toe, he utters all the 13 bad words. The two cannot believe it and run to Mama Krabs to tell on him. Mama Krabs, who is appalled by their use of the words, makes the three paint her house as punishment.
The episode was well received from critics and fans, while various members of the SpongeBob SquarePants crew consider the episode to be one of their favorites, mainly due to the satirical nature of the episode. However, the episode was not immune to negative reception, and was criticized by watchdog media group the Parents Television Council and critics, who interpreted the episode as an example of promoting and implicitly satirizing use of profanity towards children.
Plot [ edit ]
When SpongeBob goes around to the back of the Krusty Krab to take out the trash, he reads some graffiti written on a dumpster, one of which he does not understand.[note 1] SpongeBob asks Patrick what it is and Patrick says that the word is a "sentence enhancer" which is used "when you want to talk fancy." The next day, SpongeBob walks into the Krusty Krab and says the word to Patrick and then over the intercom. The Krusty Krab customers are appalled by SpongeBob's use of his "word" and leave. Squidward then informs Mr. Krabs, who then decides to tell them that they were using profanity, and mentions that there are 13 swear words they should not use. (At one point, Squidward asks if Mr. Krabs actually means there are only seven, in reference to George Carlin's infamous seven dirty words routine.) SpongeBob and Patrick vow Mr. Krabs that they will never use swear words again.
Later, they play their favorite game, Eels and Escalators (an obvious parody of Snakes and Ladders). Patrick always gets escalators but SpongeBob always gets eels. Eventually, he loses the game and accidentally utters the swear word. Patrick then races to the Krusty Krab to sell SpongeBob out with the latter trying to stop him, inadvertently getting Patrick to say the word in the process. When SpongeBob bursts through the front door and tells Mr. Krabs that Patrick said the swear word, Patrick then joins along. Eventually, Mr. Krabs stops their gibberish explanations, and takes SpongeBob and Patrick outside and makes them paint the Krusty Krab as a punishment.
Mr. Krabs is about to give SpongeBob and Patrick the job, but he hits his foot on a rock, dropping the paint and says all 13 swear words while complaining about his foot being injured. When SpongeBob and Patrick hear all the swear words, they run to Mama Krabs' house to tattle on him. When they all reach her house, they all explain what happened at once, saying the same swear words in the process. This makes her faint, but shortly after Mr. Krabs scolds SpongeBob and Patrick for saying all those bad words in front of her she regains consciousness. Mama Krabs states that all three of them should be ashamed for saying all those words. She then gives all three of them the task of painting her house with a fresh coat of paint as a punishment. Later on, she leaves the three alarmed when she appears to be saying a 14th swear word after stubbing her toe on a rock; she claims that the sound came from Old Man Jenkins, who is driving by in his jalopy, which produces an identical sound and everyone laughs.
Production [ edit ]
The animation of "Sailor Mouth" was directed by Andrew Overtoom, and the episode was written by Walt Dohrn, Paul Tibbitt, and Merriwether Williams. Dohrn and Tibbitt served as the episode's storyboard directors, and Carson Kugler, William Reiss and Erik Wiese worked as storyboard artists.[1] Series creator Stephen Hillenburg has described the episode plot as "a classic thing all kids go through." Much of the storyline for the episode was inspired by the writers' own experiences from childhood.[2] The episode originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on September 21, 2001. The episode marks the introduction of Mr. Krabs' mother, Mama Krabs, who was voiced by former SpongeBob SquarePants creative producer and current executive producer Paul Tibbitt.[3][4][5]
The writing staff used their individual childhood experiences as inspirations to come up with much of the story lines for this episode.[6][7] The idea for "Sailor Mouth" was inspired by creative director Derek Drymon's experience "[when] I got in trouble for saying the f-word in front of my mother."[7] Drymon said, "The scene where Patrick is running to Mr. Krabs to tattle, with SpongeBob chasing him, is pretty much how it happened in real life."[7] The end of the episode, where Mr. Krabs uses more profanity than SpongeBob and Patrick, was also inspired "by the fact that my [Drymon's] mother has a sailor mouth herself."[7]
Voice actor Tom Kenny reveals in the description of this episode in the iTunes collection, SpongeBob SquarePants: Tom Kenny's Top 20 that they actually improvised fake profanities that would be censored by the silly sound effects later. He adds jokingly, "I was laughing so hard [recording this episode], they recorded me while I lay on the floor of the sound booth."[8]
The scene where SpongeBob and Patrick playing a game of Eels and Escalators, which is a parody of Snakes and Ladders, was difficult for the crew to animate, since many shots featured certain board pieces changing location.[3] According to the series' season 2 DVD commentary, it was planned to have a scene that had SpongeBob saying "Go 'dolphin noise' yourself" followed by Patrick saying "'Dolphin noise' you too!" during the Eels and Escalators game. It was removed in the final episode check because it would have been inappropriate for the younger audience.[3][4][5] The initial decision to use dolphin noises in place of a traditional bleep was also influenced by concerns over the episode's suitability for its audience. Stephen Hillenburg recalled in 2016, "I pitched the idea that SpongeBob and Patrick learn a swearword. Everyone said no. I couldn't even use a bleep. So I used a dolphin sound instead."[9]
Storyboard artist, Erik Wiese admitted in the Season 2 Audio Commentary for "Sailor Mouth" that it was a challenge to storyboard Walt Dohrn's idea and vision of the Eels and Escalators scene.
"Sailor Mouth" was released on the DVD compilation called SpongeBob SquarePants: Sea Stories on November 5, 2002.[10][11][12] It was also included in the SpongeBob SquarePants: The Complete 2nd Season DVD released on October 19, 2004.[13][14] On September 22, 2009, "Sailor Mouth" was released on the SpongeBob SquarePants: The First 100 Episodes, alongside all the episodes of seasons one through five.[15][16]
Reception [ edit ]
The episode received generally positive reviews from fans but was heavily criticized by critics and parents for its nature and profanity.
Erik Wiese, who helped to storyboard "Sailor Mouth", considers it to be his favorite episode, mainly due to its random and satirical nature, saying "Sometimes SpongeBob just catches me off-guard."[3] Nancy Basile of About.com ranked the episode at number two for her list of the Top 10 SpongeBob SquarePants Episodes. She said "'Sailor Mouth' just barely missed being in the number one slot."[17] Basile praised the episode's plot and called it "genius[...] because children can relate to the forbidden thrill of using curse words, and adults can laugh at the parody of TV censorship."[17] In an interview with Paul Tibbitt, one of the episode's writers, he told that "Sailor Mouth" is his second favorite SpongeBob episode.[18]
Criticism and controversy [ edit ]
"Simply, the group goofed by citing an episode of the cartoon series called "Sailor Mouth" as a touch-point for bad language. [...] Here's the funny thing: The episode is all about the perils of using bad language[...] Those words are never heard, ever, and are replaced with more dolphin sounds than you'll get in a day at Sea World Sic ) [...] The PTC, of course, saw fit to use this positive episode as a negative. The group's media release claimed the dolphin sounds represent the F-bomb and a word for buttocks. Those words do not exist in the episode - and are only created in the minds of adults or young folks exposed to such language in the schoolyard or, dare I say, at home." —Richard Huff, New York Daily News.[19]
According to a report titled Wolves in Sheep's Clothing,[20] which documents the increase in potentially violent, profane, and sexual content in children's programming, the Parents Television Council, a watchdog media group, and fans believed the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Sailor Mouth" was an implicit attempt to promote and satirize use of profanity among children. The episode originally aired during the 2001–02 television season, ironically the season in which the PTC named SpongeBob SquarePants among the best programs on cable television,[21] but the report cited a repeat broadcast of the episode from 2005 to prove its point that it promoted use of profanity among children.[20] In a later report, several members of the PTC listed "Sailor Mouth" as an example of how levels of profane, sexual, and violent activity has increased in children's television programming.[22] Nickelodeon, in response to the incident, said "It's sad and a little desperate that they stooped to literally putting profane language in the mouths of our characters to make a point. Has the FCC looked at this?"[23] Richard Huff of the New York Daily News criticized the report for misinterpreting "Sailor Mouth" over its intent to satirize profanity implicitly.[19]
See also [ edit ]
"Rude Removal", a similar episode of Dexter's Laboratory
Notes [ edit ]
a b Throughout the episode, swear words are bleeped by the sound of dolphin vocalizationsElectric car manufacturer Tesla recently announced the charging speed and capacity of two new vehicle models that some experts claim far exceed what is possible using current technology.
Bloomberg reports that Tesla’s current estimates for both charging speed and capacity of the vehicles far exceed the capabilities of the fastest charging stations on the markets today, the Tesla supercharger. The company claims that their semi truck would transport approximately 80,000 pounds as far as 500 miles on just one charge and would be capable of recharging 400 miles of range in 30 minutes, a figure that would require a charging system ten times more powerful than Tesla’s own superchargers.
Tesla’s Roadster, which plans to be the quickest production car ever made, would have to hold a battery twice as powerful as the largest battery currently available for any electric car inside the vehicle’s notably smaller frame. Tesla’s promises so far go against all industry standards for electric vehicles and would require massive advances in battery technology or an entire rewriting of how batteries work for the company to deliver on these promises according to Sam Jaffe, battery analyst for Cairn Energy Research in Boulder, Colorado.
“I don’t think they’re lying,” Jaffe said. “I just think they left something out of the public reveal that would have explained how these numbers work.” Salim Morsy, an electric vehicle analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, commented on Tesla’s claim that they can charge their new semi truck to a 400-mile charge capacity in just 30 minutes, saying, “I don’t understand how that works, I really don’t.”
Tesla also claims that their fastest car so far, the Roadster, will have a battery range of 620 miles on one charge, a longer charge than any battery-powered vehicle available today. According to Morsy, one of the only ways this could possibly be achievable would be to stack batteries on top of each other under the car’s flooring, but still, these batteries would not fit in the Roadster based oits’s current compact design. “I really don’t think the car you saw last week had the full 200 kilowatt hours in it,” Morsy said. “I don’t think it’s physically possible to do that right now.”
Battery density may be key to Tesla’s claims, and given the battery density has been increasing at a rate of 7.5 percent a year, by the time Tesla’s new vehicles are in production they may have better capabilties.
“The trend in battery density is, I think, central to any claim Tesla made about both the Roadster and the Semi,” Morsy said. “That’s totally fair. The assumptions on a pack in 2020 shouldn’t be the same ones you use today.”As we know, the veil of cannabis prohibition was lifted in Colorado last week. Thousands of people have answered the call by flocking to the Centennial State in search of their first retail cannabis experience. This has some entrepreneurs chomping at the bit for their share of the market.
The beginning of each year brings about new hope for business owners, regardless in which industry one works. This sentiment seems to ring even truer in 2014 as cannabis makes its way to the limelight.
Entrepreneurs throughout the nation are hoping to win over consumers with the next big technology and lock in their position as a major player for years to come. Though it is still early in the year, there are a few companies with game-changing technology that could help push the industry forward in 2014.
Manufacturers Race To Create The Perfect Portable Vaporizer
Sure, vaporizing cannabis is nothing new for the industry. There are a plenty of efficient stationary products on the market that allow patients to consume their cannabis in a manner that can be healthier than smoking and eating infused edibles.
“UpToke is slated to release their highly-anticipated Spyre Vaporizer early this year.”
The issue: most of these machines are stationary units that require an electrical current at all times and cannot be used on the go.
Further, much ado has been made about the lack of an efficient portable vaporizer for use with dried cannabis flowers (buds).
Some of the most popular pen vaporizer models (Cloud V, O.Pen, Vaped, etc.) are reserved for use for cannabis concentrates and essential oils. Others simply do not stand up to the task at hand when consuming flowers, using conduction to heat the contents instead of convection.
Of course, this issue has not been lost on manufacturers and a few companies may be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The Thermovape Cera was a definite step in the right direction and the Medical Jane team looks forward to seeing what improvements they’ve made on their next model. Here is a preview of the past version of the Thermovape Cera (soon to be replaced):
With that said, UpToke is slated to release their highly-anticipated Spyre Vaporizer early this year. Jason Levin, the company’s CEO, has built quite the buzz around the product with a bevy of features and intuitive design. It boasts all-day battery life, a built-in ceramic grinder, and a quartz heater that reaches 374 degrees Fahrenheit in just 2.5 seconds.
Supercritical Extraction Systems Prove Essential For The Industry
It is no secret that extracts (most notably cannabis concentrates), gained a great deal of attention in 2013. Of course, the “dabbing” community is not always well received and has even been condemned in some circles.
This is largely due to horror stories of amateur hash-makers attempting to produce butane honey oil (BHO). Traditionally, the process involves “blasting” supercritical fluid (i.e. butane) through an open column to extract the essential oils in cannabis.
However, this process can be dangerous when not performed in the proper environment. It has been implicated as the cause in a number of home explosions, sparking debate about whether cannabis concentrates should be excluded from legal cannabis policies as they spread to more states.
Accordingly, a number of hash makers are making the switch to closed-loop extraction systems in hopes of obtaining better control and more safety compared to blasting.
Of course, this technology is not entirely new. There are a number of products already on the market and it is evolving quickly.
“Apeks Supercritical, received a great deal of investor interest last year and they seem to have set the table for success in 2014.”
Emotek Labs recently collaborated with TC Labs and TerpX to win first place at the 2013 Cannabis Cup, proving that top shelf concentrates can be produced through closed-loop extractions. Their extraction systems stand out for this reason, in addition to the fact that each unit is ISO-certified.
Another company, Apeks Supercritical, received a great deal of investor interest last year and they seem to have set the table for success in 2014. The company builds a number of systems that utilize CO2 as a supercritical fluid and as a liquid solvent. Their extraction systems use patent-pending Valveless Expansion Technology to prevent clogging during the extraction process and allows for complete automation.
Technology Software Infiltrates The Cannabis Industry
Of course, the cannabis industry will not only be influenced by hardware and physical equipment in 2014. It’s obvious to me that the industry has drawn the attention from professionals with all sorts of backgrounds. One of the most noteworthy shifts to push the industry forward has been the successful transition of more and more talented individuals from the tech world.
“TriQ Systems integrates their TriQsoft business management technology to oversee product, processing, and manufacturing.”
There are already a number of noteworthy players as far as cannabis tech is concerned and new software seems to present itself each week. Some are geared towards end users, whereas others take more of a B2B approach. In either case, new advancements in software will be vital in propelling the industry forward.
A number of business owners are looking to streamline their operations as legal cannabis begins to spread through the nation. GrowBuddy had a bit of a head start in this regard, offering farmers a software solution to track the growth cycle of their plants.
However, more demand will require adjustments to be made, sometimes on the fly, and a system in place to oversee production. In lieu of hiring additional staff to handle the required tasks, some entrepreneurs are opting for a technological solution.
Partnering with companies like Apeks Supercritical and Canntrol, TriQ Systems integrates their TriQsoft business management technology to oversee product, processing, and manufacturing. In turn, guess work is eliminated and the risk of human error is greatly reduced.
Innovative Technology Propels The Industry Forward
States seem to be approaching legal cannabis policies with an increasing amount of vigor lately. As previously reported, ArcView Market Research has predicted a 64% increase in the market from 2013 ($1.43 billion) to 2014 ($2.34 billion).
Further, the response from Colorado’s first week of retail cannabis sales seems to have added a bit of motivation for other states to follow suit. Washington State will launch a similar system in just a few months and the illegality of home-cultivation is expected to produce even more consumer interest.
As in any market, the road to success will be paved with hard work and innovation. The cannabis industry presents an interesting opportunity for progress at this point in history. Innovators who continue to push the boundaries will find their niche as the industry flourishes in the years to come.U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged an immigration detainer against the Montgomery County youth soccer coach who has been charged with sexually abusing a 7-year-old girl who was one of his players in 2015.
ICE identifies the coach as Manual Cruz-Flores, aka Miguel Alfredo-Flores, 47, and says he’s a citizen of El Salvador.
In a news release Thursday, Montgomery County Police said they arrested Miguel Alfredo Flores at Centerway Park in Montgomery Village Wednesday afternoon, the same park where the illegal abuse is said to have occurred. Flores was coaching at the time of his arrest.
According to court charging documents, on multiple occasions during the summer of 2015, Flores placed his hands underneath the girl’s shirt and touched her bare breasts. The victim, who is now nine years old, told investigators that Flores made "weird movements," which made her feel uncomfortable.
Flores owns the 'Academia de Futbol Salvadoreña,' which according to police has around 70 youth members. Flores resides in a split-level home along the 18000 block of Driftwood Court in Gaithersburg.
Flores is facing charges of sexual abuse of a minor and third degree sexual offense, which combined, carry a maximum of 35 years in prison. His next court date is not immediately known.Saida Grundy, a feminist sociologist of race and ethnicity listed as an incoming assistant professor of sociology and African-American studies at Boston University, has come under fire for Tweets that essentially argued white people were the worst slave owners on the planet.
She also argued on Twitter that “white college males” are the “problem population,” that “white masculinity isn’t a problem for america’s colleges, white masculinity is THE problem for america’s colleges.”
Grundy’s series of Tweets on April 22 declared:
is white people’s new deflection from dealing with slavery the “all races have had slaves” thing? is this the new “#AllLivesMatter”?? for the record, NO race outside of europeans had a system that made slavery a *personhood* instead of temporary condition
there is also no race except europeans who kidnapped and transported human beings in order to enslave them and their offspring for life
before europeans invented it as such, slavery was not a condition that was defacto inherited from parent to child.
in other words, deal with your white sh*t, white people. slavery is a *YALL* thing.
in other words, deal with your white sh*t, white people. slavery is a *YALL* thing. — lord commander (@saigrundy) April 22, 2015
Two days prior to those comments, she opined on Twitter: “dear white people: you are all Ben Affleck. Those euphemisms for ur ancestors like ‘pioneers’ and ‘farmers’ means owned humans and killed natives.”
Students at SoCawlege.com, which first reported on the scholar’s assertions, called them outright falsehoods. Their argument is reprinted below with permission:
First off, Arabs, not “whites” did much of the slave trading in Africa. They also did much of the transportation of those African slaves, an estimated 10-18 million people. Whites didn’t “invent” the idea of transportation, nor did they do this on their own. And, it wasn’t just Africans who were enslaved by Arabs, but an estimated 1 million + Europeans were also taken as slaves by Arabs. Barbary pirates did a lot of that. Continuing, slaves were transported from India to Central Asia by Muslims, centuries before the first African was transported by white or Arab slave traders. There are many more examples of slave transport throughout history besides these. Perhaps if Ms. Grundy took a history class she would know this problem transcends all races, cultures, and geographic locations, and even still continues today with global transportation in the human trafficking industry. In regards to slavery for generations (which she says is only something white people did as well): Again, Muslims enslaved Indians who they considered “infidels” for centuries, whites and others were traded in the Ottoman Empire for centuries, and it wasn’t just whites who owned black slaves in the Americas either, but other blacks, Native Americans, and of course what we would today call Hispanics in Latin or Central America, which had large slave trades and agricultural industries as well. Generational black slavery in the Americas was not something only done by whites. The notion is absurd.
Writing for Young America’s Foundation, contributor Amy Lutz also weighed in on the scholar’s assertions, pointing out “it was actually Western Civilization, however, that led the charge to outlaw slavery for good. Portugal, Spain, and Great Britain abolished slavery in the 19th century, followed closely by the United States.”
SoCawlege.com also pointed out a number of other Tweets over the last few months posted by the scholar, ones that condemned Bruce Jenner for being a Republican and called St. Patrick’s day “white people’s Kwanzaa.”
They especially took issue with this thread:
white masculinity isn’t a problem for america’s colleges, white masculinity is THE problem for america’s colleges. http://t.co/JDRaKs9qka — lord commander (@saigrundy) March 10, 2015
why is white america so reluctant to identify white college males as a problem population? — lord commander (@saigrundy) March 10, 2015
SoCowlege responded with this:
Imagine the condemnation if a white person made the reverse statement, that college aged black males are a “problem population” that black America has to address. Well, for the record, young black males are statistically more likely to commit crimes than young white males. Why are young white males a singled out issue to you Ms. Grundy, as opposed to all young males? If you are going to work at Boston University you have to teach college aged white males eventually no? You probably already have/are working with them. To us, this seems like you are unqualified to grade their work as you clearly demonstrate some kind of special bias against them. They are a “problem population” after all.
“Parents who are sending their kids to college should be aware of what the standard for faculty is at Boston University. Apparently, VERY low,” SoCowlege concluded.
Read the full report.
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Police searching for a “vulnerable” missing man who disappeared from Islington have found a body.
Finnian Clark, 25, had not been seen since vanishing from his home in Finsbury Park on Wednesday evening last week.
Detectives said Mr Clark had suffered from depression and had appealed for help identifying him.
Scotland Yard said in a statement today: “Officers appealing for the public's help to find a vulnerable missing man from Hackney discovered the body of a man in Islington on Sunday 6 December.
“Finnian Clark, 25, was reported missing from his home in Finsbury Park on the evening of Wednesday, 2 December.
“His family have been informed of this development.
“We await formal identification and the results of the post-mortem examination which is scheduled to take place shortly.”
Officers added that the death is not being treated as suspicious.
For confidential support on mental health call the Samaritans on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org or attend a local Samaritans branch."I'm not responsible for any damage suffered by your device. You decide if you want to use my tool or not. Also you won't be able to update via OTA."
v1.2
Ok guys, so as I promised, as soon as I received my Robin I started to work on this to finish it, and after some days of working and testing, here you have a toolkit for the cute Robin:the Robin (You should unlock your Robin the first time you use this tool. If not, as most of the tools below need the bootloader to be unlocked, you will lose your data when running any of them for the first time. In that case, creating a backup would be really unuseful. Unlock once, unlock forever)- InstallCache/Data (with and without TWRP installed)- Install(System, Boot and/or recovery, up to you - Not the last version, I have to update it)- Installby @ d3xt3r (Thanks bud!) [Possibly adding the @ deadman96385 version too in a near future!]Root, Install TWRP and Backup/Restore work 100% sure. Other like install factory images or the non-encryption mod I haven't tested them (I have zero time, literally), but they should work (95% sure).Thanks also to @ deadman96385 , @ d3xt3r , and @ Baymax , who helped me testing and giving me their knowdledge!Any suggestions and bug reporting are welcome!No more using C:\ to store all the necessary filesNow using temp files, they're deleted when the Toolkit window is closedNo need to install adb anymore, it's installed the first time you run the.exe fileUpdate check added. You will get a message to download the new.exe everytime an update is availableBackup fixed (wasn't working)DEADA new "Millennial-minded" concept store from Whole Foods, called 365, is set to open this week in Lake Oswego. The store, the second in the country to use the format, will open at 9 a.m. Thursday at 11 State Street, at the site of a former Albertsons.
The store is a smaller, stripped-down version of a typical Whole Foods, with changes designed specifically to reduce overhead or appeal to younger shoppers.
365 President Jeff Turnas said Whole Foods views its first three concept stores as test stores, to gauge how different communities react to it. (The first opened in the Los Angeles area in May, and the third is slated to open in Bellevue, Washington this fall. Ten more are scheduled to open next year.)
Whole Foods wants to reach a wider audience while keeping true to its values, Turnas said.
"We do recognize the competitive landscape has changed," he said. "We were pioneers of natural and organic, but now a lot of people have caught up."
To ensure Whole Foods remained competitive, Turnas said the retailer studied Trader Joe's and Fred Meyer as it developed its 365 stores.
"We want people walking out saying, 'Wow, I can't believe how much that cost.' In a good way," he said.
Whole Foods sets opening date for Lake Oswego concept store In Lake Oswego, the 32,000 square-foot store will feature two Oregon businesses as partners: Next Level Burger, a plant-based burger joint, and Canteen, a cafe and juice bar.
We got a sneak peek at the new store as workers prepared for the opening day. Here's what we learned about Whole Foods' concept:
It's no-frills
You won't find any fancy shelf displays here. With bare concrete floors, exposed ceiling beams, LED lights and products stacked on wooden pallets, the 365 stores are a little more Aldi (read: industrial) and a little less Whole Foods.
Turnas said the company spent about half as much on the 365 store as it would on a typical Whole Foods store.
"When you spend less capital you can offer lower prices," he said.
The layout is simple
This mindset also applies to the store's layout, which Turnas called "thoughtfully simple."
As shoppers walk in, they're greeted by the produce section, with meat and cheese cases in the back of the store. Grab-and-go items are located in the center of the store, with packaged foods and household items on the opposite side, along with a wall dedicated to wine and beer.
Twelve registers at the front of the store lead shoppers out to a seating area with free wifi. The store's two restaurant partners - Portland juice company Canteen and Bend vegan joint Next Level Burger - flank the seating area.
Canteen, a Portland-based juice bar
Turnas said the cookie-cutter layout enables the retailer to easily drop it in various sites.
It's smaller
While Whole Foods stores average 43,000 square feet, the Lake Oswego store is slightly smaller, at 36,000 square feet.
And instead of the usual selection of up to 40,000 types of products, the 365 store offers only 7,000, Turnas said. (This means that instead of 20 types of ketchup, you might just find two or three.)
About 40 percent of these 7,000 products are from Whole Foods' private label, 365 Everyday Value. The other 60 percent are from national, regional and local brands.
What's more, 365 stores employ fewer people: About 100, instead of Whole Foods' usual 200-250, Turnas said.
It's high-tech
Shoppers will be hard-pressed to find any paper price tags on the Lake Oswego store's shelves. That's because all the price tags are digital. The store also features digital signage, along with kiosks for ordering food like pizza and hot dogs to go.
In the produce section, digital scales allow shoppers to print off price tags for their fruit, vegetables and bulk items for a speedier checkout.
In the wine aisle, a kiosk enables shoppers to scan bottles of wine to read crowdsourced reviews.
And near the front of the store, a Teabot machine stands ready to create custom tea blends, suggesting popular mixes like "Moroccan mint" and "wild strawberry."
So is it cheaper?
While overall prices at 365 stores are almost guaranteed to be lower than those at Whole Foods stores, we'll have to wait and see how they compare to those at Trader Joe's, Fred Meyer and others. (Can't wait? Check out this price comparison from the Los Angeles Times.)
But here's what we do know about 365's prices and promotions:
Like Trader Joe's, 365 stores price produce by the item, instead of the pound.
365 will offer a loyalty card with three types of perks:
"Flash finds" scattered throughout the store promote special finds by 365's buyers. But when these products sell out, they're gone.
The wine section only has a handful of bottles over $20, and offers four varietals for $2.99 a bottle under its Three Wishes label. (Which is better - Charles Shaw or Three Wishes? Read reviews
As with any store opening, special deals will be available during the store's first few days to get shoppers in the door. Look for a comprehensive price comparison from us later this summer, after the 365 store has been open for several weeks.
-- Anna Marum
amarum@oregonian.com
503-294-5911
@annamarum
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SaveAs Stephen Colbert prepares to say goodbye to "The Colbert Report", he welcomed Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick debuted an untitled new track alongside a band featuring Thundercat and Bilal. The track was reportedly produced by Astronote. Watch below via MissInfo.tv. Update: Official video is now available.
Kendrick also sat down for a brief conversation with Stephen. Stephen joked that since he was the last-ever musical act on the "Report", "Paul McCartney, R.E.M., Jack White, and Nas were your opening acts." They also discussed why Kendrick prefers being referred to as a writer instead of a rapper and what he wants to communicate through his songs.
Stephen also recommended that he turn "Swimming Pools" into a Dewar's commercial and asked about his "stage name" Kendrick Lamar. "Why did you decide to name yourself after Anna Kendrick and Senator Lamar Alexander?"
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Watch Lamar perform "Fuck Your Ethnicity" at Pitchfork Music Festival:
Watch Thundercat perform "Them Changes" as part of Pitchfork's Nightcap series:60 Pages Posted: 2 Dec 2012 Last revised: 22 Nov 2017
Date Written: November 29, 2012
Abstract
A growing body of evidence demonstrates that in some contexts and for identifiable reasons, people make choices that are not in their interest, even when the stakes are high. Policymakers in a number of nations, including the United States and the United Kingdom, have used the underlying evidence to inform regulatory initiatives and choice architecture in a number of domains. Both the resulting actions and the relevant findings have raised the question whether an understanding of human errors opens greater space for paternalism. Behavioral market failures, which occur as a result of such errors, are an important supplement to the standard account of market failures; if promoting welfare is the guide, then behavioral market failures should be taken into consideration, even if the resulting actions are paternalistic. A general principle of behaviorally informed regulation – its first law – is that the appropriate responses to behavioral market failures usually consist of nudges, generally in the form of disclosure, warnings, and default rules. While some people invoke autonomy as an objection to paternalism, the strongest objections are welfarist in character. Official action may fail to respect heterogeneity, may diminish learning and self-help, may be subject to pressures from self-interested private groups ( |
to do p-values. All I do is tell you "Yeah, there was a study with fifteen people that found chocolate helped with insulin resistance" and you laugh in my face. Effect size is supposed to help with that. But suppose I tell you "There was a study with fifteen people that found chocolate helped with insulin resistance. The effect size was 0.6." I don't have any intuition at all for whether or not that's consistent with random noise. Do you? Okay, then they say we’re supposed to report confidence intervals. The effect size was 0.6, with 95% confidence interval of [0.2, 1.0]. Okay. So I check the lower bound of the confidence interval, I see it’s different from zero. But now I’m not transcending the p-value. I’m just using the p-value by doing a sort of kludgy calculation of it myself – “95% confidence interval does not include zero” is the same as “p value is less than 0.05”.
(Imagine that, although I know the 95% confidence interval doesn’t include zero, I start wondering if the 99% confidence interval does. If only there were some statistic that would give me this information!)
But wouldn’t getting rid of p-values prevent “p-hacking”? Maybe, but it would just give way to “d-hacking”. You don’t think you could test for twenty different metabolic parameters and only report the one with the highest effect size? The only difference would be that p-hacking is completely transparent – if you do twenty tests and report a p of 0.05, I know you’re an idiot – but d-hacking would be inscrutable. If you do twenty tests and report that one of them got a d = 0.6, is that impressive? No better than chance? I have no idea. I bet there’s some calculation I could do to find out, but I also bet that it would be a lot harder than just multiplying the value by the number of tests and seeing what happens. [EDIT: On reflection not sure this is true; the possibility of p-hacking is inherent to p-values, but the possibility of d-hacking isn’t inherent to effect size. I don’t actually know how much this would matter in the real world.]
But wouldn’t switching from p-values to effect sizes prevent people from making a big deal about tiny effects that are nevertheless statistically significant? Yes, but sometimes we want to make a big deal about tiny effects that are nevertheless statistically significant! Suppose that Coca-Cola is testing a new product additive, and finds in large epidemiological studies that it causes one extra death per hundred thousand people per year. That’s an effect size of approximately zero, but it might still be statistically significant. And since about a billion people worldwide drink Coke each year, that’s a ten thousand deaths. If Coke said “Nope, effect size too small, not worth thinking about”, they would kill almost two milli-Hitlers worth of people.
Yeah, sure, you can never use p-values again, and run into all of these other problems. Or you can do a Bonferroni correction, which is a very simple adjustment to p-values which corrects for p-hacking. Or instead of taking one study at face value LIKE AN IDIOT you can wait to see if other studies replicate the findings. Remember, the whole point of p-hacking is choosing at random form a bunch of different outcomes, so if two trials both try to p-hack, they’ll end up with different outcomes and the game will be up. Seriously, STOP TRYING TO BASE CONCLUSIONS ON ONE STUDY.
Conclusion 5: Trust Science Journalism Less
This is the one that’s correct.
But it’s not totally correct. Bohannon boasts of getting his findings in a couple of daily newspapers and the Huffington Post. That’s not exactly the cream of the crop. The Economist usually has excellent science journalism. Magazines like Scientific American and Discover can be okay, although even they get hyped. Reddit’s r/science is good, assuming you make sure to always check the comments. And there are individual blogs like Mind the Brain run by researchers in the field that can usually be trusted near-absolutely. Cochrane Collaboration will always have among the best analyses on everything.
If you really want to know what’s going on and can’t be bothered to ferret out all of the brilliant specialists, my highest recommendation goes to Wikipedia. It isn’t perfect, but compared to anything you’d find on a major news site, it’s like night and day. Wikipedia’s Health Effects Of Chocolate page is pretty impressive and backs everything it says up with good meta-analyses and studies in the best journals. Its sentence on the cardiovasuclar effects links to this letter, which is very good.
Do you know why you can trust Wikipedia better than news sites? Because Wikipedia doesn’t obsess over the single most recent study. Are you starting to notice a theme?
For me, the takeaway from this affair is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to make statistics impossible to hack. Getting rid of p-values is appropriate sometimes, but not other times. Demanding large sample sizes is appropriate sometimes, but not other times. Not trusting silly conclusions like “chocolate causes weight loss” works sometimes but not other times. At the end of the day, you have to actually know what you’re doing. Also, try to read more than one study.Hamilton, Ontario is part of a bustling industrial area situated on the west end of Lake Ontario. It is part of the region known as the Golden Horseshoe, which boasts almost 9 million residents – over 26% of Canada’s population. One of those residents is our own Danny Boy.
Danny Boy has a lot of posters, and a bucket of glue, and a refreshing, devil-may-care attitude. He is putting all of them to good use. Very good use, if you don’t mind my saying.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, let’s give you a few thousand words worth of this tenacious MRA’s good and highly inspirational work, which marks the third major Canadian city, after Vancouver and Edmonton to be the lucky recipient of a poster campaign – in as many weeks.
Without further adieu, heeeeeeere’s Danny!
Click on all images to enlarge.
Our deepest appreciation for Danny Boy, who sends us a message with these wonderful images.
“I am up here in Hamilton, kicking ass and chewing bubblegum. And I have run out of bubblegum.”
Publisher’s note: Download the “Tired of this Shit,” poster HERE. And you can download another poster HERE. It is customized for Vancouver, B.C., but you can edit it for your own fair city in Canada, or anywhere else in the world.Should we blame technology for the growth in healthcare spending? Austin Frakt, a healthcare economist who writes for the New York Times, thinks so. Citing several studies conducted over the last several years, he claims that technology could account for up to two-thirds of per capita healthcare spending growth.
In this piece, Frakt contrasts the contribution of technology to that of the ageing of the population. Frakt notes that age per seis a poor marker of costs associated with healthcare utilization. What’s important is the amount of money spent near death. If you’re 80 years old and healthy, your usage of healthcare services won’t be much more than that of a 40-year-old person.
So far, so good. But should we accept the proposition that technology is the culprit for healthcare spending growth? Says Frakt:
Every year you age, health care technology changes — usually for the better, but always at higher cost. Technology change is responsible for at least one-third and as much as two-thirds of per capita health care spending growth.
Frakt’s position is common among mainstream economists who come to their conclusions through the application of complex mathematical models of the economy. The studies Frakt cites all use statistical analysis to try to disentangle the relationships between a number of interacting cost factors (e.g., demographics, GDP growth, income growth, insurance growth, etc.) before drawing conclusions about the relative contribution of each of these factor.
The models, however, necessitate making assumptions that may not hold true. Moreover, technology spending is generally not measured directly. Instead, the models first explain spending on the basis of other measurable factors (e.g., demographics), and then attribute to technology the share of spending that remains “unexplained.”
But if we resist the seduction of quantitative models and, instead, apply common sense reasoning, it becomes apparent that the conclusion that technology per se drives the crisis of out-of-control spending growth is manifestly untenable.
To see this, it is helpful to imagine a simpler context where healthcare spending is decided voluntarily by patients and their families.
In such a context, a company may speculate that a particular technology (say, one that produces artificial limbs), could serve a certain need. The company then makes an entrepreneurial decision to develop, manufacture, and sell artificial limbs on the basis of an estimate of the willingness of patients to pay for the limbs at a price sufficiently high to cover the costs of production and allow for some profit.
The technology company obviously takes a risk. It may err in its estimation of how patients will value its product: If the asking price is above the one patients are willing to pay, it will incur a loss and may go out of business. On the other hand, if the asking price is below the level at which patients value artificial limbs, the company will succeed and make a profit.
What is certain, however, is this: if the company succeeds and patients are willing to pay for the product, healthcare spending will increase, but that will not be viewed as a problem. If patients voluntarily pay for artificial limbs — or for bionic hearts, xeno-transplanted pancreata, or miracle longevity pills — it is because they value the technology more than the money they have parted with, or else they would keep the money. Overall welfare is increased, and there is no reason to blame technology.
Admittedly, some patients may later regret their purchase. But such a regret does not in itself indicate that technology is at fault for the increased spending. It simply means that those patients miscalculated the value they personally derived from the technology.
This potential for miscalculation is something many mainstream healthcare economists frown upon. In 1963, Nobel Prize-winner economist Kenneth Arrow gave fresh impetus to the field of healthcare economic theory in a seminal paper calling attention to this potential for miscalculation and attributing it to “product uncertainty:” Because of sickness, and because of the complexity of medical care and technology, patients are unable to make proper value decision. They can miscalculate in two ways.
First, producers and service providers may take advantage of the situation and obtain a higher price than would otherwise be established under normal “competitive” market mechanisms. Arrow (and many economists following him) therefore recommend various government regulations to mitigate the effect of this “information asymmetry.” (I have previously shown that the standard assumptions put forth by Arrow and others regarding the effects of information asymmetry in medical care are refuted by historical evidence.)
Second, patients may miscalculate in the other direction and forego technology that could potentially be beneficial to them. Healthcare economists also find this possibility intolerable and invariably favor government intervention to promote or finance health insurance so as to avoid self-rationing by patients.
The problem with these interventions, apart from their inherent paternalism, is that they do nothing to “bridge” the maligned information gap that can lead patients to miscalculate value. In fact, they widen it.
In the first instance, the regulation of technology means that regulators substitute their own value for those of patients. It is regulators who decide what level of evidence and what level of risk is acceptable for a technology to be legalized. In doing so, they deprive patients from even knowing about certain products. They thus make the information gap infinitely large.
In the second instance, the provision of health insurance impairs the ability of patients to make proper value decisions since they no longer bear the full cost (or even any cost) of the technology. Therefore, they are more likely to seek out technology that they might not have purchased at an unhampered market price.
The natural tendency for patients who are shielded from costs to over-utilize healthcare technologies naturally drives the price of technology upward, so long as the insurer is willing to accommodate this demand. In most cases, in fact, insurance companies do end up paying for technology. This goes to show that Frakt and the modeling studies he cites have it exactly backward: it is increased spending that causes increasingly high technology prices, not the other way around.
Mainstream healthcare economists have long minimized the potential for health insurance to lead to increased spending. In his same 1963 paper, published two years before the enactment of Medicare, Arrow had asserted that:
The welfare case for insurance policies of all sorts is overwhelming. It follows that the government should undertake insurance in those cases where this market, for whatever reasons, has failed to emerge.
Arrow did consider that health insurance might increase demand for healthcare, but he minimized that possibility and left it to future economists to obtain empirical evidence to determine the extent to which so-called “moral hazard” (the tendency for insurance to increase demand) would affect prices in healthcare. With Arrow’s reassurance, the government embarked on a massive program that has subsidized the demand for not only healthcare technology, but for services and products across the entire healthcare sector.
Because economic analysis is poorly suited for empirical study (since the factors involved change constantly, may not be fully accounted for, and interact with one another), obtaining persuasive evidence for the effect of health insurance on spending has taken decades to materialize. Recently, however, Amy Finkelstein, a prominent MIT healthcare economist, was able to analyze a large set of historical data on spending patterns before and after the introduction of Medicare. In regards to the relationship between spending growth and technology, she commented that:
… there is widespread consensus that technological change is the driving force behind the growth in health spending. But this just kicks the can down the road. What then drives technological change in medicine? … [In my recent study] I find evidence that the introduction of Medicare encouraged the adoption of new medical technologies. … Now we find that when large-scale insurance changes lead to a big aggregate increase in demand, hospitals have an incentive to adopt new medical technologies. People will use these technologies because they are not paying for them out-of-pocket … It therefore looks like insurance, by increasing demand because it lowers the price [to the patient] of medical care, encourages both the adoption of new technologies … and, further down the pipeline, the innovation and development of these new technologies.
In fact, Finkelstein showed that “the introduction of Medicare [caused] … enormous spending effects” and that “the spread of insurance played a very big role in driving health care spending growth over the second half of the twentieth century.”
Whether Finkelstein’s study will eventually persuade other economists, such as Frakt, remains to be seen. But it is noteworthy that her historical evidence is only confirming what should have been demonstrable by careful reasoning all along: subsidies raise prices and massive subsidies raise prices massively.
So here’s a paradox to conclude with. Compared to technology, ideas are cheap. But when bad ideas are concocted into a widely embraced but faulty economic theory, the result can be ruinously expensive.Westend61/Getty
Life is full of decisions, and sometimes it’s difficult to know if you’re making the right one. But a drug that blocks the rush of noradrenaline through your body can boost your confidence, and may also lead to new treatments for schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder.
How much we trust our decisions is governed by the process we use to assess our own behaviour and abilities, known as metacognition. Our judgements shape how we’ll behave in future. For example, if you play Frisbee and you think you played badly, you might be less likely to do it again, says Tobias Hauser at University College London.
Having low confidence in our actions can play a part in mental health conditions. “We see many symptoms associated with poor metacognitive judgement in schizophrenia and OCD,” says Hauser. “In OCD, for instance, people may constantly go and check whether they’ve closed a door. They are poor at judging whether they have done something correctly or not.”
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Confidence test
Little is known about the neural underpinnings of metacognition, but it is likely to involve the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, two brain areas modulated by the chemicals dopamine and noradrenaline.
To investigate, Hauser and his colleagues asked 40 people to take a drug that blocks dopamine or noradrenaline either before or after a placebo. Another 20 people received two doses of the placebo drug.
Eighty minutes after receiving the second drug, the subjects performed a task in which they had to decide whether the overall motion of a burst of randomly moving dots was directed to the left or right (see below).
Micah Allen, University College London
The difficulty of the task was continuously adjusted, so that the participants got the correct answer about 70 per cent of the time – but the participants didn’t know this. When performing the task, the volunteers were all asked how confident they were in each of their judgements.
Erased information
Comparing the volunteers’ self-assessed confidence with their actual performance revealed the effect of each drug. The drug that reduced noradrenaline boosted metacognitive insight – it made volunteers more aware of their own performance, without affecting the accuracy of their decisions. A person was more likely to say they’d been correct when they were, and to know if they’d been wrong. Neither the drug that blocked dopamine nor the placebo had any effect.
“This study is very intriguing – it’s the first to show that metacognition can be selectively enhanced by drugs in the absence of differences in task performance,” says Steve Fleming, at University College London, who wasn’t involved in the study.
Hauser says noradrenaline is released when there is unexpected uncertainty in the world, such as when we make an incorrect decision. “We think that this burst of noradrenaline when you make an error erases the information about a task that you recently stored in your memory.”
This could mean that a participant who has made an incorrect decision or was struggling to reach a decision may have their system reset, rendering them unable to draw on as much information to later evaluate this decision. “You are no longer able to properly judge how well you did in the task because you’re judging your decision using less evidence,” says Hauser.
Better insight
Blocking noradrenaline seems to allow people to better assess their confidence in an action. The drug, called propranolol, is currently used to treat high blood pressure, but it may also prove useful for treating psychiatric symptoms like some of those seen in OCD and schizophrenia.
It’s possible that some people without conditions like these may also benefit from cutting the amount of noradrenaline in their system. “There’s quite some variability in metacognition,” says Hauser. “It is likely to have an effect in real life decision-making. Whether you trust what you’re writing, whether you’re confident in what you’re saying – all our actions involve metacognition.”
“Good metacognition is useful for a range of reasons – being aware of our skills and abilities is important for guiding learning and collaborating with others,” says Fleming. He says it would be interesting to see if the same drug might improve our insight into our performance in other aspects of cognition, such as memory.
Journal reference: eLife, DOI: 10.7554/eLife.24901Get the biggest Middlesbrough FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Middlesbrough have rejected a £6m Leeds United bid for striker Rudy Gestede - and will not encourage any further offers, The Gazette understands.
Reports of a mooted move were circulating earlier today, and Boro sources said at that stage claimed there had been no contact and they were not willing to sell the striker should any approach be made.
Boro insiders have confirmed to The Gazette that the Championship side lodged a formal bid this afternoon, but the club have rejected it outright - insisting they are not minded to sell the in-form striker.
Leeds are striker-light after main man Chris Wood completed his big money move across the Pennines to Premier League outfit Burnley in a £15m Turf Moor record switch.
Strapping New Zealand attacker Wood, last season’s Championship top scorer with 27 goals, notched 44 in 88 appearances in West Yorkshire after joining Leeds from Leicester in July 2015, and leaves the team with a massive hole up front.
And the suggestions are that Boro’s physical frontman Gestede is the man they want to fill it.
(Image: Griffiths Photographers)
Victor Orta was Boro’s head of recruitment when Gestede arrived for a reported£6m from Aston Villa in January, and the Spaniard is now pulling the transfer strings at Elland Road - so it is an easy link to make.
Sources close to Leeds say the interest is genuine, and the striker’s skillset ticks all the boxes.
However, Leeds will get no encouragement from Boro bosses, who are keen to keep the player at the Riverside.
In the summer, penalty box battler Gestede may well have been seen as surplus at Boro after struggling to make an impact in the top flight relegation campaign and being pushed down the pecking order by big money summer signings.
But the towering target man has been a key figure in Garry Monk’s new-look front end in the opening games this season, after an injury to Danish summer signing Martin Braithwaite opened the door.
His physical strength, aerial prowess and workrate have helped him link up well with new boy Britt Assombalonga, and the wily movement of Patrick Bamford and adds to the gaffer’s tactical options.
And the word from inside the Riverside is that Boro are in no mood to entertain any hostile approach.Is there anything Stephen Amell can't do?
The actor who brings Oliver Queen, a.k.a. "Arrow," to life on the CW's DC Comics series and has also recently taken up the responsibility of donning Casey Jones' iconic hockey mask for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is up for a new challenge: American Ninja Warrior.
Amell's peak physical condition, which he has also used to survive a WWE match during 2015's Summerslam pay-per-view event, has earned him some recognition on the Ninja Warrior course! The new video, embedded at the top of the page, sees Amell taking on the course with impressive skill. For the actor, these types of moves and workouts are nothing new. Taking his role on Arrow seriously, Amell habitually trains on challenging courses, including the well-known salmon ladder which sees him use his full body's strength to climb.
As for the shirt Amell is sporting during his American Ninja Warrior efforts, it represents his Nocking Point wine brand. The actor hosts wine parties at several Heroes & Villains Fan Fest comic conventions throughout the year, inviting fans to join him to sip wine and listen to music under in the name of the brand. Based on the characters from DC, ARROW is from Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television, with executive producers Greg Berlanti (The Flash, Supergirl), Marc Guggenheim (Eli Stone, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters), Andrew Kreisberg (The Flash, Supergirl), Wendy Mericle (Desperate Housewives, Eli Stone) and Sarah Schechter (Supergirl, Blindspot).1 of 1 2 of 1
In the 2011 federal election, Wai Young of the Conservatives won in Vancouver South with 43 percent of the vote.
Ujjal Dosanjh of the Liberals lost their rematch of the 2008 election, which he won, placing second. NDP candidate Meena Wong came third. Green candidate Jean Hakizimana wasn't much of a factor, in fourth spot.
As the 2015 federal election approaches, a new poll shows support has swung back in favour of the Liberals in this hotly contested riding, whose boundaries are being adjusted.
Conducted by Insights West for the Dogwood Initiative, the telephone study of 301 adult residents of Vancouver South has the Liberals in the lead with 27 percent voter support.
The NDP is second at 21 percent. The Conservatives are back in third place at 17 percent.
Meanwhile, the Greens are at three percent. Two percent picked "other". A full 30 percent, however, are not sure about their voting intentions.
Young is seeking reelection. The Liberals are running Harjit Sajjan.
Insights West also looked at the ridings of North Vancouver, West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, and South Okanagan-West Kootenay, whose voters supported the Conservatives in 2011.
According to Insights West, the NDP has a 24 percentage point lead over the Conservatives in South Okanagan-West Kootenay.
The Liberals and Conservatives are neck and neck in North Vancouver and West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, with the NDP close behind.
“The level of support for Conservative candidates in South—Okanagan and Vancouver South is particularly low at this point,” Mario Canseco, vice president of public affairs for Insights West, said in a news release today (July 10). “In North Vancouver and West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea-to-Sky Country, the incumbent party’s candidates are headed for tighter races than the ones they fought in 2011.”
Insights West also asked residents which party leader they think would make the best prime minister, and whether they think B.C. would benefit from more oil tankers on its coast.
"Mulcair is clearly ahead as the preferred PM in two ridings. Trudeau does better in Vancouver South and Harper in North Vancouver," a study presentation states.
The presentation also says: "More than three-in-five residents in three ridings think more oil tankers on the coast would not be beneficial to British Columbia."
The poll's margin of error for each riding is 5.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. It was conducted July 3 to 7.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption John Robertson, MP: "When we ask for figures they don't give it"
Energy regulator Ofgem is not doing enough to ensure that energy company profits are transparent, MPs say.
The Energy and Climate Change Committee (ECCC) report said the watchdog was "failing consumers by not taking all possible steps to improve openness".
The committee said that "working out exactly how their profits are made requires forensic accountants".
Ofgem said it had made energy companies produce yearly financial statements and they had been reviewed by accountants.
Sir Robert Smith, on behalf of the committee, said: "At a time when many people are struggling with the rising costs of energy, consumers need reassurance that the profits being made by the 'big six' are not excessive."
The big six are E.On, SSE, British Gas, Npower, EDF and Scottish Power.
They have different divisions to deal with the different functions of their businesses: generation, trading and supply.
The committee said that the divisions sometimes bought and sold services and energy from each other, making it difficult to work out how much money was being made overall.
"Greater transparency is urgently needed to reassure consumers that high energy prices are not fuelling excessive profits," the committee said.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Angela Knight, Energy UK: "The profit an energy company makes is not big but households are concerned"
Poor communication
The MPs criticised Ofgem for having a "relatively light touch approach and for not fully implementing the recommendations of the accountants it commissioned to improve how energy companies report their profits".
"Ofgem needs to use its teeth a bit more and force the energy companies to do everything they can to prove that they are squeaky clean when it comes to making and reporting their profits," said committee member John Robertson.
Ofgem agreed that the energy suppliers had been "poor at communicating with their customers".
"Ofgem has made energy companies produce yearly financial statements, which have been reviewed twice by independent accountants and found to be fit for purpose," said Ofgem's senior partner for markets, Rachel Fletcher.
MPs' recommendations The committee believes that Ofgem should force energy companies to: Standardise their bills to make it easier for consumers to compare the value for money of different energy providers
Break down the total cost of the bill into its components, ie wholesale energy prices, supply costs, the cost of implementing government energy policies, operating costs, and profit
Give consumers details of price changes in pounds and pence, and not just in percentages
Which? executive director Richard Lloyd said that the public would not feel that they were paying a fair price for energy until prices were simplified and the costs that went into generating them were as transparent as possible.
"We want the government to introduce simple energy pricing and a clear ring-fence between generation and supply businesses, so consumers can see exactly what they're paying for and be more confident that there is effective competition in the energy market," he said.
Angela Knight, the chief executive of Energy UK, the body that represents the energy companies, said the industry had come a long way on transparency.
"There are fewer tariffs and the new deals are clearer so it is easier to compare, bills have been simplified so they are easier for customers to follow and it is simple to switch from one supplier to another," she said.
Ms Knight told the BBC that "profit was a good thing and a very important thing", because of the investment the energy companies need to make in generation and infrastructure.
She added that the energy companies provided Ofgem with all the necessary information.
"Energy companies all publish annual accounts and, in addition, both the generation and supply parts of the business provide Ofgem with all the information about revenues, costs and profits for which the regulator asks," she said.
Fuel poverty
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Sarah Harrison, Ofgem: "Our retail reforms will reduce the number of energy tariffs and put new obligations on the energy companies"
The Energy and Climate Change Committee also reprimanded the government for not doing enough to help low-income families struggling with fuel poverty.
The committee argued that the use of levies on fuel bills to raise funds for social and environmental programmes could end up hitting those on low incomes.
Instead, they recommended such funding be raised through direct taxation.
Sir Robert said: "Tax-funded public spending is a less regressive mechanism than levies on energy bills, which can hit some of the poorest hardest. Shifting the emphasis from levies to taxation would help protect vulnerable households."Sabrina Rubin Erdely
The D.A.'s Star Witness
Before a writer for Rolling Stone ran with an alleged gang-rape story told by a student named "Jackie," she bought an alleged multiple-rape story told by a former altar boy named "Billy."On Nov. 19th, Rolling Stone published an article claiming that "Jackie," a student at the University of Virginia, had been allegedly gang-raped by seven men at a fraternity party. ["A Rape on Campus; A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice At UVA."]The fraternity was tried in the media and found guilty. Bricks were thrown through the windows of the frat house, the cops in Charlottesville were called in to investigate, and the university president shut down all fraternity and sorority events on campus.Then, The Washington Post, citing factual discrepancies, cast doubt on the victim's story. Rolling Stone rolled over almost immediately, issuing an apology that said their trust in Jackie had been "misplaced."There's lots of irony here folks for readers of this blog. The writer of the story in question, Rolling Stone contributing editor Sabrina Rubin Erdely, is from Philadelphia. Before she ran with Jackie's story, she fell for a story told by a former altar boy dubbed "Billy Doe" by a grand jury. In Rolling Stone, it seems rape is bigger than rock. On Sept. 15, 2011, Erderly wrote a s tory for Rolling Stone that accepted as gospel Billy Doe's fantastic claims about being passed around as a rape victim among two priests and a school teacher. [The Catholic Church's Secret Sex-Crime Files.] In Erdely's defense, she, like many other members of the media, made the mistake of relying on an intellectually dishonest grand jury report containing more than 20 factual errors.Attention Rolling Stone: if you think the factual discrepancies in Jackie's story are "deeply unsettling," wait till you read all the factual discrepancies in Billy's story, documented for the past two years on this blog. Sadly, the stakes here are a lot higher than in Virginia, where none of the alleged attackers have even been outed. In Philly, three priests and a school teacher wound up going to jail over Billy's story, which has since unraveled. One of those priests died in prison last month after he spent his last hours handcuffed to a hospital bed while suffering from untreated coronary disease.In the University of Virginia "gang rape" story, the media rushed in and tried and convicted the wrongdoers. When Rolling Stone issued its apology for the Jackie story, managing editor Will Dana noted that Jackie "had spoken of the assault in campus forums."Just because a victim tells his or her story over and over again, with all the sensational details, it doesn't make it true. Especially after Jackie's friends noticed that the details were changing.In the Erdely store about Billy Doe, the writer referred to the former altar boy as "a sweet, gentle kid with boyish good looks" who was "outgoing and well-liked" before the brutal attacks turned him into a sullen, drug-addicted loner.In the Billy Doe case, what Erdely didn't know [or bother to find out] was that Billy had already told his story to the archdiocese, police, and a grand jury, and would subsequently retell it to two different juries in two criminal cases. And every time he told his story, the details kept changing.In the case of the alleged University of Virginia gang rape, The Washington Post discovered that although the victim claimed she had endured three hours of rape, which supposedly left her blood-splattered and emotionally devastated, no event was held at the frat house the day of the alleged rape.Jackie's defenders also reported that "key details of the attack" had changed over time and that they were not able to verify those details. For example, one alleged attacker belonged to a different fraternity. The fraternity also reviewed a roster of employees at the university's swimming pool where the alleged ringleader of the attacked supposedly worked. The frat discovered that the swimming pool roster did not include the frat member cited by Jackie, or anybody else who matched the physical description that Jackie gave.But when it comes to details that keep changing or don't add up, Billy's got Jackie beat by a long shot.In the Billy Doe's case, Billy initially claimed that he was:-- Anally raped for five hours by one priest in the sacristy and afterwards the padre threatened to kill him.-- Punched in the head and knocked unconscious by another priest, after which Billy came to and found himself naked and tied up with altar sashes; after which he was anally raped so brutally he supposedly bled for a week.-- Punched in the face by a school teacher and strangled with a seat belt before he was raped in the back seat of a car.Then, Billy dropped all those details about the anal rapes, being punched in the head and knocked unconscious, being tied up with altar sashes, getting punched in the face and strangled with a seat belt, and being threatened with death. And then he invented a whole new story about being forced to perform strip teases, oral sex and mutual masturbation with the same trio of assailants.This was the story reported as gospel by the grand jury and Rolling Stone.The details, however, kept changing. In the case of the school teacher, Billy gave three different locations for the alleged rape -- in the classroom, in the back seat of the teacher's car, and in a park.You think the details in the Jackie story didn't add up? In Billy's case, the district attorney's own detectives discovered the following contradictions to the story reported by Rolling Stone:-- Billy claimed the first priest who raped him attacked in the sacristy after an early morning Mass. His mother, however, who kept meticulous calendars chronicling the daily events of her two altar boy sons, never listed an early morning Mass for Billy to serve at during his entire fifth-grade year when the attack allegedly occurred.-- Billy claimed the first priest attacked him as he was putting away wine in the sacristy. His older brother, however, also an altar boy and a sexton, told police [as did other witnesses including priests] that it was the duty of the sexton to put away the wine after Mass.-- Billy claimed a second priest raped him when he was a fifth-grader putting away the bells after a bell choir concert at the church. Three of Billy's former teachers at St. Jerome's, including the church's longtime music director, however, told detectives that only eighth grade boys were allowed to become members of the bell choir maintenance crew. The reason why was simple: only eighth-grade boys were strong enough to lift 30-pound tables and carry bell cases that weighed more than 30 pounds. As a fifth-grader, Billy weighed only 63 pounds. The teachers' stories were backed up by the school's yearbooks. No fifth grader was a member of the bell choir maintenance crew, nor any sixth or seventh grader.-- Billy claimed the two priests who raped him used the code word of "sessions" to describe their sex parties with Billy. The D.A.'s detectives, however, subsequently found a far more likely origin for the use of the word sessions when they began investigating Billy's charges in the grand jury report nearly two years later. The detectives interviewed one of Billy's former drug counselors who told them that "sessions" was the term for one-on-one and group therapies with drug addicts like Billy. As a patient at 23 different drug rehabs, Billy would have been familiar with the lingo.-- The grand jury report claimed that two books on sex abuse found under Billy's bed proved that when he was in high school student Billy was trying to come to terms with being attacked. Billy, however, told detectives that he kept the books under his bed because they had hard covers, which he used to crush Xanax capsules on before he snorted them. When the detectives checked the covers of the books they found numerous indentations. Another student told detectives that Billy stole the book from her locker.In the Erdely article, however, she does not mention any possible credibility issues or contradictions regarding Billy Doe, who'd been arrested six times, including one bust for possession with intent to distribute 56 bags of heroin. At the time, there was a gag order in place, so neither the defendants or their lawyers nor any prosecutors are interviewed in the story. The author, however, quotes a former priest, a former seminarian who got kicked out for disciplinary reasons, a former monk who treats abuser priests, a victim of sex abuse and |
the rise of ISIS and the conflict in Ukraine earn Bolton’s hawkish foreign policy views a better reception in New Hampshire than they might have otherwise received?
“The American people are very pragmatic and well ahead of their political leadership in understanding why national security has never faded as a real issue,” he emailed.Although gun sales were up in 2015, firearm conglomerate Remington Outdoor Company reported a $135.2 million loss for the year, according to annual financial filings released this month.
The company attributed the loss to the 2014 move to Huntsville, Alabama, where it is consolidating operations for roughly half of the companies under the Remington umbrella, and an expansion of an Arkansas ammo plant. In the annual filing, Remington described the expenditures as one-time “restructuring and start-up” costs that would span two years.
Remington’s loss in 2015 was made up of an additional $72.7 million in operating costs, and $68.4 million in federal excise taxes, according to the filing. In 2014, the company reported a $68.2 million loss, which is just shy of half the total loss in 2015.
Annual net sales totaled $808.9 million, down $130.4 million in 2014. Of the total, firearms contributed $375.2 million, ammo $355.7 million, and other consumer goods $78 million.
Remington said the $46.3 million decrease in gun sales was caused by a soft hunting season, decline in the 1911 handgun market, discontinued products, and “a delayed response to changes in the market and a trend toward value price point products.”
Ammo sales were also down last year as the company saw a $49.2 million decrease in sales. Consumers spent $33.2 million less in centerfire ammo and $21.8 million less in shotgun shells. Other ammo products decreased by $6.1 million.
Consumer goods decreased by $34.9 million. The company explains it was the result of lower sales of parts, clothes, and airguns and accessories.
However, gun sales were high overall in 2015. Figures for the National Instant Criminal Background Check System — used as a barometer for gun sales — were at a record high with more than 23.1 million for the year.
Competitors also ended quarterly and annual earnings in the black. Vista Outdoor, another conglomerate with more than 30 firearm and outdoor brands, reported in February third quarter sales totaling $593 million and raking in $43.2 million in profit. The company then raised annual financial expectations by $20 million.
For third quarter earnings, ending in March, Smith & Wesson reported $210.8 million in sales, which resulted in a $31.4 million profit. Nine months into fiscal 2016, the company generated $501.8 million. The Massachusetts gun maker, which expressed aspirations of becoming a broader outdoor brand, raised its goal for fourth quarter earnings by $5 million, putting estimates at $215 million for the quarter and $717 million for 2016.
Sturm, Ruger & Company reported that it finished 2015 with $551.1 million in net sales, an increase of $29.8 million, and raked in $23 million in profit.
Olin Corporation, owner of Winchester Ammunition, ended 2015 with $711.4 million in total sales for the ammo company. Although profits were lower, the difference was attributed to relocation costs.
In November, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Remington’s corporate rating to “poor quality” investment and posing a “very high credit risk.” The service cited weak performance and said operational costs and debt will likely continue to outweigh earnings.The chairman of Canterbury Momentum, a branch of the grassroots far left movement, has sparked outrage by tweeting that she stands in “solidarity” with North Korea.
Sarah Cundy’s comments come as the regime continues to pose a threat to stability in the Far East by testing nuclear weapons – including one it fired over Japan earlier this month.
The 18-year-old Simon Langton schoolgirl said: “I’d rather have solidarity with DPRK than the USA.”
Sarah Cundy, who expressed solidarity for North Korea regime
She also had a Democratic People’s Republic of Korea flag on her biography alongside those of other socialist regimes including Cuba and Venezuela, but these were later removed from her profile.
In a series of tweets over the weekend, Miss Cundy said: “‘The flags in my bio represent countries I have solidarity with. I have solidarity with countries willing to stand up to imperialism.
“The DPRK have weapons to keep themselves and their population safe from invasion – they don’t want to end up like Libya.
“I do not endorse their strikes over Japan but three million Korean people were killed in the Korean War by America, I’d rather have solidarity with DPRK than the USA.”
Her comments provoked anger.
North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un
Martin Sales said: “I wish that people who adulate these murderous regimes would go to these countries and see how people live.
“They would soon realise just how hellish they are.”
Dominic Potts, a former pupil of the Langton in Canterbury, added: “Is Miss Cundy really saying she supports torture and executions and the threat of nuclear war that this horrible tinpot dictatorship brings the world?”
Miss Cundy has since apologised for her comments. She said: “I really regret my comments and apologise if I’ve caused anyone any offence.
“As somebody who believes strongly in democracy I am not supportive of oppressive regimes, and the flag was intended in support of the citizens.
“I would also ask people to remember some of the silly things they said and did when they were 18 and regard my comments in the same light.”
Billboards in support of North Korea's ruling family
Momentum, which is regarded as Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s primary support base, has distanced itself from Miss Cundy’s Twitter comments.
A spokesman said: “What she has said isn’t in line with Momentum’s view and is not representative of the views of Momentum’s membership.
“While she regrets her comments, we are currently investigating these comments and will take appropriate action based on our code of ethics and constitution.”
Canterbury’s Labour MP Rosie Duffield, who was pictured with Miss Cundy during the general election campaign, has refused to comment.Meet Clumzy Lion from Toronto. He was one of 5,138 furries who came to Biggest Little Fur Con in Reno on June 1-4, 2017. His trip included a night in San Francisco’s popular Fisherman’s Wharf area before flying home. That’s where he lost his head. Clumzy’s car was broken into, and they even took his passport so he couldn’t fly. Being robbed and stuck is much worse than just a sad feline.
Remember a similar fursuit theft that made local news by SFist and Broke-Ass Stuart? More about that below. They’re linked in case they can help.
(Update: thanks to @SFist for sharing the story!)
Clumzy’s plight spread through the grapevine of the SF Bay Area Furs. Zarafa, a purple giraffe and beloved member, took charge of helping. He told me the story hit him like PTSD, because he was a former victim too.
In January 2016, Zarafa’s giraffe suit disappeared out of his car after Frolic furry dance in SOMA. The next day, party organizer Neonbunny personally flyered the neighborhood. A homeless person saw the giraffe abandoned in an alley, and a flyer made the connection to get it home. Neonbunny’s fast, determined footwork saved the day. (Thanks also to SFist, Broke-Ass Stuart, and furries around the world for moral support. Zarafa says people still come up to him at cons to say they’re happy about it.)
The story brought hope for Clumzy. Meanwhile, the Canadian Consulate accommodated his other bags and helped him to start getting a new passport. Zarafa took him in as a house guest for the night. On Twitter, he was advised to come to the Berkeley Furmeet at Au Coquelet Cafe, where dozens of Bay Area Furries gather on every first Tuesday. There he was offered hugs, rides, and a flyer by Lilly, and I offered to spread the story.
The next day brought some good luck. The passport was found on the ground near Ghirardelli Square. It was a clue that connected the theft and the find to a small area. But searching and flyering was fruitless. Clumzy was free to fly home, but with a big loss.
The search continues. Please share, and if the fursuit turns up, we’ll get it home for another happy ending.
I couldn't find the suit head sadly. Rakota will be helping me hunt it down as I head to the airport. — Clumzy (@ClumzyLion) June 8, 2017
Zarafa was upset to see history repeat. Keeping a Pelican case in a car appears to make special temptation – thieves think a big case means it’s full of gold, instead of a custom-tailored costume with priceless personal value. He compared the situation to New York City in the 1970’s, when people couldn’t leave their cars closed. They would leave the windows open and take the radios out.
From the NY Times:
Recent data from the F.B.I. show that San Francisco has the highest per-capita property crime rate of the nation’s top 50 cities. About half the cases here are thefts from vehicles, smash-and-grabs that scatter glittering broken glass onto the sidewalks.
It’s a hot discussion in groups for night life. Some venues like DNA Lounge give extra attention to have their security patrol the street. Cyclists are hard hit, and the SFPD has a twitter channel just to help with bike theft. People are even having their grandma’s ashes stolen. What’s the solution? Whatever it is, you can’t avoid problems all the time. For times like this, it’s good to have a community that steps up for one of their own.
(Update: Felix The Fox also lost luggage to look for.)
Strap on the bag pic.twitter.com/sx7iyS1TWD — 🌨Winter Lynx ☃️ @FE2019 (@Jinxthelynx) June 7, 2017
To support writing by furries, for furries, please visit Dogpatch Press on Patreon. You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, and support all of the team’s news and reviews."You can absolutely get a gun if you have several felonies as long as you buy it on the Internet or at a gun show."
Searching for a great gift for all ages? Look no further, Amy Schumer has the product for you.
In a recent sketch on her Comedy Central show Inside Amy Schumer, Schumer and fellow comedian Kyle Dunnigan play infomercial hosts pitching viewers on the perfect "stocking stuffer": a handgun. A hopeful buyer laments that he can’t get a gun because he has a criminal record riddled with felonies.
"Caller, you bite your tongue, you silly goose!" Schumer’s character says. "You can absolutely get a gun if you have several felonies, as long as you buy it on the Internet or at a gun show."
"If you go to a gun show, you can get an unlicensed seller to sell you a gun, no questions asked," Dunnigan added
We’ve looked at similar claims before. Because this sketch is getting a lot of attention, we wanted to recap whether a felon can actually buy a gun on the Internet or at a gun show.
This isn’t the first time Schumer has tackled gun issues; she has been a vocal advocate for stricter gun laws since a gunman killed two and injured many others at a showing of her feature film Trainwreck in a Louisiana movie theater in 2015.
But it is her first time on the Truth-O-Meter.
The 'gun show loophole'
To be clear: The kind of transaction Schumer’s character describes is illegal. Federal law prohibits felons from getting a gun unless their rights have been formally restored.
Felons can theoretically get around this obstacle, however, by buying guns from unlicensed sellers who are not required to conduct criminal background checks. This is sometimes referred to as the "gun show loophole," even though it refers to all private sales, and not everyone considers it a loophole.
Schumer’s sketch was referring to this aspect of current gun law, said a spokesman for Everytown for Gun Safety, gun control advocacy group Schumer promotes at the end of the sketch.
Anyone who repeatedly buys and sells firearms "with the principal motive of making a profit" is supposed to get a dealer’s license, whether they deal out of a brick-and-mortar store, a gun show, or online, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Licensed firearm dealers must run background checks on non-licensed buyers before selling them a gun.
But the law does not require a dealer’s license for private hobbyists and others who occasionally buy and sell guns. If an individual buys a gun from someone who is not required to have a license, the purchaser does not have to undergo a background check.
So a violent felon could buy a gun from a hobbyist over the Internet or at a gun show because he or she would not be subject to a background check. The purchase would still be illegal, because of the buyer’s felon status, but it would not create an immediate red flag. The same thing can happen at a gun show.
There are a few important limitations on these sorts of private transactions.
First, it is illegal for private sellers to transfer a gun to someone they either know or reasonably believe is prohibited from owning a gun, for example, if the seller knows the buyer is a felon. But private sellers "can give themselves plausible deniability by not asking the necessary questions," Garen Wintemute, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of California Davis, previously told PolitiFact.
So in the case of Schumer’s show, she and her co-host would not have that cushion of plausible deniability because the hopeful buyer told them outright that he is a felon. The giant "gun show" banner doesn’t make a difference.
Second, private sales, online or otherwise, cannot take place across state lines, so the buyer and seller must be in the same state. And there are many restrictions on shipping guns, so the actual transaction is likely to take place in person, as opposed to the buyer entering credit card information online, and the seller shipping the gun to the buyer’s house.
And third, several states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington — and the District of Columbia require background checks for all private gun sales.
With all these restrictions, how many people actually buy guns without a background check? The truth is we don’t really know. The only statistics floating around are outdated and flawed.
Professors at Northeastern and Harvard universities conducted a gun survey in 2015 that isn’t yet published. The national survey of 4,000 non-institutionalized adults found that 22 percent of the people who purchased guns — at gun shows, stores or elsewhere — underwent no background check, Matthew Miller, professor of Health Sciences and Epidemiology at Northeastern and co-director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, told us in January.
When researchers excluded purchases between family and friends, that number dropped to 15 percent, which equates to approximately 5 million gun owners whose most recent purchase did not involve a background check.
One more thing: Later in Schumer’s sketch, another hopeful buyer calls in to ask if he can get a gun even though he’s a suspected terrorist on the no-fly list.
"You’re fine, sweet potato fry," Schumer’s character says.
A March 2015 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office examined how many people applying for gun purchases went through the FBI’s instant background check system and also were on the FBI’s list of "those known or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activity."
Between February 2004, and December 2014, 2,233 people on the list applied to buy a weapon. Of those, 2,043 were allowed to proceed.
Our ruling
Schumer’s character said, "You can absolutely get a gun if you have several felonies as long as you buy it on the Internet or at a gun show."
The kind of transaction Schumer described is possible, though illegal, and far more complicated than her comment suggests. Federal law prohibits felons from buying guns. But with some effort, they could purchase a gun from private sellers over the Internet or at a gun show without getting caught, because private sellers are not required to run background checks.
Schumer is doing a comedy bit, but compared with similar claims we’ve checked, her phrasing makes it sound like buying guns with a felony is easy and lawful. That is not the case. The context is significant. We rate her claim Half True.According to the Arabic-language al-Masirah television network on Saturday, Yemeni forces used a Scud-type Borkan-2 (Volcano-2) in the attack on the Saudi refinery.
Here is the video Yemeni forces released to prove their claim:
Yemen’s popular forces have long been working on developing their own long-range ballistic missiles called the Borkan H-2 aka “Volcano H-2” which has a range of nearly 900 miles.
Yemen’s resistance has launched other long-range missiles at military targets deep inside Saudi Arabia before. In May, a Yemeni missile targeted Riyadh as a “welcome gift” for Donald Trump’s visit that same day.
Yemeni forces have also successfully struck coalition fighter jets en route to drop bombs and several coalition warships.
The attack on the Saudi oil refinery was carried out at night as to avoid any civilian casualties, according to the Geopolitics Alert website.
In the past 850 days, Saudi Arabia has completely destroyed nearly all civilian infrastructure, massacred thousands of civilians, and triggered a cholera epidemic the likes of which the world has never seen.
Saudi Arabia has been leading the campaign against Yemen to reinstate the former government and crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
The campaign has seriously damaged the country’s infrastructure. Local Yemeni sources have put the death toll from the Saudi war at over 12,000, including many women and children.The Cubicle Square-1 is our premium version of the Qiyi Square-1. Along with the latest improvements made on the puzzle, we added a few additional modifications of our own. We bonded pieces of the core with PVC cement for stability, swapped the original spring with a ShengShou Square-1 spring, and replaced the original nylon nut and screw with a more durable counterparts. These modifications produce a more stable and sturdy puzzle and allows faster more controllable turning. Lubed with a combination of Lubicle Speedy and Lubicle Silk, the Cubicle Square-1 feels soft, maneuverable, and has a slight tactile feel with slicing.*Please note that stickering a Square-1 involves special attention to the arrangement of the colors. In order for us to correctly make the Square-1 to your exact color scheme, please create a custom sticker set using your account and link it to us.We can lube and sticker this puzzle according to your instructions, which can be specified on a special page during the checkout process (the page will appear only if you have custom cubes in your cart). If no instructions are provided, we will set up the cube as we normally do, and we will sticker it with a full-bright set. We will let you know if we have any questions about your instructions.Since Cubicle Premium Square-1’s are produced on demand, please be advised that Rush Processing cannot be reliably used to speed up orders containing Premium cubes.The workmanship on Cubicle Labs and Pro Shop premium cubes is covered by our 6-month warranty. For more details of the warranty and what's covered, please refer to the warranty graphic in the product images, or visit the warranty details page Original puzzle made by QiYi.This product has been discontinued and replaced with Cubicle Custom. Please visit the Cubicle Custom section to customize your own cube!
Specifications:ESEA has expanded to South Africa, giving local players the opportunity to compete on an international level.
ESEA is an international gaming organisation which hosts various competitive gaming tournaments around the globe.
South Africa will be included in ESEA as a separate region, along with North America, South East Asia, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Middle East, and Australia.
ESEA will host a local qualifying league in South Africa, in which the best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players can battle for first place and the opportunity to compete in the ESEA Global Challenge LAN event.
“This is a very special moment for the South African community, as we are excited to see the involvement of a very reputable organization. With ESEA coming to South Africa, we will be a step closer to the international stage,” said Robby ‘bLacKpoisoN’ da Loca, Community Manager for ESEA South Africa.
“The infrastructure in South Africa has greatly improved over the last few years and I feel that now would be the perfect time to step into the South African scene.”
ESEA Global Premier Challenge
Teams who win their respective regional qualifying tournaments will be invited to compete in the ESEA Global Premier Challenge LAN, with all flight expenses and accommodation paid for by the organisation.
The tournament boasts a total prize pool of $50,000.
The following teams are eligible to compete in the Global Premier Challenge:
North America – 2 Teams (Top 2 Premier teams)
2 Teams (Top 2 Premier teams) Europe – 2 Teams (Top 2 Premier teams)
2 Teams (Top 2 Premier teams) Brazil – 1 Team (Regional Winner)
1 Team (Regional Winner) Australia – 1 Team (Regional Winner)
1 Team (Regional Winner) Asia – 1 Team (Regional Winner)
1 Team (Regional Winner) South Africa – 1 Team (Regional Winner)
Here is the prize breakdown for the international tournament:
1st Place – $18,000
– $18,000 2nd Place – $10,000
– $10,000 3rd Place – $5,000
– $5,000 4th Place – $5,000
– $5,000 5th-8th Place – $3,000
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The biggest YouTube gaming channelsA few days ago my computer screen showed me the dreaded words “your keyboard batteries are low.” Well even I know how to replace batteries or so I thought. For then I discovered that one of the batteries was completely wedged and stuck in the small tube that governs the keyboard. I could not remove it no matter how hard I tried or whatever instruments of destruction I used.
So I took the keyboard to my friendly Apple distributor here in Jerusalem and asked them to remove the battery. They labored mightily, consulted with each other often in dire whispers, and finally told me that they would have to send the keyboard away to some mysterious laboratory that would pursue the problem but they could not guarantee any results. And they also told me I would have to pay a considerable amount of shekels for the laboratory's unguaranteed attempt.
Needing my keyboard to produce my immortal prose and seeing that a new keyboard was almost the same price as fixing the old one, if the old one could in any way be fixed at all, I opened my wallet and plunged into the purchase of a new keyboard.
Arriving at home I followed the instructions as to how to install this miraculous device so that it would pair with my computer. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to follow the instructions on the screen some miracle happened and the keyboard began to work. Hence this brilliant article which you are now reading.
Since the keyboard is a wireless one, to my technologically ignorant mind its effectiveness borders on the miraculous and I am grateful for its ability to somehow transfer my thoughts on to the computer screen and eventually on to paper and into your psyche.
It struck me that my advanced computer with all of its gadgets, programs, preferences and connections to the entire world is fairly ineffective without a keyboard. Without it I could not respond to my emails nor could I work on the book that I am currently toiling to write. And certainly, I would be unable to write this article if I did not possess a working keyboard that somehow pairs with my computer.
For the first time I really realized why this device is called a keyboard and not a word board or letter board. Because it is the key to the entire project and to all of the technology associated with it. Without the keyboard one can perhaps receive but certainly not send messages and responses. Without the keyboard one cannot give written expression to one's thoughts and ideas. Without the keyboard the computer and all of its wondrous complexity is pretty much a useless machine.
And this set me thinking further about how halacha and ritual are the keyboards to Torah and Jewish life generally. Pretty much everyone agrees to the value system and general moral ideas that the Torah represents – charity, compassion, peace, human and personal harmony, knowledge and purposeful living. Yet that value system pretty much resembles the computer without the keyboard, for there is no detailed instruction sheet that will enable us to activate and actuate these values in our everyday lives. Without the keyboard that pairs with our moral computer, that system remains pretty much vacuous phrases and piously uttered platitudes.
Since I am mechanically challenged, I was delighted that somehow I was able to get my new wireless keyboard paired with my computer and working. I can't really explain how I did it or how the keyboard and the computer work together to produce written words. Yet, as you can see by reading this article somehow it works and pretty much to perfection.
The same is true of halacha, detail and ritual regarding Jewish life. The observance of the commandments, of the traditions of Israel and even of the apparently nagging minutiae in Jewish law and daily behavior somehow connects us and pairs us with the great computer of Torah values and eternal life.
All of Jewish history proves this axiom of Jewish personal and societal life to be true. Meaningful survival as a people and as individuals has always been connected to having a keyboard that works and pairs us with the value system and eternity of Torah.
It would be wise for all of us to recharge the batteries of our keyboard and to make certain that they are strong and full so that we may also be blessed with the greatness of Torah observance and with a productive and valuable Jewish existence.
Shabat shalom
Berel WeinThe Mystery behind the Cover of Amazing Fantasy #15
Spider-Man just celebrated his 55th anniversary! On August 5th, 1962 Amazing Fantasy #15 was published. If you somehow don’t know, Amazing Fantasy #15 was the first appearance of Spider-Man! The story was drawn and inked by Steve Ditko.
The cover we know was not the first. Steve Ditko drew a cover but Stan Lee told Jack Kirby to draw a new one. The cover that was published was inked by Steve Ditko but drawn by Jack Kirby.
This is Steve Ditko’s original cover:
This is Kirby’s cover that we all know:
Ditko’s cover looks cool, with Spider-Man carrying a bad guy above the ground. You see people on the ground below and even someone in an open window looking right at Spider-Man. They actually used this cover as a variant for Amazing Spider-Man #700.
Kirby’s cover is bolder and makes Spider-Man look stronger with more muscles. He also looks higher up in Kirby’s cover than in Ditko’s. There aren’t as many people in the picture, either.
One thing I noticed is that Kirby’s cover looks a lot like Action Comics #7. The cover of Action Comics #7 was drawn by Joe Shuster, one of the co-creators of Superman. Action Comics #7 is bold like Kirby’s cover, shows Superman carrying a bad guy in green on the left, just like Kirby’s cover and Superman looks really high up and there aren’t many people in it, just like in Kirby’s cover.
Action Comics #7 went on sale on October 25, 1938. In 1938, Kirby was working in newspaper comic strips. He started in 1936 at the Lincoln Newspaper Syndicate and worked there until 1939. At the same time, he worked at the studio of Will Eisner and Jerry Iger. So Jack Kirby was seriously working in comics when Action Comics #7 was released. He probably would have read it because Superman was new and superheroes were just getting started.
Could Kirby have gotten his inspiration for Amazing Fantasy #15 from Action Comics #7? My opinion is that he did. What do you think?
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Like this: Like Loading...Hey, 23-year-old Florida man Steven Harper.
Florida Man Steven Harper
NBC-2
‘Sup?
I got a question for you.
Shoot.
Why did you allegedly go on a rampage through the southwestern Florida city of Port Charlotte, where you smashed 22 gas pumps at a Pik ‘n Run with a brick, broke three light fixtures at an Allstate office, and did similar damage at nearby Wendy’s and Bank of America locations?
What possible reason could give for going on a destructive spree that lead Pik ‘n Run Vice President Jospeh Tiseo to tell the local NBC News affiliate that he had “never seen vandalism to this extent”?
Boredom.
You told police that you did it because you were bored? That’s why you racked up four felony criminal mischief charges and are now being held at a Charlotte County jail on $12,000 bail?
Yup.
Okay, just checking.
H/T NBC 2 | Photo by Alexis/Pixabay (PD)
Our editors curate the top news and analysis on topics that matter. Sign up for the Daily Dot digest newsletter.Like a lot of head teachers this week, Sir Michael Wilshaw is sitting in an empty school, waiting on tomorrow’s A-Level results. Ten of his students have got conditional offers from Cambridge, another 70 are hoping to hear that they’ve clinched places at Russell Group universities.
The only difference between him and his counterparts at other top schools in the country is that he is the principal of a 1,300-pupil state-run, inner-city academy in run-down Hackney, literally a stone’s throw from some of the worst scenes of rioting last week.
“These disturbances weren’t just some kind of high jinks,” he stresses. “It was serious criminal behaviour, and for the most part, it was carried out by the gangs which have been allowed to fester and proliferate in our cities. And which operate on the very estates where large numbers of our pupils live.
“Kids here can talk eloquently on the subject of gangs. About how they are pressurised to join a gang from as early as nine or 10 years old. About how they are bullied and ostracised by their elders if they don’t. I can’t speak from personal experience, but one hears numerous stories about young kids being introduced into the gang culture through being made to carry out drug-running deliveries, or else acting as look-outs.”
It’s this environment which means that every day Mossbourne has at least a dozen staff out on the streets, escorting pupils to bus stops and railway stations. These smartly-dressed pupils look prosperous (which they’re not), and unfortunately that makes them a target for attacks.
So how, in this unfriendly climate, have he and his colleagues been able to create a school where education blossoms? Where 86 per cent of children get Grades A* to C at GCSE? Where there are 1,500 applications every year for just 180 places? Where, in order to get into the sixth form, the majority of students have to gain seven grades A* to C at GCSE, and at least a B grade in the subjects they’ve chosen for A-Level? And where every youngster in Year 13 is going to university?
The answer is by having rules and sticking to them. First off, all the pupils are required to wear school uniform (grey blazers, red trim), and to wear it properly, no ties at half-mast; Wilshaw says there’s no point having a uniform unless it’s worn correctly.
Next, they are all required, at the start of every lesson, to recite a pledge: “I aspire to maintain an inquiring mind, a calm disposition and an attentive year, so that in this class, and in all classes, I can fulfil my true potential.”
On top of which, Mossbourne boys and girls address the teachers as “Sir” or “Miss”, and stand up, not just for them, but for any adult who walks into the classroom.
“The expectation is that every adult is to be accorded respect,” says Wilshaw, who spent half his teaching life at a Catholic comprehensive in Forest Gate, east London (where he was knighted in 2000) before opening up Mossbourne Community Academy in 2004, in a new building designed by Richard Rogers, replacing the former Hackney Downs comprehensive that was once labelled the worst school in Britain.
“Respect for adults is a given. Outside the school, I have been appalled at the way in which police officers are treated with contempt and disdain; that just should not be happening. We have got to get back to a situation where young people start respecting authority again.”
When Mossbourne first opened, Wilshaw encountered opposition from parents who questioned his strict approach to rules and discipline. These days, he says, he doesn’t encounter that attitude as parents realise that the academy is giving their children a chance of a good job and an upward move out of poverty, in an area where that kind of opportunity is in short supply.
“Yes, we ask a lot of the children and their parents, but in return, the crucial quid pro quo is that we guarantee a good education,” he insists.
Among his sixth-form students about to go to university is a young man, the son of a local taxi driver, who is going to read maths at Cambridge. There is also a single parent set to go to Cambridge.
“In many ways, the school acts as a surrogate parent; children stay here till six or seven at night on quite a regular basis, and we give some an evening meal, too. But we don’t for a minute pretend that we can change the lives these youngsters have at home. We aren’t social workers, we are teachers and, as such, it’s our job to provide the very best education we can.”
And becoming a good teacher is not, he says, a simple or easy process.
“The fact is, if you’re a 22-year-old teacher and you’ve got a tough class, you need to be well supported; you need your head of department sitting in on a few lessons, talking through ways in which you can improve.
“You also need support from your head. We treat it very seriously here if pupils misbehave with a new teacher. In my view, any head who fails to back up their least experienced staff members doesn’t deserve to be in the job. One thing we can promise our teachers – most of whom are in their twenties or thirties – is that they will get a full hour’s worth of teaching, and not spend it trying to maintain discipline.”
Indeed, pupils who misbehave in a lesson are given a detention that same day; they have to stay on till 6pm. For a more serious infraction, they have to do a three-hour detention on Saturday, and this time their parents are required (under the terms of the school contract) to bring them to the door.
“When children first come here, they find the structure and the expectations rather hard,” says Wilshaw. “But as time goes on, they themselves start to see the value of education, what it can do for their lives.”
There’s no question in Sir Michael’s mind that schools and the education system have an increasingly important part to play in promoting a fair and equitable multi-racial society. And he sees what he calls “the terrible incidents of these last few days” as having brought about a watershed moment, when the nation stopped making excuses for poor behaviour and poor achievement, and started looking to families and schools to work together for a more harmonious society.
“We have the potential in Britain, and in London especially, to be a shining beacon. That said, if we continue as we are, the chances are we will go the same way as America, whereby you get a massive flight away from gang-dominated areas, leaving behind a population made up solely of poor people and the elderly.
“We are currently at a crossroads. And we could go either way.”In Ireland, two languages are prominent. Irish (or Gaelic) and English. The Irish version of English is much different to Oxford style English and even people from England find it hard to understand Irish people because of their strong accents and strange phrases.
Here is a list of words and phrases in alphabetical order to fill in some of the gaps and help you understand what they mean:
A Acting the maggot playing around Ages long time Any Use? any good? Arse backside Arseways complete mess (I did it all arseways) Artist person getting social security (drawing the dole) B Babby little child – baby Bad dose bad illness Bag of Taytos packet of potato chips/crisps Bags bad, messy job (see hames) Banjaxed broken, useless, tired Barn brack Halloween cake Belt hit, assault Be wide be careful Bird girl, girlfriend Black crowded Blackguard person that is doing no good Black Stuff Guinness Blather talk Bloody used mostly for strengthening an adjective Bog toilet, restroom Bog country area/ piece of land that once was a lake Bogey snot Bogtrotter country person Bold naughty Bollocks stupid/somebody one doesn’t like Bolloxed very drunk Bolt run fast Boozer pub Bothrin narrow lane or road Bouzzie, Bowsie young good-for-nothing person Boxin’ the fox robbing an orchard Boyo a young person Brasser prostitute Brutal terrible Bucketing raining heavily Bushed very tired Business excrete C Carry-on argument/noise Cake-hole mouth Cha tea Chancer dodgy/risky character Cheek disrespect/talk back Cheesed Off angry/annoyed Chinwag a chat Chipper fish and chip shop Chiseller
Chronic young child
terrible or awful Class great Clatter slap Cod (to) joke Colcannon Mashed potatoes & cabbage/ kale Cop on! don’t be so stupid! Cooker stove Covers blankets Craic (pronounced crack) fun time Crisps potato chips Culchie a city dweller’s name for a country person Cute hoor Untrustworthy/sly person D Da father Deadly cool, great Dear expensive Delph crockery, cups, saucers etc Desperate terrible Diabolical really terrible Diddies breasts Divil devil Dodder waste time Dodgy suspect/mechanically impaired Donkey’s Years a long time Dope idiot On the Doss playing truant Dosser lazy person Dote cute person, usually a baby Drawers underwear, usually ladies Dry Shite boring person Dummy pacifier Dump (taking a) excrete E Eat the head off Attack |
use react-rotating-text is to install it from NPM and include it in your own React build process (using Browserify, Webpack, Brunch, etc).
You can also use the standalone build by including dist/react-rotating-text.js in your page. If you use this, make sure you have already included React, and it is available as a global variable.
npm install react-rotating-text --save
Usage
Simply require the component and then pass in an array of strings into the items prop:
var ReactRotatingText = require ('react-rotating-text') ; < ReactRotatingText items = { ['first ','second ','third'] } />
In order to have a blinking cursor, you'll need to apply some CSS to the react-rotating-text-cursor class:
. react-rotating-text-cursor { animation : blinking-cursor 0.8 s cubic-bezier ( 0.68, 0.01, 0.01, 0.99 ) 0 s infinite ; } @ keyframes blinking-cursor { 0% { opacity : 0 ; } 50% { opacity : 1 ; } 100% { opacity : 0 ; } }
Don't forget to put in vendor prefixes should you need them. A full example is available in example/dist/ReactRotatingText.css.
Properties
items (array)
(default: ['first','second', 'third'])
The array of strings to be cycled through.
color (string)
(default: 'inherit')
This specifies the color of the text.
cursor (boolean)
(default: true)
If set to true, it will display the cursor after the text.
pause (integer)
(default: 1500)
The number of milliseconds to pause after the text has just finished being typed out.
emptyPause (integer)
(default: 1000)
The number of milliseconds to pause while no text is being displayed (i.e. after deleting has just finished).
eraseMode (string)
(default: 'erase') This specifies the erasing mode. May be set to "erase" or "overwrite".
typingInterval (integer)
(default: 50)
The number of milliseconds between each typing action.
deletingInterval (integer)
(default: 50)
The number of milliseconds between each deleting action.
Notes
Enhancements and pull requests are welcomed.
Development ( src, lib and the build process)
NOTE: The source code for the component is in src. A transpiled CommonJS version (generated with Babel) is available in lib for use with node.js, browserify and webpack. A UMD bundle is also built to dist, which can be included without the need for any build system.
To build, watch and serve the examples (which will also watch the component source), run npm start. If you just want to watch changes to src and rebuild lib, run npm run watch (this is useful if you are working with npm link ).
License
The MIT License (MIT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Adrian Li.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.New Jersey’s Ducktails originally came on the scene as the solo project of Matt Mondanile from Real Estate, since growing to have a life of its own. Though the band takes some traits from Real Estate, namely sunny and dreamy guitar-driven pop, the new LP St. Catherine takes notes from psychedelia and heads further down the dream pop rabbit hole than Atlas ever did. Fans of Woodsist material, Real Estate’s associated projects, and reflective and jangly guitar pop in general will eat this up.
Order your copy of the new LP here via Domino ahead of it’s July 24 release date, or just wait and grab yours at the merch table during their North American jaunt. Dates are below.
Ducktails Tour Dates:
07-24 Los Angeles, CA – The Getty Center ^
07-31 Philadelphia, PA - Boot & Saddle ^
08-01 Cleveland, OH - Euclid Tavern ^
08-02 Bloomington, IN - The Bishop ^
08-03 Chicago, IL - Schuba's ^
08-04 Ferndale, MI - The Loving Touch ^
08-05 Toronto, Ontario – Garrison ^
08-06 Montreal, Quebec - Casa del Popolo ^
08-07 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom ^
08-09 Boston, MA - Great Scott ^
08-26 Davis, CA – Sophia’s Thai Kitchen *
08-28 Seattle, WA – Barboza *
08-29 Vancouver, BC – Fortune Sound Club *
08-30 Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios *
09-01 San Francisco, CA – The Chapel *
09-02 Santa Cruz, CA – The Crepe Place *
09-04 Los Angeles, CA – The Echo *
09-06 San Diego, CA – The Casbah *
^ with Itasca
* with Regal DegalSometimes an idea for a project comes out of nowhere. It doesn’t matter how difficult or unusual it might be because once that idea takes hold, it’s all you can think about. Robin D’Agostino had an idea of combining two two of his favorite automotive companies into one really unique project. Although there were plenty of negative opinions he never let it stop him.
Robin has always been part of a Chevy family. One of the last Chevy vehicles his Father owned was a 1989 Caprice Police cruiser. After the engine broke in the Caprice his Father’s decided to buy another car. His choice came down to either a 1996 Volvo 940 turbo wagon or a 1996 Impala SS. Robin hoped his Father would choose the Impala but he chose the Volvo. Robin would joke with his Father for choosing the the small turbo inline-four over the big torquey V8.
Several years later when Robin got to choose his own vehicle he built a 1st generation S-10 truck with a V8 and rear mounted turbo. It was a blast to drive and Robin loved the turbo feel but it wasn’t very practical and the attention it gained from the Police got tiresome. So he decided his next vehicle needed to be a sleeper with a turbo inline-four from the factory.
Robin started researching a lot on Volvo “Redblock” engines found in 7 and 9-series. After realizing their potential he took back everything he said to his Father about his Volvo. He settled on a 1990 Volvo 740 wagon that checked off all his requirements. It was practical, roomy, nice turbo power and the signature boxy look that had grown on Robin.
After seeing a Nova on Craigslist Robin casually joked with a coworker about how interesting it would be to build one with the turbo inline-four out of his 740 wagon. A week later the same coworker informed Robin of a 1973 Nova rolling chassis a couple of hours away. Robin had always loved the look of a Nova and especially the fastback model ever since he was young. After talking to the owner it was in Robin’s garage within the week.
In Robin’s eyes the Volvo Redblock felt like a natural choice because it’s Sweden’s version of the small-block V8. You can find the engine in many Volvo models and generations. You can even find them powering boats.
Robin soon removed the 2.3 L B230FT “Redblock” inline-four out of his Volvo 740 wagon and installed it into the Nova using urethane small-block Chevy mounts connected to custom steel mounts made by Robin. The oil pan needed to be notched to clear the Nova steering linkage.
The engine produces about 275 horsepower at the wheels thanks to a RSI stage 2 camshaft and hybrid Garrett T3/T4 turbocharger making 18 psi of boost. Boost is controlled through a Tial 38 mm waste gate and AEM Tru-Boost. The engine is fed through a modified Bosch LH2.4 fuel injection system with white Bosch fuel injectors from a Pontiac GTP.
Robin finished the engine with a color scheme that celebrated both companies. The engine has orange powdercoated valve covers and oil pan. The intake was painted blue and yellow in a tribute to Sweden for building such great cars.
Behind the engine sits a GM 4L60E four-speed automatic transmission from a 1998 GM 1500 truck. The transmission is controlled using a Simple Shift transmission controller. The transmission was connected to the Volvo engine using an adapter plate made in Sweden. The only modification needed was to remove part of the bellhousing for the crankshaft position sensor.
The rear end is still the factory GM model with 2.63 gears. This is nice when cruising at 75 mph on the highway but otherwise is pretty weak until the engine gets up on boost. One of Robin’s future modifications will be replace the diff with a LSD model with higher gears.
The driver side exhaust was flipped and shortened to meet up with the Flowmaster 3″ into dual 2.25″ Y-section. Robin also installed Summit Racing 3″ electric exhaust cutout to give the exhaust a louder sound at the flip of a button.
To keep the gauge console as clean as possible, Robin installed a Summit Racing digital gauge panel into the factory Nova console.
From the beginning of the project Robin made a point to keep the Nova looking as stock as possible. The only clue on the outside that there is something different is the Volvo slash on the grill.
Future plans for the Nova include RSI stage 1 camshaft, Grant steering wheel, Simple Shift paddle shifter, and limited slip diff with 3.42 gears. Robin also plans on replacing the factory truck converter to one with a higher stall. This will help performance by allowing the turbo to spool sooner.
Robin’s Nova may have started with a wild idea but it has grown into something more. Robin remembers his Father telling him how great it would to own a fastback Nova some day. The Nova became not only a combination of his interests but also a great reminder of his Father.
Source: Robin D’Agostino• Chelsea forward reignites speculation about his future • ‘For me, winning the Champions League is my main aim’
Chelsea’s Eden Hazard says it would be ‘difficult to say no to PSG’
The Chelsea playmaker Eden Hazard has reignited speculation over his future by saying it would be difficult to rebuff an approach from Tuesday night’s Champions League opponents Paris St-Germain.
Hazard, signed from Lille for around £32m in June 2012, has been repeatedly courted by Real Madrid and PSG after his scintillating performances last season when Chelsea won the Premier League and Capital One Cup.
Football transfer rumours: Paul Pogba to Manchester City? Read more
The Belgian’s displays this season have been less emphatic and Chelsea’s lowly league position means a likely absence of Champions League football next term – unless Guus Hiddink’s side beat PSG in the last-16 tie, the first leg of which takes place at Parc des Princes on Tuesday, and go on to win this season’s European Cup.
A summer of transition is likely, but a player exodus is possible if Chelsea are not in Europe’s elite competition.
The 25-year-old told Le Parisien: “[It is] difficult to say no to PSG, or to any of the teams capable of winning the Champions League. PSG are now in that category. And for me, winning the Champions League is my main aim.”
Hazard attempted to backtrack, pointing to his contract that expires in 2020, but the timing of his comments will cause alarm with Chelsea facing the most important week of their season as Manchester City visit in the FA Cup on Sunday.
Chelsea have rediscovered confidence in time for PSG, says Gary Cahill Read more
“For the moment, I’m not really thinking about [a move],” Hazard added. Hazard scored his first goal of the season in the 31 January FA Cup win over MK Dons, when he returned from a groin injury.
He recently admitted he sent a message of apology to José Mourinho after the Portuguese was sacked as Chelsea manager in December.Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman reiterated his call today for an anti-Obama rebellion and Egyptian-style coup, writing in Renew America that Americans should gather en masse in Washington D.C. to remove President Obama from office. Klayman maintains that since neither Congress nor the courts will remove Obama, a popular uprising is needed “to cleanse the nation of the half-Muslim, anti-white, socialist fraud in the White House before the nation goes under for the final count.”
“If the Egyptians can do this with regard to another radical Muslim, former president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, then can’t we Americans do it with Obama?” Klayman asks, calling for conservatives working with his new group, Freedom Watch, to organize an “Occupy Washington” movement in which millions of people will “stand in front of the White House and other national treasures and demand that Barack Hussein Obama leave.”
“And, when we do converge on and ‘Occupy Washington’ in the millions on a date to be announced for the week before Thanksgiving, the people may think about chanting: ‘Mr. President (to use the term loosely), put the Quran down, get up off your knees and come out with your hands up!’”
“[Obama] will finally know that his time has come to leave his perverted, Islamic concept of Mecca, our nation’s hallowed capital,” Klayman concludes. “I do not advocate violence, but it is time we show Obama that we mean business. He would be well advised to ride off into his Islamic sunset, link up with 72 virgins and party on at his expense – not ours!”
On Sept. 11, 2013, a dangerous and viral strain of Muslims invaded Washington, D.C., to march and declare victory over Christians and Jews and to otherwise thumb their noses at everyone who does not believe in allah. While only 30 or so had the “courage” to actually appear on the streets of D.C., having been surrounded by a horde of “Rolling Thunder” Harley Davidson motorcycle riders, and despite the fact that the Muslims secured a permit and the motorcyclists were denied one by Barack Hussein Obama’s National Park Service, let us take a lesson from our Islamic “friends.” It is time that we Christians, Jews, people of faith and all true patriots say enough is enough and ourselves, in a very real way, “Occupy Washington” to cleanse the nation of the half-Muslim, anti-white, socialist fraud in the White House before the nation goes under for the final count.
Having done little to nothing about the growing list of “phony” Obama scandals, ranging from Benghazi-gate, to IRS-gate, to Navy SEAL Team VI-gate, to Fast and Furious-gate, to NSA-gate, to name just a few, it is clear that our elected representatives do not have the will or courage to remove the mullah-in-chief from office.
Over the last five years, as we stand on the precipice of calamity by provoking a regional and potential global war with Obama’s pro-Islamic desire to intervene to “save” his radical Muslim al-Qaida “freedom fighters” by bombing Syria, it is clear that the time to act is now. Impeachment is not an option, as Republicans, many of whom support Obama in this folly, are content to let this incompetent evil fraud continue in office until at least the run-up to the 2014 congressional elections. This was the same game Republicans played with previous Democratic presidential criminals Bill and Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the 2000 elections. Not wanting to remove Bill Clinton from office, lest Vice President Al Gore become an incumbent president with all the advantages of potential re-election, Republicans bailed out and refused to both impeach and convict “Slick Willy” of the scandals that really mattered: China-gate, File-gate and Travel-gate. So if the past is a prologue, which it is today even more than it was back in the late 1990s, the Grand Old Party is even more of a neutered, impotent elephant now.
Our court system is also not ready, willing or, practically speaking, able to get the job done. Save for federal judges like Royce Lamberth who did so much during the Clinton years to hold them accountable to the rule of law, there is no one on the bench who will stand up to the president. Just look at the judges, state and federal, who have had the chance to effectively remove Obama over his lack of eligibility to be president, as he is not a natural born citizen. From Florida, to Alabama, to Georgia, to California, lower court judges have fudged the law to squirm out of having to actually rule on not only his “phony” birth certificate but also his lack of having two American-born citizen parents as required by our Constitution. While many of these lower court rulings are on appeal, do not hold your breath that the higher courts will have the courage to do what needs to be done. That is the reason for Freedom Watch’s citizens’ grand juries, which are indicting and trying political felons like Obama as we speak. In this regard, a conviction is near in the case of the Obama for eligibility fraud.
Once convicted, We the People will have the right to enforce this conviction and demand that Obama surrender himself to the people’s system of justice for incarceration. Will he do so voluntarily? Obviously not! His arrogance and disrespect for American law – just look at how his attorney general has flouted it – and his apparent allegiance to Shariah law make this more than unlikely, to put it mildly.
I therefore call upon all American patriots, once we obtain this conviction, which we will shortly, to converge on Washington. Millions should stand in front of the White House and other national treasures and demand that Barack Hussein Obama leave. If the Egyptians can do this with regard to another radical Muslim, former president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, then can’t we Americans do it with Obama?
And, when we do converge on and “Occupy Washington” in the millions on a date to be announced for the week before Thanksgiving, the people may think about chanting: “Mr. President (to use the term loosely), put the Quran down, get up off your knees and come out with your hands up!”
The power of the people will then be heard without firing one proverbial shot. This fraudster, who stole the presidency and has done so much harm, will finally know that his time has come to leave his perverted, Islamic concept of Mecca, our nation’s hallowed capital.
I do not advocate violence, but it is time we show Obama that we mean business. He would be well advised to ride off into his Islamic sunset, link up with 72 virgins and party on at his expense – not ours!ADVERTISEMENT
It’s good news for dog and cat enthusiasts, as well as others who don’t like stray animals loitering around their house. The U.S. has seen a massive increase in the number of spay or neutering procedures as outreach and subsidization programs.
Right now, there are around 12.6 million spay/neuter surgeries performed on cats and dogs every year according to the Alliance for Contraception in Cats & Dogs. Most shelters also have requirements that any adopted animal be spayed or neutered immediately after adoption, or the shelter sets up the surgery themselves.
Cat reproduction rates can be significantly higher than dog rates, making it critical that any cat taken in as a pet gets the surgery done within a reasonable time frame. Many cities even have feral cat sterilization programs that work to spay or neuter feral cats, helping to curb the population of cats outside of traditional human care.
Those spay and neutering numbers is the cause of the drop in shelter animal intakes in the U.S. According to the USPCA, there were about 7.2 million intakes in 2011, compared to 6.5 million intakes in 2015. This represents about a 10% drop over the span of 4 years, which shows that we are heading in the right direction.
When shelters have more spots available, pet owners who need to surrender their pets will have more opportunities to secure a spot in a shelter as opposed to just letting their pet loose on the streets. House pets usually do not fare well in the wild and stand a much better chance of having a happy and healthy life by getting into a shelter.
You can help by making sure your pet gets spayed or neutered at an early age and by adopting pets from shelters instead of breeders. Even if you aren’t looking for a pet right now, volunteering at an animal shelter is a great way to learn more about cats and dogs, plus you get to spend time with fur babies you may not otherwise get to play with!
1.1k SHARES Facebook TwitterPractical, step-by-step directions for the mastery of: Visualization
Self-Esteem
Nutrition
Medication
Meditation techniques
Anxiety-triggering health conditions
Over 600,000 Copies Sold
Since its first edition in 1990, The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook has sold more than 600,000 copies. Its engaging exercises and worksheets have helped millions of readers make real progress in overcoming problems with anxiety and phobic disorders. The Authoritative Guide to Self-Help Resources in Mental Health (Norcross, et al., 2003) gave the book its highest rating and praised it as 'a highly regarded and widely known resource.' Thousands of mental health and medical professionals recommend this book to their clients and patients every year. Simply put, it is the single finest source of self-help information on its topic available anywhere.
The text of this edition has been fully revised and expanded and includes two new chapters: a discussion of physical conditions that can aggravate anxiety and an overview of the use of mindfulness practice in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder and some forms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. As in previous editions, the book offers the most up-to-date information on medications, natural supplements, and complementary strategies that can alleviate anxiety symptoms. The sections on relaxation, nutrition, and exercise have all been updated and broadened.The Princess Bride (1987) Composed, Co-Performed, and Produced by: Mark Knopfler Co-Performed by: Guy Fletcher LABEL & RELEASE DATE Warner Brothers Records
(January 1st, 1987) ALBUM AVAILABILITY Regular U.S. release. AWARDS The song "Storybook Love" was nominated for an Academy Award. The score was nominated for a Grammy Award. ALSO SEE Wag the Dog
PRINTER FRIENDLY VIEW
(inverts site colors)
Buy it... if you, like many in your generation, hold the film dear to your heart and fondly remember Mark Knopfler's romantic acoustic guitar music in its dreamy environment.
Avoid it... if you, like many others in your generation, hold the film with extreme disdain and remember Knopfler's shallow synthetic action music to be extremely obnoxious in its campy environment.
EDITORIAL REVIEW FILMTRACKS TRAFFIC RANK: #612 WRITTEN 4/29/03, REVISED 3/26/09 BUY IT Knopfler The Princess Bride: (Mark Knopfler) For an entire generation of teens and pre-teens, The Princess Bride was the ultimate slumber party flick. Seen countless times by anyone in that age bracket during the late 1980's, the Rob Reiner film lives on in the history of motion pictures as one of the wackiest and most potentially mind-numbing success stories in the romantic comedy genre. With a decent cast, the film wasn't ashamed of its own campy low-budget feel, catering to teen logic and leaving parents shaking their heads and searching for something more intelligent with which to distract themselves. Several lines from the film, with the endlessly repeating "You killed my father; prepare to die..." quote leading the pack, would be imitated by comedians for several years to follow. A haphazard methodology of shifting between the fairy tale and its contemporary storytelling environment was a distinct reason for the film's uniqueness. As the generation that appreciated it the most grew up, however, the film lost some of its pop culture appeal, and while it served its film well at the time, the same can be said of the score for The Princess Bride. Reiner (who defined the film as an "oddball") recognized immediately that the story was ridiculous and hearty enough to require a musical departure from the norm. Having enjoyed Mark Knopfler's scores for Dire Straits and Local Hero, Reiner claims that he was his only choice for the assignment for The Princess Bride. Known for his electronic and guitar-dominated works, Knopfler's music would be a perfect fit for the project, infusing a younger sounding, synthesized warmth to a similarly directed film. Little did Knopfler know at the time that The Princess Bride would end up being his best known composition for a film, the career defining piece that young girls everywhere would snatch up and sing along to (for two decades, surprisingly). The reception for The Princess Bride from the established film score community was one more of distant amusement than anything else, though that stands as testimony to the target audience of the film rather than the personality of the score. Knopfler's style, across all of his film scores, is such a distinctive extension of the instrumental backing of his pop songs that it's nearly impossible to compare it to any other film score, despite the fact that a handful have attempted to imitate it through the years.
Read More... The Princess Bride is the same as their reason for laughing off the film when they still saw it on the shelves of video rental stores years later. The music is such a dedicated slice taken right from the center of the corny Princess Bride cake that you can't help but remember the ridiculous circumstances of the film (and the age at which you saw it). Performed by only two individuals (Knopfler and Guy Fletcher), the score won't blow you away with sonic depth. Instead, it steals your heart with two opening cues of sweet and romantic acoustic guitar performances. These delicately plucked cues are quite lovely, with the kind of friendly personality that renders them a regular accompaniment to wedding receptions. The wishy-washy, echoing recording of the guitar, with its soothing synthesized accompaniment, appropriately puts the listener into almost a dreamy state in these two cues (as well as "A Happy Ending"). The same phenomenon occurs with the airy keyboarding in "Morning Ride", "Friend's Song," and "Guide my Sword," which often overwhelm the soundscape with their gleaming, major-key goodness. It is film score easy listening at its easiest during much of its length. Unfortunately, the album is broken up by a handful of unlistenable cues for action scenes, including "Cliffs of Insanity," "Rodents of Unusual Size," and "Revenge." The "Florin Dance" is another extremely difficult experience. These troubles arise mostly because the electronics couldn't produce varied or powerful enough action music without exposing the silly and dumb tones that often defined orchestral samples of the era. Because they are so incredibly cheap to the ears of anyone who has heard far more capable synthetic imitations since then, such cues can easily get on the nerves of the album's listener. Nevertheless, the album still contains at least twenty minutes of highly enjoyable, soft romance material, and it is capped off by a song rendition of Knopfler's title theme performed with a laid back style by Willy DeVille. The album is readily in print even though it was a very early Warner Brothers CD venture (with all the usual warnings about how to correctly place your CD back into its case), and it remains a strong seller even after twenty years. Overall, The Princess Bride is an important piece of late-80's film music history, albeit for just the younger generation, but anyone who still has a piece of that kid at heart could easily find enjoyment in this album. **** @Amazon.com: CD or Download
The reason for the distance between traditional film score collectors and Knopfler'sis the same as their reason for laughing off the film when they still saw it on the shelves of video rental stores years later. The music is such a dedicated slice taken right from the center of the cornycake that you can't help but remember the ridiculous circumstances of the film (and the age at which you saw it). Performed by only two individuals (Knopfler and Guy Fletcher), the score won't blow you away with sonic depth. Instead, it steals your heart with two opening cues of sweet and romantic acoustic guitar performances. These delicately plucked cues are quite lovely, with the kind of friendly personality that renders them a regular accompaniment to wedding receptions. The wishy-washy, echoing recording of the guitar, with its soothing synthesized accompaniment, appropriately puts the listener into almost a dreamy state in these two cues (as well as "A Happy Ending"). The same phenomenon occurs with the airy keyboarding in "Morning Ride", "Friend's Song," and "Guide my Sword," which often overwhelm the soundscape with their gleaming, major-key goodness. It is film score easy listening at its easiest during much of its length. Unfortunately, the album is broken up by a handful of unlistenable cues for action scenes, including "Cliffs of Insanity," "Rodents of Unusual Size," and "Revenge." The "Florin Dance" is another extremely difficult experience. These troubles arise mostly because the electronics couldn't produce varied or powerful enough action music without exposing the silly and dumb tones that often defined orchestral samples of the era. Because they are so incredibly cheap to the ears of anyone who has heard far more capable synthetic imitations since then, such cues can easily get on the nerves of the album's listener. Nevertheless, the album still contains at least twenty minutes of highly enjoyable, soft romance material, and it is capped off by a song rendition of Knopfler's title theme performed with a laid back style by Willy DeVille. The album is readily in print even though it was a very early Warner Brothers CD venture (with all the usual warnings about how to correctly place your CD back into its case), and it remains a strong seller even after twenty years. Overall,is an important piece of late-80's film music history, albeit for just the younger generation, but anyone who still has a piece of that kid at heart could easily find enjoyment in this album. : (Mark Knopfler) For an entire generation of teens and pre-teens,was the ultimate slumber party flick. Seen countless times by anyone in that age bracket during the late 1980's, the Rob Reiner film lives on in the history of motion pictures as one of the wackiest and most potentially mind-numbing success stories in the romantic comedy genre. With a decent cast, the film wasn't ashamed of its own campy low-budget feel, catering to teen logic and leaving parents shaking their heads and searching for something more intelligent with which to distract themselves. Several lines from the film, with the endlessly repeating "You killed my father; prepare to die..." quote leading the pack, would be imitated by comedians for several years to follow. A haphazard methodology of shifting between the fairy tale and its contemporary storytelling environment was a distinct reason for the film's uniqueness. As the generation that appreciated it the most grew up, however, the film lost some of its pop culture appeal, and while it served its film well at the time, the same can be said of the score for. Reiner (who defined the film as an "oddball") recognized immediately that the story was ridiculous and hearty enough to require a musical departure from the norm. Having enjoyed Mark Knopfler's scores forand, Reiner claims that he was his only choice for the assignment for. Known for his electronic and guitar-dominated works, Knopfler's music would be a perfect fit for the project, infusing a younger sounding, synthesized warmth to a similarly directed film. Little did Knopfler know at the time thatwould end up being his best known composition for a film, the career defining piece that young girls everywhere would snatch up and sing along to (for two decades, surprisingly). The reception forfrom the established film score community was one more of distant amusement than anything else, though that stands as testimony to the target audience of the film rather than the personality of the score. Knopfler's style, across all of his film scores, is such a distinctive extension of the instrumental backing of his pop songs that it's nearly impossible to compare it to any other film score, despite the fact that a handful have attempted to imitate it through the years.
VIEWER RATINGS 335 TOTAL VOTES Average: 3.44 Stars ***** 109 **** 73 *** 63 ** 39 * 51 (View results for all titles)
COMMENTS 5 TOTAL COMMENTS Hmm...I have a feeling he doesn't "dig" the movie.
The_Hutt - November 8, 2004, at 8:23 p.m. 1 comment (2059 views) Corny whatever
Joe Maxwell - April 26, 2004, at 6:58 p.m. 1 comment (1989 views) local hero is still better.
me myself and i - May 7, 2003, at 2:33 p.m. 1 comment (2170 views) Slight disagreement Expand >>
Southall - May 6, 2003, at 12:27 a.m. 2 comments (3077 views)
Newest: May 6, 2003, at 8:55 a.m. by
Fraley
TRACK LISTINGS AND AUDIO Audio Samples ▼ 1. Once Upon a Time... (0:30) MP3 (242K) WMA (195K) Real Audio (150K) 4. Morning Ride (0:30) MP3 (243K) WMA (197K) Real Audio (151K) 5. The Friends' Song (0:31) MP3 (250K) WMA (202K) Real Audio (155K) 8. Guide my Sword (0:29) MP3 (235K) WMA (191K) Real Audio (146K) Total Time: 39:26 1. Once Upon a Time... Storybook Love (4:00)
2. I Will Never Love Again (3:04)
3. Florin Dance (1:32)
4. Morning Ride (1:36)
5. The Friends' Song (3:02)
6. The Cliffs of Insanity (3:18)
7. The Sword Fight (2:43)
8. Guide my Sword (5:11)
9. The Fire Swamp and the Rodents of Unusual Size (4:47)
10. Revenge (3:51)
11. A Happy Ending (1:52)
12. Storybook Love - performed by Willy DeVille (4:24)
NOTES AND QUOTES The insert includes a note from the director and still photography of the score's performers.Now I know what it must have been like to see Bobby Orr in his prime completely dominating a game. Now a younger generation knows what it was like to see Wayne Gretzky shred an opponent. If you didn't watch this game - either shame on you for not tuning in, or shame on Versus and NHL Network for not figuring out a way to get this game out to the whole country. Yes, the story here should be the Sharks and their spectacular come-from-behind-overcoming-their-choker-label win, but the mainstream media has the narrative covered. The true story of this game for anyone that cares to dig deeper than the narrative was the Thunder From Njurunda, half man, half God, half possible centaur - Henrik Zetterberg. Even though it was a losing effort, what Zetterberg did last night was one of the most magnificent playoff performances that I can recall.
Zetterberg was everywhere early and on every line late. Zetterberg led all forwards with over twenty-two minutes of even strength time, two-and-half minutes more than any other forward. He was the only forward for either team to who was on the ice with and against every other player in the game. If last night's game was The Matrix, Zetterberg had the unfair advantage of seeing the code when no one else could. For the first time this series the Wings had the home change and Mike Babcock took advantage of it to match Zetterberg against Joe Thornton and his linemates. Zetterberg came out ahead. Way ahead.
Scoring Chances
For those of you who are new to the concept of tracking scoring chances, a scoring chance is defined as a clear play directed toward the opposing net from a dangerous scoring area - loosely defined as the top of the circle in and inside the faceoff dots, though sometimes slightly more generous than that depending on the amount of immediately-preceding puck movement or screens in front of the net. Blocked shots are generally not included but missed shots are. A player is awarded a scoring chance anytime he is on the ice and someone from either team has a chance to score. He is awarded a "chance for" if someone on his team has a chance to score and a "chance against" if the opposing team has a chance to score. Vic Ferrari makes this all possible with his tools to evaluate Corsi, head-to-head ice time and scoring chances.
Scoring Chances for NHL Game Number 30233
Period Totals EV PP 5v3 PP SH 5v3 SH 1 3 10 3 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 5 3 2 2 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 9 8 7 8 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 5 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 22 21 17 20 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
The Wings really beat on the Sharks early in this game but the Sharks had a couple of power plays in the second and play balanced out after |
thug broke in. He got away too. The police couldn't find enough evidence to catch him.
I've worked hard to start a new life, I pay my taxes and I'm trying to be a good Kiwi.
What gives thieves the right to come into my house and take what is ours, not just electronics, but our peace of mind?
Will I go back to South Africa, no. New Zealand is still safer, but I guess not as 'heaven' anymore.
CommentsHovig - Gravity - Video pose
Tonight, Cypriot broadcaster CyBC premieres the entry with which Hovig will represent Cyprus at the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 in Kiev. For a second year in a row, Swedish veteran Thomas G:son composed the Cypriot entry. The song however is available on YouTube already.
Hovig was the first artist confirmed for this year Eurovision and since then he’s giving us hints about his song title and then yesterday, a 30 second part of the official video clip.
Tonight, during the CyBC’s newscast at 20.00 CET, this year’s Cypriot Eurovision entry is scheduled to be broadcast for the first time, but it just leaked on YouTube. The Cypriot broadcaster is very optimistic and they hope to achieve not only a place in the final, but also a place on the left part of the scoreboard.
Below you can watch the Cypriot entry for this year Eurovision Song Contest. (Article has been updated with official video).
Cyprus at the Eurovision Song Contest
Cyprus has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 33 times since making its debut in 1981. Since then they have missed the contest only in 1988, 2001 and 2014.The country’s best result in the contest is three fifth-place finishes, in 1982 with Anna Vissi, 1997 with Hara & Andreas Constantinou and 2004 with Lisa Andreas.
Since the introduction of semi-finals things have been a little tough for Cyprus who failed to reach the final four years in a row from 2006 to 2009, and again in 2011 and 2013.
After their return to the contest in 2015, they managed to reach the final two years in a row. Last year, Cyprus was represented by Minus One and their Alter Ego which reached the final but finished 21st.
In the video below you can enjoy highlights of the Cypriot participation in the years 2010 – 2015.Google’s got AI lovers a little gift for the holidays – it’s finished the first complete prototype of its self-driving vehicle.
While the company unveiled the tentative design for the car back in May (though the technical research aspect has been running for several years now), the prototypes it’s built so far have been functionally compartmentalized – each one was only testing certain components of the vehicle.
Now, it’s put all those parts together into a fully functioning model. Google says it will spend some more time testing the vehicle over the holidays at its test track, with the hope of driving on Northern California roads soon.
Don’t worry if you don’t trust our robot overlords yet; Google says it’s still using safety drivers with manual controls in case things go awry. For now anyway.
➤ Google Self-Driving Car Project
Read next: Yahoo's Aviate launcher for Android gets universal searchLooking to add a center fielder, the Washington Nationals have reportedly contacted free agent Gerardo Parra, according to Bill Ladson of MLB.com.
Parra, who split last season between the Milwaukee Brewers and Baltimore Orioles, has drawn interest from at least four teams this offseason.
The free-agent outfield market remains deep, with Yoenis Cespedes, Justin Upton, Alex Gordon, and Dexter Fowler all remaining, though Parra is arguably the most capable defender of the group, with two Gold Glove awards on his resume.
The 28-year-old is coming off a year in which he hit.291/.328/.452 with a career-high 14 homers to go with 36 doubles and 51 RBIs.
The Nationals have a need at the position, with Denard Span hitting free agency following an injury-plagued 2015 season. Michael Taylor will likely be used as the team's fourth outfielder.Overcoming Performance Anxiety
Here's How To Overcome Performance Anxiety
Page 1 of 4
One of the greatest sexual and emotional obstacles for men today is performance anxiety. Those who battle it on a regular basis know how crippling and debilitating worrying about it can be. The problem is in the term itself: "performance anxiety." We have socialized ourselves to think of sex as an act, a performance, with an expected role we are supposed to conform to. Maybe our anxiety around sex comes from the expectations imposed on masculinity in our culture, from watching porn, from our depictions of how men act in the media, from fears or insecurities that fuel this need to perform. It could be because of our desire for partner or peer validation that we think we need to excel in something that every man is supposed to be a stud at doing.
How many times have you thought about your sexual performance? How long you lasted, how good or bad you were in bed, what your partner thought of the sex, a past sexual experience that didn’t go as planned? For many guys, these questions fill our minds and often stay with us. We begin to add pressure and weight on our shoulders that we carry into the bedroom. Why are we worrying about outcomes vs. enjoying the ride?
Men typically view sex as goal-oriented, performance-driven, orgasm-centric and erection focused. How un-sexy is that sentence? Imagine what sex would be like if we came from a place of pleasure, intimacy, sharing of sexual enjoyment, no judgment?
Men set themselves up for performance anxiety by creating expectations that are often too difficult to achieve — expectations that don’t really even matter.
Not only are these expectations hard to live up to, but they work against the very nature of what sex is: pleasure enjoyed by two people. If you see sex as a task or a job, you just may miss the important stuff beyond the physical and behavioral.
According to Laumann et al. in 1999, about 30% of men experience premature ejaculation (PE), about 15% have a lack of interest in sex and about 8% of men experience delayed ejaculation (DE) and cannot reach orgasm during sex. These numbers represent clinical concerns. Most men don’t have clinically diagnosed sexual issues but will have occasional bouts with PE, DE or libido concerns throughout their lives.
In 2003, Kubin et al. found that about one-third of men experienced some type of erectile dysfunction (ED) at least once a year. They also found that psychological stress was at the top of the list for men as a predictor of ED. We also know that the older men get, the higher the rates of ED. Studies have found that by age 50, almost 60% of men experience ED, and by age 70, over 80% have experienced it.
1997, Elliot and Brantley asked college males if they’ve ever faked an orgasm. Seventeen percent of straight guys and 27% of gay and bi guys answered yes. Why would a guy fake an orgasm? Some reasons may be to avoid disappointing or hurting their partners’ feelings, communication difficulties, to get sex over with or because the performance anxiety is so intense that orgasm or ejaculation is not likely.
Why am I bringing up male sexual concerns in a performance-anxiety article? Regardless of whether the sexual concerns come before or as a result of performance anxiety, the important part to recognize is they often go hand in hand. Let’s face reality: Sexual concerns and performance anxiety are common, and it’s going to happen to every guy to varying degrees. We need to accept it as a part of male sexuality without letting this get under our skin. We need to understand that it’s human nature. We need to start talking about it. To make sexual concerns and performance anxiety secretive, or to internalize and repress them, only makes the issues worse. Until you overcome the fear of addressing your struggle honestly, there’s only so much you can do to overcome your anxiety.It's time again to answer another viewer question. Periodically I receive emails from viewers of the Produce Picker Podcast searching for answers to their produce questions. I try to answer each of these emails as thoroughly as possible however only the person who has asked the question tends to benefit from the answer.
The purpose of the show as well as this blog has always been to share my knowledge with as many people as possible. To this end I'm sharing some of the emails I receive and my responses to them in the hopes of helping out others who might have the same questions. I hope this benefits all of you. Enjoy and always feel free to send in your own questions, comments, and/or tips!
Laura sent in a question about stringy avocados, she asks:
Just saw the avocado episode on MIRO - first time watching. all great BUT, sometimes I buy several unripe avocados, wait for them to ripen and then refrigerate. When I pull it out to eat, sometimes it is stringy and strange inside - as if it had started to grow or something and one that looks and feels identical is fine to eat! What's going on?
thanks,
Laura
Thanks so much to Laura for sending in this great question. I have seen this before as well and yet it was a challenge to just come up with the answer on my own. So I put in a special inquiry to my friends at the California Avocado Commission and they provided me with a great answer to Laura's question, Erin replied:
The "stringiness" you describe is a relatively rare occurrence generally found in fruit from immature trees. Because the avocado has grown in popularity world-wide, so has the need for new orchards. On occasion young vigorously growing trees may produce a few fruit with fibers, mostly near the stem end. It is impossible for growers to predict which fruit is affected but we know that the phenomenon is relatively rare and passes as the trees grow. The fibers are natural cellulose and edible, although of course the texture of the pulp near the stem end may be less appealing when fibers are present. Simply pushing the pulp from affected fruit through a coarse strainer will separate the fibers from affected fruit. Using the mashed fruit in guacamole or dip recipes will allow you to fully utilize any fruit showing this phenomenon.
Thanks again to
Erin at the
California Avocado Commission for the great insight.
As a parting note I commented to Laura that
her method of picking avocados unripe, letting them ripen on the counter and then refrigerating them until use, is a good one. Buying them unripe gives you a chance to get them before a bunch of other people get their hands on them, pressing all over your avocado thus bruising it before you buy it. Also placing them in the fridge only after they are ripe gives you a longer shelf life. So, good job there.
Thanks again to Laura and Erin for providing great content for this blog post. I hope everyone learned something about avocados and perhaps feels inspired to submit a question of their own or comment on this post. Thanks for reading!
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picture provided by picture provided by Flickr user Will Merydith
Here's the Choosing Avocados Episode:SINGAPORE - A helicopter, ship, flower, feather and magnifying glass are among eight suggested symbols candidates could use to represent them in the presidential election next month.
Candidates must provide a symbol to be placed opposite their names on ballot papers and to use in campaigning, if there is a contest for the post on Sep 23.
They can choose from the list of eight approved symbols - which also includes a violin, scroll and binoculars - and which was published on Monday (Aug 28) in the Government Gazette ahead of the upcoming election.
Alternatively, they can submit their own symbol for approval by returning officer Ng Wai Choong, who is chief executive officer of the Energy Market Authority.
The Election Department's handbook for candidates states that the choice of symbol must be settled before 12.30pm on Nomination Day, if the election is contested.
Three people have said they intend to stand in the election, which is reserved for Malay candidates - former Speaker of Parliament Halimah Yacob, and businessmen Farid Khan and Salleh Marican. Voters will go to the polls if more than one qualifies to run.
Mr Farid has created his own symbol and will officially unveil it after he is found eligible to run, his spokesman said on Monday. The symbol could be a blue house with what appears to be the Chinese character "ren", or people, for its roof, which is seen in the cover photo on his Facebook page and in a cartoon image of himself that he posted.
Mr Salleh has submitted his own symbol for approval, said his spokesman, without giving further details.
Besides appearing on ballot papers, candidate symbols must also be clearly displayed on posters or banners during the campaign period so voters can tell them apart, the candidate handbook states.
During the last presidential election in 2011, which saw a four-way contest, President Tony Tan Keng Yam's symbol was his trademark spectacles. Dr Tan Cheng Bock chose a palm tree, Mr Tan Jee Say chose a heart, and Mr Tan Kin Lian used a speech bubble with an etched-out handprint.One of the best films I’ve seen this year was made for $3 million, or approximately 2.2% of the $135 million it cost to make this summer’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3D sequel.
This film, The Witch, grossed over $40 million, a whopping 13 times its modest budget. Meanwhile, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made $242 million, a figure that looks large but, at less than twice what it cost to produce the film, decidedly isn’t.
Which film is the better investment?
The obvious answer is The Witch, an unassuming horror story set in 17th century New England, featuring archaic dialogue realistic to the time period. After the film killed it at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, it picked up a distributor and was released in February. The Witch demolished its box office projections.
The rags-to-riches story of The Witch is the story of many other horror films in 2016. As the Hollywood summer box office has floundered amid overhyped big-budget remakes and disappointing sequels, the horror genre has churned out hit after hit by sticking to low-budget films with (mostly) original stories. And it’s quietly been doing this, with relatively reliable success, for years.
The Witch, A24 A light in the dark.
Just this weekend, the horror-thriller Don’t Breathe (pictured above) dominated box offices, grossing $26 million in the United States, more than double the second-place finisher (Suicide Squad). By the way, Don’t Breathe was made for only $10 million—and earned that back on its opening night alone. Suicide Squad cost $175 million.
Don’t Breathe follows other low-budget horror films, including The Shallows, Lights Out, and The Purge: Election Year (none made for more than $18 million) that profited big time at the box office. Even The Conjuring 2, the horror genre equivalent of a mainstream, big-budget sequel, only cost $40 million to make and grossed $320 million. The Legend of Tarzan, a 3D remake of the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs story, cost over four times as much to produce and made only a few million more.
And that’s just this year. There have been dozens of similarly successful horror films in the last five years, from It Follows to The Gift. The phenomenon arguably dates back to 1999, when The Blair Witch Project was cobbled together for $60,000, and grossed nearly $250 million—a cool 400,000% return.
In recent years, the horror production company Blumhouse Productions has led the charge, delivering low-budget hits that regularly top box office lists, including the Paranormal Activity and The Purge series. (The original Paranormal Activity, in 2009, made $193 million on a $15,000 budget, and each subsequent film in the series has grossed at least $140 million on no more than a $5 million budget.)
Aside from generally being more cost-efficient than the average Hollywood action blockbuster, the horror genre has a loyal, borderline fanatical following. Studios can usually count on a significant portion of that audience to see these low-budget romps, and some of the bigger budget horror movies (relatively speaking) like The Conjuring, can pull in a much more diverse group of moviegoers.
While Hollywood loses its grip on young people (18-24-year-olds are abandoning the movie theater faster than any other age group), there’s no indication that the horror genre has suffered a similar fate. Younger audiences are more likely to seek out intense, thrilling experiences—an impulse that fades with age.
Hollywood at large is reluctant to embrace the same strategy, instead rolling the dice on more mediocre big-budget productions. Ultimately, despite these eye-popping returns on investment, horror’s overall slice of the pie isn’t big enough. In Variety, Brent Lang explains the horror genre’s method of moviemaking just doesn’t move the needle enough to satisfy the investors in the publicly traded companies that own most of the major film studios. These media conglomerates want huge franchises that can garner enormous windfalls in merchandising and licensing, and they’re willing to make a whole lot of bad sequels and remakes in order to find the one that becomes a global triumph.
The Witch might have made its budget back 13 times over, but in the grand scheme of Hollywood, that $37 million in profit is still chump change.Attorney General Cuomo is abandoning one of the highest-profile cases brought by his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer.
Click Image to Enlarge Mary Altaffer/AP Former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso leaves the New York State Supreme Court at Manhattan in July 2007.
Yesterday a mid-level appellate court in Manhattan ruled against a bid by the attorney general's office to force a former New York Stock Exchange chief, Richard Grasso, to give back to the exchange much of his $187.5 million in pay. Just hours after the decision, Mr. Cuomo's office said it would let the matter rest without an appeal.
"We have reviewed the Court's opinion and determined that an appeal would not be warranted," a spokesman, Alex Detrick, said in a statement. "Thus, for all intents and purposes, the Grasso case is over."
Mr. Cuomo's decision to drop the case is a reminder of Mr. Spitzer's sudden disappearance from public life. Before Mr. Spitzer left office this year due to a scandal involving a call-girl ring, Mr. Cuomo had stayed the course against Mr. Grasso, even hiring a top white-collar defense attorney in private practice to manage the case.
The effort to force Mr. Grasso to return the money became a top priority for Mr. Spitzer's office beginning more than four years ago, after Mr. Grasso was ousted as stock chief when the sum total of his compensation there became publicly known. Mr. Spitzer sued under the theory that the pay was "unreasonable" for a nonprofit entity, which the stock exchange then was. The case became a central battle in Mr. Spitzer's campaign against Wall Street.
The decision handed down yesterday, which dismissed the remaining two of the eight original claims against Mr. Grasso, left Mr. Cuomo with the option of appealing to the Court of Appeals in Albany to reinstate those claims.
The 3-1 court decision turned on the NYSE's transformation into a for-profit corporation as part of its 2006 merger with Archipelago Holdings Inc.
While the attorney general has the authority to police the amount of pay received by nonprofit executives, the court ruled that the authority did not extend to prosecuting such a suit in an effort to return money to a corporation that was now for-profit. An decision last week by the Court of Appeals had dismissed the bulk of the attorney general's case.
One of Mr. Grasso's lawyers, Mark Zauderer, declined to comment.Privilege and Pomposity in Politics
I take it as read, that no politician is worthy of anything more than scorn and derision, that the whole lot of them represent a system of power and privilege that amounts to legalized thievery on a massive scale. Now, with all of that said, Republicans — for their mind-boggling ability to detach themselves from reality — may hold the prize for “most out of touch.”
In an execrably ridiculous Washington Post opinion piece (“Mitt Romney: A good man. The right fight.” November 28), the man who worked as the Romney campaign’s chief strategist, Stuart Stevens, points out that his guy “carried the majority of every economic group except those with less than $50,000 a year in household income.”
Given that fact, Stevens argues, “any party that captures the majority of the middle class must be doing something right.” Stevens’s argument reflects another witless remark from the Romney side months ago, Romney’s 47 percent gaffe, the political lessons of which are obviously lost on Republicans (not that that’s a bad thing).
The campaign, through its candidate, was saying that poor people vote for Democrats because they’re dependent on the government. Now, Stevens suggests that people who work hard and make good money support Republican policies. The irony, of course, is one that market anarchists continually point out in the face of this kind of imbecilic insult to the working poor — it’s that the Republicans’ (and Democrats’ incidentally) version of “free enterprise” is a stacked deck that systematically disadvantages labor in favor of capital.
State privilege surrounds big business, protecting it from competition and throwing workers at the mercy of bosses who can pay them pennies on the produced dollar in wages. The rich can recline and skim off the top of labor’s hard work, because land grants, subsidies (direct and indirect), government contracts and costly regulatory obligations blend to protect elite economic interests from competition.
The pomposity of insinuating that Republicans are just fine without the votes of those unwashed masses making under 50k is amazing to behold. Stevens would benefit from holding the economic system of “Republican ideals” up against a legitimate — and now, of course, strictly hypothetical — freed market, especially when the median personal income in this country is about $40,000.
If he did so, it might become clear to him (though one has reason to doubt it) that, as Ezra Heywood said, “Rich people have been the subjects of charity long enough.” Market anarchists would remove the privileges for powerful and influential forces within the economy and thus dissolve the capitalist system in favor of real free competition and markets. Voluntary exchange and cooperation, when delivered from the fetters of what anarchists once called “class legislation,” are not only innocuous, but are a great blessing.
Republicans, Democrats and the rest of the political system’s constituent parts serve those abusive privileges — that’s their job on a fundamental level. Instead of granting them deference or even attention, we ought to get down to the business of creating the society we want to live in on a mutual basis, with our friends and neighbors, discarding practical politics for awhile, even forever.
Translations for this article:Jacobia Grimes stole the candy from Dollar General. (Photo: Dan Goodman, AP)
(NEWSER) – A 34-year-old Louisiana man could spend the rest of his life in prison over his alleged shoplifting of $31 of candy, reports the Advocate.
Jacobia Grimes is accused of trying to steal candy bars from a Dollar General, and his big problem is that he has five prior theft convictions on his record.
Under the state's tough habitual offender law, that makes him eligible for a sentence of 20 years to life over the latest charge, and the Orleans Parish DA is taking full advantage.
“Isn't this a little over the top?" asked the judge, who would have little discretion on the final sentence. "It's not even funny. Twenty years to life for a Snickers bar, or two or three or four.”
A spokesman for the district attorney's office declined to comment on the specifics of the case, except to emphasize that the alleged shoplifting is considered a felony in the eyes of the state, reports AP.
If the judge is right in considering the possible punishment too extreme, a post at Mic blames the "prison-industrial complex," and points to a 2012 investigation by the New Orleans Times-Picayune that dubbed Louisiana the "world's prison capital."
The 2012 story included this line: "A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt." (Another high-profile shoplifting incident ended with a teenager's football tackle.)
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Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1RWbMWU(CNN) -- Two suspects accused of gunning down Arkansas police officers this week may have ties to extremist anti-government groups, two civil rights organizations say.
Jerry R. Kane, 45, and his 16-year-old son Joseph Kane fatally shot two police officers and wounded two others during a wild shootout Thursday, according to Arkansas state police.
The father and son were shot and killed during the battle on the streets of West Memphis, Arkansas.
The Anti-Defamation League said the two suspects belonged to "an extreme right-wing movement that believes that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and which seeks to restore an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed."
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization, also said the two member are part of the "sovereign citizen" movement.
"If Jerry Kane is proven responsible for these tragic murders, it would be a new page in the same old book for the sovereign citizens, who have assaulted or killed a number of law enforcement officials in the past 20 years, especially during traffic stops," the ADL said in a statement.
The Southern Poverty Law Center released Internet footage they say is the elder Kane preaching the sovereign citizen philosophy.
Police in Arkansas have been tight-lipped about a motive in the killings, stating that releasing too many details could hurt their investigation.
The incident began at 11:36 a.m. (12:36 p.m. ET) Thursday, when West Memphis patrolman Bill Evans made a traffic stop on a white minivan traveling eastbound on I-40, said Bill Sadler, spokesman for the Arkansas state police.
After the vehicle exited the Interstate onto an off-ramp, Sgt. Brandon Paudert arrived on the scene as backup, Sadler said.
"It is our belief that Officer Evans was shoved to the ground by one of the suspects in the minivan and gunfire was directed at both officers," Sadler said.
The suspects then fled, driving east in the minivan, leaving one man dead and the other fatally wounded.
Within minutes, officers from other agencies -- including the Arkansas state police and the Arkansas Fish and Game Commission -- began to converge on the area, looking for the suspects, he said.
About 90 minutes later, a minivan believed to be the one that had been seen leaving the shooting site was spotted in a parking lot of a nearby Wal-Mart, Sadler said.
There, it was approached by Crittenden County Sheriff Dick Busby and Chief Enforcement Officer W.A. Wren, who were traveling in the same vehicle, he said.
Both men were wounded in a gunbattle initiated by the suspects, who were using a long rifle and a handgun, Sadler said.
The gunbattle ended after "a very brave, young wildlife officer in his state truck rammed the suspect vehicle, preventing an exit of the suspects," who were then killed, Sadler said.The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.
Leonard Saxe is an American social psychologist whose work focuses on sociology of religion, American Jews and the American Jewish Community. He is currently the director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University.
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Launched in 1999, Birthright Israel was a “disruptive innovation” designed to arrest the assimilation of the next generation of Diaspora Jews by seeking to universalize an Israel educational experience. The program had many skeptics who, though committed to Jewish education focused on children and teenagers, believed that Birthright was too brief, too superficial, and too inexpensive for participants to have any lasting impact.
Nearly 18 years and 400,000 North American participants later, our latest research confirms that the skeptics were wrong. Participation in Birthright has a transformative impact that extends far beyond young Jews’ time in Israel. Birthright’s alumni, compared to similar young Jews who did not participate in the program, are more highly connected to Israel, more likely to have a Jewish spouse and raise Jewish children, and more likely to be engaged in Jewish life.
Our latest report is the fifth wave of a panel study that has been following more than 2,700 Jewish young adults who applied to Birthright trips between 2001 and 2009. In the study, we compare a random sample of those who participated in the program to a “control group” of similar applicants who never went on the trip. The report documents the program’s effects more than a decade after participation.
The panelists are now 25-40 years old, and long after the trip (up to 14 years), Birthright’s impact remains and has melded into their adult life experiences. Our new data allow us to look at panelists’ lives in more detail and examine Birthright’s differential levels of impact depending on whether a panelist has one versus two Jewish parents, is male versus female, or is married/partnered versus single.
Birthright’s most persistent and long lasting impact is on participants’ connection to Israel. The highest level of connection to Israel is among participants who are from two-Jewish-parent families. However, participants from families with only one Jewish parent have a stronger connection to Israel than similar others who did not participate. While participation in Birthright is important for individuals from all types of backgrounds, it seems especially so for those from intermarried families.
One of the most interesting and puzzling findings is Birthright’s effect on inmarriage for men versus women. Birthright has the same impact on the importance both men and women place on marrying someone Jewish. Yet, Birthright’s positive impact on having a Jewish spouse or partner is stronger for men than it is for women. One possible explanation is that Jewish women have a smaller “market” of Jewish prospective partners to choose from compared to that of their male counterparts. It is also possible that women feel freer to marry non-Jews because of traditional Judaism’s stance on matrilineal descent.
Participation in Birthright also influences engagement in Jewish life. Birthright’s impact in this area is concentrated among those who are married or living with a partner and is mediated through Birthright participants’ increased likelihood of having a Jewish spouse/partner. Birthright participants who are married/partnered are, on virtually every measure of communal engagement assessed, more likely to be involved or involved at higher levels than non-participant panel members.
Among those under 30, the likelihood of men to be married is lower than 30% and lower than 50% for women. For those in our panel who are ages 35-40, men and women are equally likely to be married; yet, even for these individuals the likelihood of being married is only about 75%. Because unmarried members of the community are less engaged in Jewish life, Jewish communal policy should explore how best to involve them, and for those who are seeking Jewish partners, how to assist them with that goal.
More than a decade of study has yielded strong and consistent findings of Birthright’s impact. They are evidence that Jewish identity development does not end with adolescence. Providing meaningful Jewish experiences for twenty-somethings, who are at a stage of life where exploration and self-direction are at the forefront of their consciousness, changes the trajectory of their Jewish lives.
Birthright’s success highlights what should be obvious about Judaism, that developing Jewish identity requires not only knowledge but also experiences. The long-lasting impact of Birthright is hard to explain without taking account of the central role of being part of a Jewish group and experiencing life together in the Jewish homeland. Judaism is a “contact sport” and only by directly connecting with other Jews can one fully understand what engaging with one’s Jewish identity means.
It should be a source of pride for the Jewish community to see what Birthright has accomplished. To be sure, more work needs to be done. Every year brings a new cohort of young people into adulthood and, as successful as it is, nearly half of Jewish young adults have not had a Birthright-like experience. Every year also creates new cohorts of thirty-somethings—singles and newly married couples. More disruptive innovation may be needed to support them on their Jewish journeys. Birthright Israel demonstrates what is possible.
This story "Has Birthright Been Successful?" was written by Leonard Saxe.William, certainly, seems to have thought that Swein’s departure marked the end of the matter. At some point towards the end of the summer or in the early autumn, the king left England and sailed to Normandy. On the Continent, trouble was brewing: in particular, there was disturbing news from neighbouring Flanders, his wife’s homeland, where a succession dispute was threatening to descend into civil war. On the other side of the Channel, by contrast, all seemed quiet. ‘At this time,’ say Orderic Vitalis, ‘by the grace of God, peace reigned over England, and a degree of serenity returned to its inhabitants now that the brigands had been driven off … No one dared to pillage, and everyone cultivated his own fields in safety and lived contentedly with his neighbour.’
‘But’, adds Orderic, ‘not for long.’ He was obliged to qualify his remarks because, once again, a new revolt was fanned from the ashes of the old. William seems to have assumed that, with the departure of the Danes, their English supporters would melt away, or be easily mopped up by local commanders like the redoubtable Abbot Turold. But the English resistance in the Fens proved extremely difficult to eradicate. It was no accident that the Danes had chosen to establish their camp at Ely, for in the eleventh century (and for many centuries thereafter) the town was an island, surrounded on all sides by marshes and accessible only by boat. With the Danes gone, Ely’s inhabitants were left feeling nervous, imagining that their collaboration would be punished with violent repression. According to the Gesta Herewardi (a far from reliable witness, but the only source that attempts to explain the genesis of the revolt), the abbot of Ely feared that he would soon join the growing list of English churchmen ousted in favour of Normans. Naturally, the monks looked to Hereward himself for help, and he in due course came to their assistance. But, as subsequent events show, it was not only the local hero and his band who responded to Ely’s call. From all across the kingdom, other desperate men began to converge on the Fens. ‘Fearing subjection to foreigners’, says the Gesta, ‘the monks of that place risked endangering themselves rather than be reduced to servitude, and, gathering to themselves outlaws, the condemned, the disinherited, those who had lost parents, and suchlike, they put their place and the island in something of a state of defence.’
The Ely revolt might still not have amounted to much had it not been for the simultaneous action taken by earls Eadwine and Morcar. The two brothers had played no part in the English rebellions since their speedy submission in the summer of 1068. Indeed, they had played no discernible part in politics of any kind, all but vanishing from the subsequent historical record. A royal charter, probably drawn up in the spring of 1069, shows they were still at court and being accorded their titles. But to have called Eadwine ‘earl of Mercia’ or Morcar ‘earl of Northumbria’ must have been tantamount to mockery, for they plainly exercised no real power at all in their respective provinces. Rule in the north was now split between the Norman castellans of York and the recently rehabilitated Gospatric. Mercia, meanwhile, was governed by its new Norman sheriffs, supported by the garrisons of new castles at Warwick, Nottingham, Shrewsbury and Stafford. As early as 1068 Eadwine’s authority had been seriously compromised by the establishment of rival earldoms centred on Hereford and Shrewsbury for William fitz Osbern and Roger of Montgomery; since the start of 1070 it had been dealt a further and probably fatal blow with the creation of another new earldom based on Chester and given to Gerbod, one of the Conqueror’s Flemish followers. A comment by Orderic Vitalis that the two brothers had received the king’s forgiveness in 1068 only ‘in outward appearance’ rings true; one suspects that thereafter they may once again have had some form of restriction imposed on their freedom. Whether William’s return to Normandy in 1070 heralded some temporary weakening of such constraints, or whether because, as John of Worcester has it, they feared being placed in stricter custody, Eadwine and Morcar decided to make a break. At some point during the winter of 1070–1 they stole away in secret from the king’s household and set about trying to raise rebellion.
It soon became apparent, however, just how far their fortunes had sunk, for it seems that no one rallied to their cause. Since the Norman takeover the brothers had failed in that most fundamental of a lord’s tasks, namely protecting their own men. Where had Eadwine been when the Conqueror’s armies had ravaged the Midlands, or Morcar when the north was harried? In this respect their behaviour compares unfavourably with that of Earl Godwine, who refused a royal order to sack his own town of Dover in 1051, or with King Harold, who rushed to Hastings in 1066 partly because his own tenants were being terrorized. During the years 1068–70 the two earls had left their followers to face either death or dispossession at Norman hands. The fact that the brothers probably had little freedom of action in this time might engage our sympathy, but can have been no consolation to those who had lost their lands or their relatives.
The failure of the earls’ rebellion reduced them to the status of fugitives; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says evocatively that the brothers ‘travelled aimlessly in woods and moors’, and at |
I have to pee, I have to hope there’s an available stall in the nearest bathroom. If there isn’t (which usually happens when I’m at a large meeting or other event and we’re on a restroom break) I find myself going on a little voyage in search of one, awkwardly walking in to the restroom, looking for feet in the stall, and hoping that no-one is thinking too hard about what I’m up to. Then, of course, I wonder if my bathroom-mates are paying attention to my “business”, if they notice the sound of me peeing with my feet facing the “wrong” direction. Can they tell I’m sitting down to pee? Do they wonder why?”
Trans* people being harassed for using public restrooms is a well documented phenomenon, so many elect to use gender-neutral bathrooms at their homes or in public. The American with Disabilities Act (ADA) currently requires at least one compliant bathroom per building, which sometimes can be a unisex bathroom. The oldest parts of the campus were constructed in 1964, before ADA bathroom compliance was in effect.
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This means that older buildings have few, if any, “safe” bathrooms for trans* students. The art college is based in two connected buildings (7A and 7B or Gannett and Booth) that are each four floors tall with a basement; there is only one ADA unisex bathroom between them. Newer buildings tend to have at least one, though anything built past January 2010 do not have this information publically available.
All dorms, despite some being built in the ‘60s, have at least one unisex bathroom per floor, allowing all trans* students to have a safe space. After freshmen year, students can live wherever they wish, with on-campus apartments and suites having the usual non-gendered bathrooms most people have in their own homes. Students can also have anyone they wish as roommates past their first year as well.
The Field House hosts a large gym, pool, athletic courts and hosts most of RIT’s wellness courses, a required part of graduation sans doctor’s note. There are gendered locker rooms, another known place for trans* people to face harassment. Normally the locker room has to be passed through to reach the pool, though there is a more circuitous way to get there; most trans* people are not comfortable enough to wear swimwear in public so this has not been a vocalized issue. The Field House does have two unisex bathrooms in the basement that could be used for changing, though they are out of the way and do not offer a safe place to store items or to shower.
An odd issue facing trans* students on campus is the mail system. Students living outside of the dorms have mailboxes that are used by everyone in a unit, so the name is not taken into account. Students living in the dorms have mailboxes that are handled by the student post office for the eastern half of campus. Letters, postcards and mail small enough to fit into a mailbox are sorted by name, so if a person’s non-legal name is used, the post office will cross it out and add the legal name instead. This happens as well for packages that need to be picked up; eastern on-campus apartment students face this issue as well.
The western half of campus has its own post office, and it does not have this issue. When students sign up for their mail key at the beginning of the year, they fill out a form that includes their name and what other names they might receive mail as. This allows trans* students to receive mail without it being tampered. The eastern post office sign up is automatic, as any keys or info is taken from Housing.
Representation
The first major step that brought the RIT trans* community to the spotlight was more of a stumble. The student-run weekly magazine, The Reporter, wanted to write a feature piece on trans* people on campus. The February 4 issue featured a female-looking body on all 6,000 covers to match the main feature piece “Infinite Circles: RIT’s Transgender Community.” The piece focused on two students, Melissa Maron and Tristan Wright, who was a first year at the time.
In the article, the only issues brought up were name changes on school documents and the “slightly…irritating” lack of safe bathrooms. The piece spoke about how Maron founded Tangent, the only trans*-specific student group, but shows an unflattering picture of her taken in profile, making her masculine facial features and prominent Adam’s apple obvious signs that she is male-to-female trans*.
“That was one of the worst issues ever that I was in charge of,” Mady Villavicencio said. As the editor-in-chief of The Reporter, Villavicencio was responsible for all final content, including imagery, within the magazine. The public comments on the piece note how “Infinite Circles” is redundant, which the magazine received flak about, but the GLBT community brought to her attention that the piece had multiple issues to it.
By focusing on only two people, “Infinite Circles” was only able to focus on a very small slice of “transgender” life. Language used was unclear or not defined or was used improperly. “There is a lot of disagreement within the GLBT community about definitions and beliefs,” Villavicencio noted. “I ran [the [piece] across as many of the GLBT Center friends and alums as possible.” Due to the lack of time and other pieces requiring attention, she had to hope that the trans* students interviewed were able to “speak for themselves.”
Villavicencio looks back and notes that because she spent time with GLBT people that she was already aware of issues and terminology and didn’t think of including them. The writer, Michelle Spoto, and section editor, Alex Rogala, had issues because they didn’t have this background knowledge, Villavicencio said.
The piece also ran several weeks after a user-submitted blurb offended the trans* community, so they were already wary of The Reporter, “so that might have tainted the perception of the piece.” The pictures were taken at the last minute, with Joi Ong having to create portraits at the last-minute. “Honestly, if I were to do it again, I would have waited to publish.”
Villavicencio spoke throughout the writing of the piece with Christopher Henry Hinsely, a transman who is now the GLBT Center Coordinator and staff advisor for Tangent.
“Since they’re marginalized, they really need a safe space,” Hinsely said. This need of a safe-space is what led Maron to create Tangent, which is now lead by Pizzo. The group has club status, allowing it to reserve rooms and to access funding, but it is not open to everyone, causing it to break RIT club rules. This disobedience is due to the nature of the club. “It isn’t very open to cis students because the mission isn’t to educate, but to help each other,” Hinsely said.
Tangent used to have only a few regular members, but now it features over 20 students who attend on a regular basis; the doors are open to trans* and questioning students from local schools who don’t have their own trans* group as well. At meetings, members support each other, share stories about their experiences and share clothes when a member decides to change how they present.
Trans* students are also welcome at ritGA, RIT’s gay alliance, as well as the GLBT center to access resources or to have a safe space. RIT’s deaf/hard-of-hearing population also has an LGBT club called Spectrum. All the GLBT-focused groups receive extra representation in Student Government thanks to the executive board OUTspoken.
Originally there was an LGBT-specific senator that would represent the large community by themselves, but there was too much work for one person. OUTspoken is currently lead by president Wright and vice-president Jillian Strobeck. Strobeck, as president-elect for next academic year, is aware of the young group’s issues.
“In the past, I feel that OUTspoken has fallen short.” She explains that with the multiple LGBT-focused groups on campus, it isn’t always clear where lines are drawn. Out of fear of “stepping on ritGA’s toes” OUTspoken has been lax, focusing instead on setting up social events for the LGBT community. Strobeck says that next year she plans to address the lack of unisex bathrooms in older buildings, though she’s not sure how the issue would be fixed.
Improving Trans* Life
“Socially it’s been great,” Spencer said of trans* life on campus. “Administratively it’s been hard.” RIT is very accepting of trans* lifestyles, students have found, but information isn’t always open. Pizzo said “When you really need this info is when you apply as a freshman.” Knowing about groups such as Tangent and OUTspoken as well as the process for getting names changed and safe housing chosen is vital to assure a safe experience for an entering student.
The RIT Health Center allows students to continue hormone therapy and to continue any psychological or psychiatric therapy they may have started, though this is also not advertised. General therapy and health resources are made known, but long wait lists make it hard to be seen in a timely manner.
Though RIT’s campus generally is supportive, there are still instances when transphobia happens. Pizzo shared that a female-to-male trans student was once friends with a girl, who one day said he was spending too much time with her and told RIT he was sexually harassing her. During the disciplinary hearing, the girl continuously misgendered the trans* student and referred to him as she. He asked her to use his preferred pronouns, as she had done so when they were friends and knew that doing otherwise hurt him. Pizzo said another trans* student was given trouble for being on an all-female floor, which made some people uncomfortable.
Faculty and staff can participate in safe-space training, where they learn about LGBT issues and how to be empathetic. People who pass the free seminar get a sticker to place on their door, denoting that they’re open to be approached. Not many take part, Strobeck said, and she plans on increasing visibility in the program.
“There will always be trans* people who will never be out,” Pizzo said. “They will always be stealth.” This is due to the world at large being transphobic, which is slowly improving.
For now, trans* students can feel safe at RIT. The university’s president Bill Destler donated $10,000 to The Northeast LGBT Conference that took place at RIT April 12-14, show his support for all members of the LGBT community both on campus and the world over.World
Syrian Army Targets Militants in Several Areas
TEHRAN (FNA)- Units of the Syrian armed forces on Monday targeted militant groups in several areas and destroyed their weapons and hideouts.
Army kills militants in Daraa
A unit of the armed forces killed all members of a militant group in al-Mlaiha al-Gharbiyeh in Daraa countryside and destroyed their weapons and ammunition, a military source told SANA.
The source added that terrorist Saad-eddin Qaloush, the leader of the armed group was identified among the dead.
Militants' infiltration attempt thwarted in Homs countryside
Units of the army and the armed forces thwarted an infiltration attempt by a militant group from al-Ghasbiah village into al-Dwair in Homs countryside, a military source said.
The source said that a number of militant group's members were killed and wounded.CHAPTER 3
URBAN COMBAT SKILLS
Successful combat operations in urban areas depend on the proper employment of the rifle squad. Each member must be skilled in moving, entering buildings, clearing rooms, employing hand grenades, selecting and using fighting positions, navigating in urban areas, and camouflage.
Section I. MOVEMENT
Movement in urban areas is the first fundamental skill the soldier must master. Movement techniques must be practiced until they become habitual. To reduce exposure to enemy fire, the soldier avoids open areas, avoids silhouetting himself, and selects his next covered position before movement.
3-1. CROSSING OPEN AREAS
Open areas, such as streets, alleys, and parks, should be avoided. They are natural kill zones for enemy crew-served weapons or snipers. They can be crossed safely if the individual or small-unit leader applies certain fundamentals including using smoke from hand grenades or smoke pots to conceal movement. When employing smoke as an obscurant, keep in mind that thermal sighting systems can see through smoke. Also, when smoke has been thrown in an open area, the enemy may choose to engage with suppressive fires into the smoke cloud.
a. Before moving to another position, the soldier makes a visual reconnaissance, selects the position offering the best cover and concealment, and determines the route he takes to get to that position. b. The soldier develops a plan for his own movement. He runs the shortest distance between buildings and moves along the far building to the next position, reducing the time he is exposed to enemy fire.
3-2. MOVEMENT PARALLEL TO BUILDINGS
Soldiers and small units may not always be able to use the inside of buildings as routes of advance and must move on the outside of the buildings (Figure 3-1). Smoke, suppressive fires, and cover and concealment should be used to hide movement. The soldier moves parallel to the side of the building (maintaining at least 12 inches of separation between himself and the wall to avoid rabbit rounds, ricochets and rubbing or bumping the wall), stays in the shadow, presents a low silhouette, and moves rapidly to his next position (Figure 3-2). If an enemy gunner inside the building fires on a soldier, he exposes himself to fire from other squad members providing overwatch. An enemy gunner farther down the street would have difficulty detecting and engaging the soldier.
Figure 3-1. Selection of the next position.
Figure 3-2. Soldier moving outside building.
3-3. MOVEMENT PAST WINDOWS
Windows present another hazard to the soldier. The most common mistakes are exposing the head in a first-floor window and not being aware of basement windows.
a. When using the correct technique for passing a first-floor window, the soldier stays below the window level and near the side of the building (Figure 3-3). He makes sure he does not silhouette himself in the window. An enemy gunner inside the building would have to expose himself to covering fires if he tried to engage the soldier.
Figure 3-3. Soldier moving past windows.
b. The same techniques used in passing first-floor windows are used when passing basement windows. A soldier should not walk or run past a basement window, since he presents a good target to an enemy gunner inside the building. The soldier should stay close to the wall of the building and step or jump past the window without exposing his legs (Figure 3-4).
Figure 3-4. Soldier passing basement windows.
3-4. MOVEMENT AROUND CORNERS
The area around a corner must be observed before the soldier moves. The most common mistake a soldier makes at a corner is allowing his weapon to extend beyond the corner exposing his position (this mistake is known as flagging your weapon). He should show his head below the height an enemy soldier would expect to see it. The soldier lies flat on the ground and does not extend his weapon beyond the corner of the building. He wears his Kevlar helmet and only exposes his head (at ground level) enough to permit observation (Figure 3-5). Another corner clearing technique that is used when speed is required is the pie-ing method. This procedure is done by aiming the weapon beyond the corner into the direction of travel (without flagging) and side-stepping around the corner in a circular fashion with the muzzle as the pivot point (Figure 3-6).
Figure 3-5. Correct technique for looking around a corner.
Figure 3-6. Pie-ing a corner.
3-5. CROSSING A WALL
Each soldier must learn the correct method of crossing a wall (Figure 3-7). After he has reconnoitered the other side, he rolls over the wall quickly, keeping a low silhouette. Speed of his move and a low silhouette deny the enemy a good target.
Figure 3-7. Soldier crossing a wall.
3-6. USE OF DOORWAYS
Doorways should not be used as entrances or exits since they are normally covered by enemy fire. If a soldier must use a doorway as an exit, he should move quickly to his next position, staying as low as possible to avoid silhouetting himself (Figure 3-8). Preselection of positions, speed, a low silhouette, and the use of covering fires must be emphasized in exiting doorways.
Figure 3-8. Soldier exiting a doorway.
3-7. MOVEMENT BETWEEN POSITIONS
When moving from position to position, each soldier must be careful not to mask his supporting fires. When he reaches his next position, he must be prepared to cover the movement of other members of his fire team or squad. He must use his new position effectively and fire his weapon from either shoulder depending on the position.
a. The most common errors a soldier makes when firing from a position are firing over the top of his cover and silhouetting himself against the building to his rear. Both provide the enemy an easy target. The correct technique for firing from a covered position is to fire around the side of the cover, which reduces exposure to the enemy (Figure 3-9).
Figure 3-9. Soldier firing from a covered position.
b. Another common error is for a right-handed shooter to fire from the right shoulder around the left corner of a building. Firing left-handed around the left corner of a building takes advantage of the cover afforded by the building (Figure 3-10). Right-handed and left-handed soldiers should be trained to adapt cover and concealment to fit their manual orientation. Soldiers should be able to fire from the opposite shoulder.
Figure 3-10. Firing left-handed around the corner of a building.
3-8. FIRE TEAM EMPLOYMENT
Moving as a fire team from building to building or between buildings presents a large target for enemy fire (Figure 3-11). When moving from the corner of one building to another, the fire team should move across the open area in a group. Moving from the side of one building to the side of another presents a similar problem and the technique of movement employed is the same. The fire team uses the building as cover. In moving to an adjacent building (Figure 3-12) team members should keep a distance of 3 to 5 meters between themselves and, using a planned signal, make an abrupt flanking movement (on line) across the open area to the next building.
Figure 3-11. Fire team movement.
Figure 3-12. Movement to adjacent building.
Section II. ENTRY TECHNIQUES
When entering buildings a soldier must minimize the time he is exposed. Before moving toward the building he must select the entry point. When moving to the entry point the soldier should use smoke to conceal his advance. He must avoid using windows and doors except as a last resort. He should consider the use of demolitions, tank rounds, and other means to make new entrances. If the situation permits he should precede his entry with a grenade, enter immediately after the grenade explodes, and be covered by one of his buddies.
3-9. UPPER BUILDING LEVELS
Although entering a building from any level other than the ground floor is difficult, clearing a building from the top down is the preferred method. Assaulting or defending a building is easier from an upper story. Gravity and the building's floor plan become assets when throwing hand grenades and moving from floor to floor.
a. An enemy who is forced to the top of a building may be cornered and fight desperately or escape over the roof. An enemy who is forced down to ground level may withdraw from the building, thus exposing himself to friendly fires from the outside. b. Various means, such as ladders, drainpipes, vines, helicopters, or the roofs and windows of adjoining buildings, may be used to reach the top floor or roof of a building. One soldier can climb onto the shoulders of another and reach high enough to pull himself up. c. Ladders offer the quickest method to access the upper levels of a building (Figure 3-13). Units deploying into an urban environment should be equipped with a lightweight, man-portable, collapsible ladder as referenced in the platoon urban operations kit.
Figure 3-13. Entering using portable ladder
(1) If portable ladders are not available, material to build ladders can be obtained through supply channels. Ladders can also be built with resources available throughout the urban area; for example, lumber can be taken from inside the walls of buildings (Figure 3-14).
Figure 3-14. Getting lumber from inside the walls.
(2) Although ladders do not permit access to the top of some buildings, they do offer security and safety through speed. Ladders can be used to conduct an exterior assault of an upper level if soldiers' exposure to enemy fire can be minimized.
3-10. USE OF GRAPPLING HOOK
The use of a grappling hook and rope to ascend into a building is not recommended. Experimentation and training has determined that using the grappling hook and rope to ascend is extremely difficult for the average soldier, and makes a unit more likely to fail their mission. Grappling hooks are still a viable tool for accomplishing the following tasks:
Clearing concertina or other tangle wire.
Clearing obstacles or barricades that may be booby trapped.
Descending to lower floors.
3-11. SCALING OF WALLS
When required to scale a wall during exposure to enemy fire, all available concealment must be used. Smoke and diversionary measures improve the chances of success. When using smoke for concealment, soldiers must plan for wind direction. They should use suppressive fire, shouting, and distraction devices from other positions to divert the enemy's attention.
a. A soldier scaling an outside wall is vulnerable to enemy fire. Soldiers who are moving from building to building and climbing buildings should be covered by friendly fire. Properly positioned friendly weapons can suppress and eliminate enemy fire. The M203 grenade launcher is effective in suppressing or neutralizing the enemy from rooms inside buildings (Figure 3-15).
Figure 3-15. Employment of M203 grenade launcher for clearing enemy snipers.
b. If a soldier must scale a wall with a rope, he should avoid silhouetting himself in windows that are not cleared and avoid exposing himself to enemy fires from lower windows. He should climb with his weapon slung over the firing shoulder so he can bring it quickly to a firing position. If the ROE permits, the objective window and any lower level windows in the path of the climber should be engaged with grenades (hand or launcher) before the soldier begins his ascent. c. The soldier enters the objective window with a low silhouette (Figure 3-16). Entry can be head first; however, the preferred method is to hook a leg over the window sill and enter sideways straddling the ledge.
Figure 3-16. Soldier entering the objective window.
3-12. RAPPELLING
Rappelling is an entry technique that soldiers can use to descend from the rooftop of a tall building into a window (Figure 3-17), or through a hole in the floor, in order to descend to the lower floor. (See TC 21-24 for more information on rappelling.)
Figure 3-17. Rappelling.
3-13. ENTRY AT LOWER LEVELS
Buildings should be cleared from the top down. However, entering a building at the top may be impossible. Entry at the bottom or lower level is common and may be the only course of action. When entering a building at lower levels, soldiers avoid entering through windows and doors since both can be easily booby trapped and are usually covered by enemy fire. (Specific lower-level entry techniques are shown in Figure 3-18. These techniques are used when soldiers can enter the building without receiving effective enemy fire.)
a. When entering at lower levels, demolitions, artillery, tank fire, antiarmor weapons fire, or similar means can be used to create a new entrance to avoid booby traps. This procedure is preferred if the ROE permit it. Quick entry is then required to take advantage of the effects of the blast and concussion. b. When the only entry to a building is through a window or door, supporting fire is directed at that location to destroy or drive away enemy forces. The assaulting soldiers should not leave their covered positions before the support by fire element has accomplished this procedure. c. Before entering, soldiers may throw a cooked off hand grenade into the new entrance to reinforce the effects of the original blast. The type grenade used, fragmentation, concussion, or stun, is based on METT-TC factors and the structural integrity of the building. (1) When making a new entrance in a building, soldiers consider the effects of the blast on the building and on adjacent buildings. If there is the possibility of a fire in adjacent building, soldiers coordinate with adjacent units and obtain permission before starting the operation. (2) In wooden frame buildings, the blast may cause the building to collapse. In stone, brick, or cement buildings, supporting fires are aimed at the corner of the building or at weak points in the building construction.
NOTE: Armored vehicles can be positioned next to a building allowing soldiers to use the vehicle as a platform to enter a room or gain access to a roof.
Figure 3-18. Lower-level entry technique.
Figure 3-18. Lower-level entry technique (continued).
Figure 3-18. Lower-level entry technique (continued).
3-14. USE OF HAND GRENADES
Combat in urban areas often requires extensive use of hand grenades. Unless the ROE prevent it, use grenades before assaulting defended areas, moving through breaches, or entering unsecured areas. Effective grenade use in urban areas may require throwing overhand or underhand, with both the left and right hand. Normally, the fragmentation grenade should be cooked off for two seconds to prevent the enemy from throwing them back.
a. Three types of hand grenades can be used when assaulting an urban objective: stun, concussion, and fragmentation. METT-TC factors and the type of construction materials used in the objective building influence the type of grenades that can be used. (1) The M84 stun hand grenade is a flash-bang distraction device, which produces a brilliant flash and a loud bang to momentarily surprise and distract an enemy force (Figure 3-19). The M84 is often used under precision conditions and when the ROE demand use of a nonlethal grenade. The use of stun hand grenades under high intensity conditions is usually limited to situations where fragmentation and concussion grenades pose a risk to friendly troops or the structural integrity of the building.
Figure 3-19. M84 stun hand grenade.
(2) The concussion grenade causes injury or death to persons in a room by blast overpressure and propelling debris within the room (Figure 3-20). While the concussion grenade does not discard a dangerous fragmentation from its body, the force of the explosion can create debris fallout that may penetrate thin walls.
Figure 3-20. MK3A2 (concussion grenade).
(3) The fragmentation grenade (Figure 3-21) produces substantial overpressure when used inside buildings and, coupled with the shrapnel effects, can be extremely dangerous to friendly soldiers. If the walls of a building are made of thin material, such as Sheetrock or thin plywood, soldiers should either lie flat on the floor with their helmet towards the area of detonation, or move away from any wall that might be penetrated by grenade fragments.
Figure 3-21. Fragmentation grenade.
b. Soldiers should engage upper-level openings with grenades (by hand or launcher) before entering to eliminate enemy that might be near the entrance. (1) The M203 grenade launcher is the best method for putting a grenade in an upper-story window. The primary round of ammunition used for engaging an urban threat is the M433 high-explosive, dual-purpose cartridge (Figure 3-22). Throwing a hand grenade into an upper-story opening is a task that is difficult to do safely during combat.
Figure 3-22. 40-mm, tube-launched, high-explosive,dual-purpose (HEDP) grenade.
(2) When a hand grenade must be thrown into an upper-story opening, the thrower should stand close to the building, using it for cover. This technique should only be employed when the window opening is free of glass or screen. (3) The thrower should allow the grenade to cook off for at least two seconds, and then step out far enough to lob the grenade into the upper-story opening (Figure 3-23). He should keep his weapon in the nonthrowing hand, to be used if needed. The weapon should never be laid outside or inside the building. At the same time, everyone should have a planned area to move to for safety if the grenade does not go through the window but falls back to the ground. (4) Once the grenade has been thrown into the opening and detonates, assaulting troops must move swiftly to enter the building.
Figure 3-23. Hand grenade thrown through window.
c. If soldiers must enter the building by the stairs, they must first look for booby traps, then engage the stairwell door with a grenade (by hand or launcher), let it detonate, and quickly move inside. They can then use the staircase for cover.
WARNING 1. If stealth is not a factor, after throwing the grenade the soldier must immediately announce frag out to indicate that a grenade has been thrown. He then takes cover since the grenade may bounce back or be thrown back, or the enemy may fire at him. 2. When the M203 grenade launcher is used to deliver the grenade into a window or doorway, ensure proper standoff for arming the round. Also, the assaulting element should take cover around a corner or away from the target area.
d. Breachholes and mouseholes are blown or cut through a wall so soldiers can enter a building. (See Chapters 4 and 7 for more information.) These are safer entrances than doors because doors can be easily booby trapped and should be avoided, unless explosive breaching is used against the door. (1) A grenade should be thrown through the breach before entering. Use available cover, such as the lower corner of the building (Figure 3-24), for protection from fragments. (2) Use stun and concussion grenades when engaging through thin walls.
Figure 3-24. Soldier entering through a mousehole.
e. When a door is the only means of entering a building, soldiers must beware of booby traps and fire from enemy soldiers within the room. (1) Locked doors can be breached (forced open) using one of the four breaching methods: mechanical, ballistic, explosive, or thermal (see Chapter 8). If none of these methods are available, soldiers can resort to kicking the door open. This method is the least preferred since it is difficult and tiring to the soldier. It rarely works the first time, and gives any enemy soldiers in the room ample warning and time to shoot through the door. Once the door is breached, a grenade should precede the soldier's entry. (2) When opening an unlocked door by hand, the assault team should be sure not to expose themselves to enemy fire through the door. The soldiers should stay close to one side of the doorway to minimize exposure in the open doorframe (3) Once the door is open, a hand grenade should be tossed in. After the grenade explodes, soldiers enter and clear the room IAW the tactics, techniques, and procedures discussed in Section III. f. Although buildings are best cleared from the top down, this procedure is not always possible. While clearing the bottom floor of a building, soldiers may encounter stairs, which must also be cleared. Once again, grenades play an important role. (1) To climb stairs, first inspect for booby traps, then toss a grenade to the head of the stairs (Figure 3-25). Soldiers must use voice alerts when throwing grenades. (2) Using the staircase for cover, soldiers throw the grenade underhand to reduce the risk of it bouncing back and rolling down the stairs. (3) Once the first grenade has detonated, another grenade should be thrown over and behind the staircase banister and into the hallway, neutralizing any exposed enemy in the hallway. (4) When the second hand grenade has detonated, soldiers proceed to clear the stairway in accordance with prescribed TTP.
NOTE: Large quantities of hand grenades are used when clearing buildings. A continuous supply must be available.
Figure 3-25. Soldier tossing grenade up stairway.
CAUTION Throwing fragmentation grenades up a stairway has a high probability for the grenades to roll back down and cause fratricide. Soldiers should avoid clustering at the foot of the stairway and ensure that the structural integrity of the building permits the use of either a fragmentation or concussion grenade.
3-15. INDIVIDUAL WEAPONS CONTROL WHEN MOVING
As in all combat situations, the clearing team members must move tactically and safely. Individuals who are part of a clearing team must move in a standard manner, using practiced techniques known to all.
a. When moving, team members maintain muzzle awareness by holding their weapons with the muzzle pointed in the direction of travel. Soldiers keep the butt of the rifle in the pocket of their shoulder, with the muzzle slightly down to allow unobstructed vision. Soldiers keep both eyes open and swing the muzzle as they turn their head so the rifle is always aimed where the soldier is looking. This procedure allows to soldier to see what or who is entering their line of fire. b. Team members avoid flagging (leading) with the weapon when working around windows, doors, corners, or areas where obstacles must be negotiated. Flagging the weapon gives advance warning to anyone looking in the soldier's direction, making it easier for an enemy to grab the weapon. c. Team members should keep weapons on safe (selector switch on SAFE and index finger outside of trigger guard) until a hostile target is identified and engaged. After a team member clears his sector of all targets, he returns his weapon to the SAFE position. d. If a soldier has a weapons malfunction during room clearing, he should immediately announce "gun down" and drop to one knee and conduct immediate action to reduce the malfunction. The other members of the team should engage targets in his sector. Once the weapon is operational, he should announce "gun up" and remain in the kneeling position until directed to stand-up by the team leader.
Section III. CLEARING
Infantry units often use close combat to enter and clear buildings and rooms. This section describes the TTP for clearing.
3-16. HIGH INTENSITY VERSUS PRECISION CLEARING TECHNIQUES
Precision clearing techniques do not replace other techniques currently being used to clear buildings and rooms during high-intensity combat. Specifically, they do not replace the clearing technique in which a fragmentation or concussion grenade is thrown into a room before the US forces enter. Precision room clearing techniques are used when the tactical situation calls for room-by-room clearing of a relatively intact building in which enemy combatants and noncombatants may be intermixed. They involve increased risk in order to clear a building methodically, rather than using overwhelming firepower to eliminate or neutralize all its inhabitants.
a. From a conceptual standpoint, standard high-intensity room clearing drills can be thought of as a deliberate attack. The task is to seize control of the room with the purpose being the neutralization of the enemy in the room. The fragmentation and or concussion grenades can be thought of as the preparatory fires used before the assault. As in a deliberate attack against any objective, the assaulting elements move into position using covered and concealed routes. The preparatory fires (fragmentation and or concussion grenades) are initiated when soldiers are as close to the objective as they can get without being injured by the fires. The assault element follows the preparatory fires onto the objective as closely as possible. A rapid, violent assault overwhelms and destroys the enemy force and seizes the objective. b. Compared to the deliberate attack represented by high-intensity room clearing techniques, precision room clearing techniques are more conceptually like a reconnaissance in force or perhaps an infiltration attack. During a reconnaissance in force, the friendly unit seeks to determine the enemy's locations, dispositions, strength, and intentions. Once the enemy is located, the friendly force is fully prepared to engage and destroy it, especially if surprise is achieved. The friendly force retains the options of not employing preparatory fires (fragmentation and or concussion grenades) if they are not called for (the enemy is not in the room) or if they are inappropriate (there are noncombatants present also). The attacking unit may choose to create a diversion (use a stun grenade) to momentarily distract the defender while they enter and seize the objective. c. The determination of which techniques to employ is up to the leader on the scene and is based on his analysis of the existing METT-TC conditions. The deliberate attack (high-intensity techniques), with its devastating suppressive and preparatory fires, neutralizes everyone in the room and is less dangerous to the assaulting troops. The reconnaissance in force (precision techniques) conserves ammunition, reduces damage, and minimizes the chance of noncombatant casualties. Unfortunately, even when well-executed, it is very stressful and hazardous for friendly troops. d. Certain precision room clearing techniques, such as methods of squad and fire team movement, the various firing stances, weapon positioning, and reflexive shooting, are useful for all combat in confined areas. Other techniques, such as entering a room without first neutralizing known enemy occupants by fire or explosives, are appropriate in only some tactical situations. e. Generally, if a room or building is occupied by an alerted enemy force that is determined to resist, and if most or all noncombatants are clear, overwhelming firepower should be employed to avoid friendly casualties. In such a situation, supporting fires, demolitions, and fragmentation grenades should be used to neutralize a space before friendly troops enter. f. In some combat situations the use of heavy supporting fires and demolitions would cause unacceptable collateral damage or would unnecessarily slow the unit's movement. In other situations, often during stability and support operations, enemy combatants are so intermixed with noncombatants that US forces cannot, in good conscience, use all available supporting fires. Room-by-room clearing may be necessary. At such times, precision room clearing techniques are most appropriate.
3-17. PRINCIPLES OF PRECISION ROOM CLEARING
Battles that occur at close quarters, such as within a room or hallway, must be planned and executed with care. Units must train, practice, and rehearse precision room clearing techniques until each fire team and squad operates smoothly. Each unit member must understand the principles of precision room clearing: surprise, speed, and controlled violence of action.
a. Surprise. Surprise is the key to a successful assault at close quarters. The fire team or squad clearing the room must achieve surprise, if only for seconds |
road case thing, I didn’t want to have to pay Warner Brothers to play our own material. Because it hadn’t reverted to us yet, so we stopped playing a lot of that material, just on principle. Either we were going to have to cut those songs out of those things or pay them a royalty.”
Another topic of discussion about the upcoming tour is the more bare bones setup Wilco will use during the run. Even guitarist Nels Cline, known for his massive rig, will cut down the amount of gear he will use for the tour. Over the past two years Wilco has been devoting a portion of most shows to acoustic performances and it appears we can expect more where that came from as they tour Schmilco. Head to CoS for the complete interview. We can’t wait to see what’s in store for tonight’s show in Salt Lake City and beyond.K-W Oktoberfest revellers raised beer steins, sang "Ein Prosit" and snacked on schnitzel, but didn't get into much trouble with the law last year, according to a new police report.
Waterloo Regional Police said total arrests during K-W Oktoberfest and the number of people taken to the force's central lock-up in 2014 were both at the lowest levels since the force began keeping records.
In total there were 38 arrests, a 13.6 per cent drop from 2013. Of those 38, 12 arrests were taken to what police refer to as "central lock-up" but most of us know as the drunk tank.
Just nine criminal charges were laid during the festival including:
Two charges of Impaired/Over 80 laid from arrests at the Schwaben Club
Two charges of internal theft of liquor tickets at the Kitchener Auditorium
Five charges of assault, most of which police say involved a patron assaulting a security guard.
The report also said charges related to the Liquor Licence Act decreased 52 per cent from 2013 to 41 charges in 2014, while charges related to the Public Nuisance Bylaws decreased by 42 per cent, with only 18 charges in 2014.Excuse me for a moment while I go all Barney Stinson on you, but have you met Poldark? The British import is currently steaming up Sunday nights on PBS' Masterpiece Theater (catch it at 9/8c, guys) and it is the greatest thing I have ever seen. OK, so I know in my mind that I'm being a tad bit hyperbolic, but try telling that to my emotions. The period drama (adapted from a book series and '70s era miniseries mega-hit) follows the journey of Ross Poldark, a breathtakingly handsome red coat recently back from the Revolutionary War. He returns to his Cornwall home to find out his father has died and the woman he loves is marrying his cousin. Heartbroken and penniless, he turns to working his father's decrepit farm while trying to find enough backers to reopen the family's mine.
Did that hook you? No? Then let me tell you about Demelza, a miner's daughter who leaves her abusive family and ends up working in Poldark's home. She is a total badass: she's sarcastic, always a little angry, loves her dog ferociously, and is not afraid to get her hands dirty. I don't need to be a psychic to tell you she and Poldark are destined, but watching their courtship is half the fun.
Poldark is crazy addictive, so addictive I barely noticed it was stealing my heart until it was too late. I want you to go in with your eyes open though. Here are 11 signs Poldark is taking over your life (it's OK, let it happen):
1. You Feel An Overwhelming Urge To Make Aidan Turner's Face Your Background On All Electronics
Aidan Turner has quite the face, so it is perfectly normal to want to turn on your phone and see his gorgeous eyes staring back at you. It's regular celebrity crush stuff. And OK, so you picked a photo where he's in character as Poldark and not say Kili from The Hobbit or Mitchell from Being Human. It's just the period piece clothing that's doing you in.
2. Poldark's Uncle Suddenly Becomes Public Enemy Number One
I'm sorry Uncle Charles, but you sir, are the worst. I know your son is kind of a coward, but that is so not Poldark's problem, dude. I don't have time for your machinations.
3. You Start Fantasizing About Moving To Cornwall, Circa The 1770s
The vistas are so drool-worthy on this show they short-circuit my brain. I know no one has figured out the whole time travel thing yet, but when they do I want to go horseback-riding along the Cornwall seashore.
4. You Start Asking Yourself "What Would Demelza Do?" On The Daily
When faced with rude people or an unsavory task — Ugh, I have to dust again? — I now find myself asking how Demelza would react and the answer is always with sass and drive. She's owns chores and always tells it like it is. I want to be more like Demelza.
5. The Need To See Demelza And Poldark Smoosh Their Faces Together Becomes All-Consuming
I wish I could say I only think about them making out when the show is actually on, but that would be a lie. A really, really big lie.
6. You Start To Feel Bad For Elizabeth
At first, I didn't have strong feelings about Poldark's first love, Elizabeth. She's awesome in her own right though. She's friends with Verity, she's kind, and she only ended up marrying Francis because she thought Poldark was dead. Granted, I don't want her to rekindle her romance with Poldark, but I don't want to see her stuck with Francis either — he is so the British equivalent of Gone With the Wind's Ashley.
7. Mining Becomes A Topic You Feel Passionate About
This mining stuff is serious business. Poldark is trying to resurrect an entire economic system on his own. Granted, the intricacies of the plot are hard to follow, but Poldark is concerned so I am too.
8. You Stop Responding To Texts On Sunday Nights
I'm sorry, but whatever crises my friends are having on Sunday night are not as important as what is happening on my TV screen.
9. Everything Poldark-related Makes You Emotional
Watching Poldark with me is not for the easily startled. I verbally hiss at the screen when that good-for-nothing banker George shows up, and I burst into tears every time Demelza snuggles up with her pup on the hearth. I have lost all control over my emotions and I don't even care.
10. You Both Avoid And Seek Out Spoilers At The Same Time
Knowing all of Britain knows what happens this season is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. I Google spoilers and then immediately cover my eyes like Medusa just came around the corner. It's a problem.
11. You Can't Stop Talking About Poldark
What do you mean there's other TV? There is only Poldark with the romance and the drama and the flowing hair. Seriously, unless you want to talk about potential Poldark and Demelza kissage, I just cannot focus on what you are saying to me right now.
I want to say my Poldark love is a problem, but if it is, then it's the best problem ever.
Images: BBC; Giphy (11)
Note: A previous version of this article said Ross Poldark was back from the Civil War, when in fact he has returned from the Revolutionary War.An entire sector of the federal government is held hostage by the last century.
The death spiral of the gas tax, and the other broken user-fees, demand we reform federal transportation funding, harness emerging technology, and guide the autonomous vehicle revolution.
The powerful disruptive force of car sharing services like Uber and Lyft will rapidly be joined by autonomous vehicle technology. A huge part of our economy and culture—the American way of life designed around the automobile for the last century—will change. Our challenge is to use that change to solve problems rather than create new ones, and maintain and tailor our existing infrastructure for the future.
WIRED Opinion About Earl Blumenauer represents Oregon's third district, including Portland, in the US Congress.
A Broken System
Congress has spent the better part of a decade bickering about funding instead of planning for the future. The Department of Transportation, tasked with financing, building, and maintaining our nation’s roads and transit networks, relies on a funding source from 1993. Because of Congressional inaction, the federal gas tax has remained frozen for 23 years, losing nearly 40 percent of its value during that time from inflation and increasing fuel efficiency.
Today, the federal government spends at least $16 billion more a year on transportation projects than it takes in, and yet still cannot keep our nation’s infrastructure in a state of good repair. By the time President Obama signed a five-year transportation bill last December, Congress had passed nearly 40 short-term extensions, forcing states and local governments, labor, and businesses to plan projects with just a few months at a time of federal support. The five-year bill required moving more than $70 billion around the federal budget with accounting gimmicks and smoke and mirrors.
It takes one look at our changing world to see the current funding challenge is the tip of iceberg. I’ve spent my career fighting for innovation and creativity in our transportation system, from starting the bike planning program for the City of Portland in the 1990s to strengthening tax benefits for transit commuters in Congress.
I’ve never seen a combination of technological changes converge with this level of speed and intensity before.
A New Challenge
It’s not just the potential job loss for drivers who hold the most common job in 29 states, or the millions of other jobs in car sales, repair, and insurance. Driverless cars soon will make obsolete infrastructure like downtown parking garages and 12-foot wide lanes, when a driverless car will only need seven feet to navigate flawlessly. That public space could be converted to affordable housing, bike lanes, and pedestrian plazas. Unless we start planning now, we’ll still be paying for these monuments to the past.
Fleets of autonomous—and likely electric—driverless cars will contribute little in traditional transportation user fees like gas taxes, parking fees, and traffic fines, leaving governments facing ever bigger holes in infrastructure budgets. Without reliable revenue, policymakers from city councils to the halls of Congress will be unable to plan for and deliver transportation projects, construction of new infrastructure, and even basic maintenance.
The largest generations in American history are driving the urban resurgence. Millennials prefer transit and travel options to being tethered to a vehicle, while Baby Boomers are rapidly aging to the point where driving themselves is no longer an option. It’s easy to imagine them embracing on-demand driverless cars that won’t have to be parked, and that can turn a car commute of any length into a time to relax, work, or socialize. Depending on how we value mobility and the shared space of our streets and highways, our cities could become even more congested and unequal, especially if electric and hybrid vehicle owners pay less and less for use of the roads while drivers of older, less fuel efficient cars have to make up the difference.
What We Need to Do
For the last 15 years, Oregon has been exploring a replacement to the gas tax based on vehicle miles traveled, a more accurate and fairer way to make sure drivers pay for the roads they enjoy. In the Oregon pilot project, a volunteer plugs a device into their vehicle that records miles driven and fuel consumed, and is sent an invoice or a refund depending on the state gas tax already paid at the pump.
We must seize this opportunity to get back in driver’s seat of federal transportation funding, or get run over.
That same data collection, reporting, and debiting could come standard in new cars tomorrow, providing a payment platform that could be used to pay for insurance, parking, existing tolls, and other location-based services. Integration of this miles traveled charge into market-ready and emerging vehicle technology can provide data to drive transportation planning decisions.
It can also be tailored to charge for actual system use by adding modest fees for driving during peak travel times—known as congestion pricing. Commuting on the Capital Beltway during rush hour puts much more stress on the transportation network than driving through a Portland neighborhood on a Sunday. Paying the same per mile just doesn’t make sense. In addition to Oregon, California is launching a pilot this summer, and other states like Washington aren’t far behind.
Standardizing these requirements for manufacturers will unlock opportunities for entrepreneurs. It will allow policymakers to make up the revenue lost in fuel, fully paying for current infrastructure investments and allowing flexibility for congestion pricing and tolling. The platform can be used to incentivize thoughtful planning and integration of semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles at the local level. Most important, a charge based on actual miles driven provides a stable and dedicated revenue source going forward. This will give us the certainty to look ahead instead of searching for ways to pay for last year’s road maintenance.
The autonomous vehicle future should be bright, but unless we seize this opportunity to get back in driver’s seat of federal transportation funding, we’ll get run over. The stakes couldn’t be higher.Gravity Rush 2 (Gravity Daze 2 in its homeland) showed me a mix of expected an unexpected.
Being a new first-party PS4 title and sequel to a game that had style to spare, it's no surprise that Gravity Rush 2's visuals were outstanding. Sure. What else ya got?
The same gravity-manipulating power and loveable protagonist of PS Vita classic Gravity Rush are back. Of course they are. What else ya got?
It's got upgrades and expansions to both of those things is what it's got. And also lovin'. Loving is what it's got. (I said remember that.) I'm not joking, a romance between Kat and another cast member was distinctly not ruled out, in a conversation with the director Keiichiro Toyama.
In a presentation by Toyama himself, it was said that the town of Hekseville was treated like a member of the cast, given all the attention a character would. After checking out the city's details, I'll give this hype-up marketing speech my nod of approval. It's lively and good-looking.
Kat has emotes to increase her interaction with Hekesville's residents. I saw Clap, Scare, Greet, and Relax. Players can choose these from a menu and then see the NPCs reactions.
During the live gameplay demonstration and private video showing, there was some definite Dragon Balling going on. I expected Kat to either fuse with an ally or Kamehameha fireball someone any second. In a slight breech of etiquette, I said out loud to the director "Is she gonna fuse!?" at one point. The words just flew out. I couldn't help myself. Hey, we can kid ourselves all we want with our button-up shirts and press badges, but we're just regular people at the end of the day. We're gamers, here, and I got excited. That's no excuse for the amount of urine that later soaked my pants, but it does excuse the yelling. Give me that.
Toyama also wasn't collecting any gems during his play, and it was driving me a little bit insane.
Diving into more Hekseville is one thing, but we're also said to get a lot deeper into Kat's origins in Gravity Rush 2 — finding out where she came from and more how-and-why about her gravity-twisting powers.
Speaking of those powers, they've expanded, and my playable time let me sample a couple of new styles. The Luna style makes Kat lighter and faster and, according to Toyama, is well suited for players just getting used to Gravity Rush. In his play, Toyama wore an all-white outfit available only with pre-orders and kind of reminiscent of a wedding dress. Because hey, what good is a waifu if you can't have her wear a pretty white doresu?
Jupiter Style gave Kat a heavier feel and allowed her to do slam into the ground with a heavy area-of-effect attack, making it good for crowd control. She can also make a big Katamari out of objects and hurl that sucker at enemies.
Kat's pipe house makes a return, this time with customizable furniture layouts and upgrades.
Gravity Rush 2 now includes a photo mode. I didn't try it out myself, because I was too busy not giving a shit, but in the gameplay demonstration, the director was very excited to have Kat take selfies all over town and add things to the picture. From a menu, he added vegetables and the head of a dead boar to his photo, because those are always the things I wish I had when I take scenic pictures.
Kat can crouch, change costumes, add as many dead boars as you like,and do other stuff in the photos. You can then send them directly to your friends. "Photo Spots" are all over the world, and if you find them, you can, I don't know, feel good about that or something.
I have an audio note from the demonstration, "Home boy plays this game weirdly," but I don't remember what I meant by that.
Kat had to pass through a gravity storm — okay — to get to a mining area for a quest. I noticed auto-saving going on. Did the first game do that? I think maybe it did. I don't remember. So there Kat was, destroying stuff and mining materials. Toyama equipped a special talisman that allowed him to pick up more objects with Kat's gravity grab, upping the max from four to six. Other talismans will give Kat various benefits.
During my own play time, the old town felt new again, and this PS4 installment seemed to lock in the feel of the Vita original. I haven't played Gravity Rush in years, but I picked up the controls and felt right at home, even in the new alternative play styles.
After the gameplay showcase, the floor was open for questions. I had very little time, so I fired off the important stuff.
Me: Is the Vita-to-PS4 remaster free on all PSN Stores Worldwide, or only a few? Sony PR Rep: Japan is a different day than Asia, so it got the game yesterday. As far as I know, that's it. Me: Do you mean that the date might vary, but the Gravity Rush Remaster is coming free to PS Plus worldwide? Sony PR Rep: Maybe not America or Europe. I'm not sure about that. Me: You mentioned that one of those skills would be well suited for Gravity Rush beginners. Do you expect a lot of people to be making this their first Gravity Rush title? Toyama: Before you get that style, you get a more traditional style like the first Gravity Rush, so it'll get you used to the standard style and then move you on. Me: "How well did the PS4 remaster of the Vita game sell?" Toyama: I decline to answer.
And that's my TGS experience with Gravity Rush 2. Read more of my stellar TGS coverage here.I do love myself some Breaking Bad. Okay first time around I watched the first two episodes and didn’t like it, but last year my co-worker nagged me into watching the first 3-4 episodes… And I did. And I loved it after that! And of course, I love House M.D. as well.
So when I now think of great TV series that has concluded I usually think of those two shows. That gave me this idea for a comic a while back, but never got around to drawing it. Until now
The funny thing is that a couple of days ago Bryan Cranston (Walter White from Breaking Bad) hinted at the media with the possibility of more Breaking Bad! :O So of course, I had to upload this comic. That was just a nice surprise and a nice coincidence And I am not complaining!
Anyway. I’d love to see this show being made! House removes Walter’s cancer, Walter goes into remission and supplies House with drugs goes into buisness once again with House.
A guy can always dream, right?(Ford Motor Company Press Release)
The Shelby GT350 Mustang will lead the field to green ahead of NASCAR’s final race, the Ford EcoBoost 400 which will determine the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship.
Joe Hinrichs, Executive Vice President and President, the Americas for Ford Motor Company, will pilot a Shelby GT350 Mustang as honorary pace car driver.
The 2015 Ford Championship Weekend marks the 14th year Ford has served as title sponsor of the NASCAR finale.
For the past 13 years, Ford Motor Company has showcased innovative, fun to drive and downright impressive performance vehicles to NASCAR fans around the world as part of the season-ending Ford Championship Weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Year 14 is no exception as the 2016 Shelby GT350 Mustang will lead the field to green in the season-ending and championship-deciding Ford EcoBoost 400 Sunday (Nov. 22) afternoon with Ford Motor Company Executive Vice President and President, the Americas, Joe Hinrichs behind the wheel.
“The Shelby GT350 Mustang is the most track-capable Mustang ever, making it the perfect pace car for the Ford EcoBoost 400 during Ford Championship Weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway,” Hinrichs said. “This is a great chance for the fans at Homestead, and millions more watching around the world, to see the new GT350 in action. Knowing this race will determine NASCAR’s 2015 champion makes it even more special.”
2015 marks the third straight year Mustang has paced the Ford Championship Weekend premier event, joining the 50th Anniversary Edition Mustang in 2014 and the Need for Speed Mustang in 2013.
One of Mustang’s most iconic performance nameplates of all time, the Shelby GT350 builds on the dramatically improved sixth-generation Mustang to create a truly special driving experience.
Under the hood is a high-revving, free-breathing 5.2-liter V8. It is the first-ever Ford production V8 with a flat-plane crankshaft. It is also the most-powerful naturally aspirated Ford production engine ever, generating 526 horsepower and 429 foot-pounds of torque.
The GT350’s ultra-quick responsiveness comes from Ford’s first-ever application of continuously controlled MagneRide shock absorbers. This system electronically monitors and adjusts the suspension thousands of times per second for optimum performance and a dynamic driving experience.
The GT350’s brakes are the biggest and most powerful ever installed on a production Mustang. This Ford-designed system features massive, two-piece cross-drilled iron discs mounted to aluminum hats, which reduces un-sprung weight and reduces heat transfer into the hub and bearing. They are clamped at the front by Brembo six-piston calipers, and four-piston calipers at the rear.
Every component and shape of the GT350, which also will pace the NASCAR XFINITY Series Ford EcoBoost 300 race at Homestead on Saturday (Nov. 21), is optimized to work in harmony resulting in a world-class, street-legal race car with everyday drivability and road manners.
The weekend will kick off with the Ford EcoBoost 200 Truck Series race Friday (Nov. 20) with the 2015 F-150 SuperCrew 4x4 model in Lariat trim level pacing the field. It is painted in White Platinum, and has a Camel leather interior.
This marks the 14th year Ford has served as title sponsor of Ford Championship Weekend.USA Today
Dez Wells and Melo Trimble combined for 42 points, giving Maryland a 59-53 home win over Wisconsin on Tuesday night to keep the visiting Badgers from clinching a share of the Big Ten title.
The 14th-ranked Terrapins lead by 11 points at halftime and never trailed over the final 20 minutes, with senior Wells scoring 26 points and freshman Trimble chipping in 16. Trimble scored Maryland's final five points, including on a drive with 33 seconds left that iced the victory.
Wells made 9-of-17 shots from the field and hit all seven of his foul shots, while also adding seven rebounds and four assists, as Maryland ended Wisconsin's 10-game win streak.
The No. 5 Badgers (25-3, 13-2) shot only 38.5 percent but got hot early in the second half to tie the game at 47 on a three-pointer from Bronson Koenig with 6:43 left. Wisconsin only made 6-of-22 from three-point range, with Frank Kaminsky scoring 18 points with eight rebounds and Sam Dekker dropping 14 with nine boards.
Scroll down for all of our real-time updates, analysis, pictures, statistics, tweets and anything else worth noting from this Big Ten clash.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.Now that the season is nearly two-thirds over, you might think that there are no more reasons to question the performance of players who have surprised us this year, both in good and bad ways. With many regulars having amassed 400 plate appearances or more, there's no need to talk about statistical flukes and their impact on Fantasy, right?
Actually, that's wrong. While there are far fewer players with suspicious-looking batting averages at this point in the season, a few candidates for correction still remain. Knowing who they are is still important in Fantasy. What if we had taken Brennan Boesch's.300 average in late July at face value last season? Owners who ignored the high popup rate that signaled that the impending batting average collapse likely left the rookie in their lineups for chunks of August and September, wondering what was going wrong as he rode out the rest of the year at a sub-.200 clip.
Just as Boesch was able to maintain some head-scratching trends through 400-plus plate appearances a year ago, several hitters are currently keeping up improbable streaks that seems as unending as this summer's heat wave. Both will eventually have to end, though.
The graph below isolates the flukiest hitters into "likely lucky" and "likely unlucky" boxes based on their line drive and popup rates. Further below are analyses of four hitters who appear to be beneficiaries of some good luck on balls in play based on their line drive and popup rates, as well as another four who need to appease the BABIP gods. I've also added four hitters who have stats that may look fluky, but their line drive and popup rates suggest otherwise. Stats are for all games played through Monday, July 25.
Who has probably been lucky?
Justin Upton, OF, Arizona: With a.301 batting average in late July and a 20/20 season looking like a certainty, Upton appears to be breaking out in a big way. There's much to like about Upton's fourth full season: he's striking out less often, attempting more steals and hitting more flyballs, which in turn has led to more power. With those extra airborne shots, though, have come more flyballs of the infield variety, yet Upton's BABIP has dropped only slightly from previous levels. While Upton could easily top his career-best 26 homers of two years ago, his batting average is likely to sag over the next two months.
Melky Cabrera, OF, Kansas City: Cabrera has wound up being one of the best value picks this year, going late or not at all in standard mixed league drafts, yet ranking among the top dozen outfielders in Rotisserie and Head-to-Head formats. Much of Cabrera's surprising success is owed to his.300 batting average and the run-producing opportunities that it has afforded him. However, Cabrera isn't really any different at the plate now than he was before, as he is still an aggressive contact hitter who tends to produce grounders. It just so happens that he is batting.291 on those ground balls, as opposed to the averages in the.220s that he posted each of the last two seasons. While he's not likely to be the.255 hitter overall that he was a year ago, Cabrera could bear more of a resemblance to that version of himself going forward than to one we've seen more recently.
Dexter Fowler, OF, Colorado: Fowler's early-season struggles earned him a minor-league demotion, but since returning to the Rockies' lineup, he's been nearly unstoppable. Despite a continuing aversion to making contact, Fowler is batting.342 since his recall just over two weeks ago, as he is 13 for 26 (.500) on balls in play. That has lifted his season BABIP to.371 and his overall batting average to.254. Fowler hasn't actually improved his skills, though, and he's striking out and popping up more than he has in past seasons. Part of Fowler's allure as a prospect was his ability to get hits on balls in play, but until he can improve his line drive and popup rates, owners should not assume that his minor league trends will translate to the majors. More to the point, Fowler is striking and popping out too often to maintain even his modest.250s batting average.
Jonathan Lucroy, C, Milwaukee: Lucroy has not been the contact hitter he was last season or in his minor-league years, but he has been rewarded with a.280 batting average that is higher than that from his rookie year or his prior season in Double-A. Lucroy was not a high-BABIP hitter before this year, but in all fairness, he has made strides in his line drive hitting. Nonetheless, his current.342 BABIP is not in line with a still-mediocre 20 percent line drive rate. The downturn has already started for Lucroy, who is having a difficult July (.254 batting average, no extra-base hits). Look for more of the same from here on out.
Who has probably been unlucky?
Albert Pujols, 1B, St. Louis: You're probably not worried about Pujols, but you may very well be curious as to why he ranks just eighth in Rotisserie and Head-to-Head value. A jump of eight percentage points in his ground ball rate has played a role, and it's especially hurt his doubles production (only 14 two-baggers through 88 games). Apparent bad luck has left its mark, too, as The Machine is posting a career-worst.248 BABIP. Given that Pujols is popping out infrequently and he's on a typical home run and strikeout pace, it's almost shocking that he's batting just.275. There's nothing wrong with Albert, and owners should continue to view him as one of the elite producers in Fantasy.
Angel Pagan, OF, N.Y. Mets: In the short-term, Pagan is a source of worry for owners, as he is missing time due to dehydration. Longer-term, though, things are looking up for the Mets' center fielder. He is the only hitter who landed in the sweet spot of both "likely unlucky" boxes in the Lucky/Unlucky tool above. This means that there is probably no other hitter as poised to rebound from a subpar BABIP as Pagan is. With slightly favorable line drive and popup rates and a slimmed-down strikeout rate, Pagan should be having an even better season this year than last. Instead, he is hitting a lackluster.232 and is on waivers in 28 percent of the leagues on CBSSports.com. Despite his current health woes, Pagan is an excellent buy-low candidate right now.
Danny Valencia, 3B, Minnesota: All that really separates Valencia's current sophomore season from his rookie campaign is his BABIP on line drives. His rate has sunk from.804 a year ago to.544, which is the fifth-lowest rate in the majors. If not for that, Valencia would be having a season much like he did in 2010. In this context, the 26-year-old's robust July performance looks more like a correction and less like an isolated hot streak. Valencia has more value in a thinned-out third-base market than his 68 percent ownership rate would indicate.
Justin Smoak, 1B, Seattle: As in his rookie season, Smoak is getting weighed down by a low batting average on ground balls, which currently sits at.181. Smoak is not fleet of foot, but even so, his ground ball batting average seems extremely low. Both this season and last, he has ranked behind such speedsters as Adam Lind, Lyle Overbay and David Ortiz in this batted ball stat, and it stands to reason that he should be just as adept at getting ground ball base hits as any of this trio. Smoak has been in an awful funk for most of the year, but it appears that he is due for some better luck sooner than later.
Who has been neither lucky nor unlucky (based on current batted ball rates)?
Mark Teixeira, 1B, N.Y. Yankees: Teixeira's batting average is in its third straight year of decline. Not coincidentally, his popup rate is on the rise for the third straight year. Tex's home run and RBI production aren't suffering under weight of all these shallow flyballs, but in addition to his batting average, his run-scoring is taking a significant hit. Because he is still producing power, Teixeira is managing to hold his value in Head-to-Head leagues, but unless he reverses his popup trend, he will have a hard time keeping up with the first base elite in Rotisserie.
Vernon Wells, OF, L.A. Angels: Since 2008, only Chris Young has popped out more than Wells, but Wells is working hard to overtake his Diamondback counterpart. He has increased an already-hefty popup rate, and in a related story, Wells also owns the majors' third-lowest line drive rate. Add in a dash of poor strike zone judgment, and you have the perfect recipe for a.220 batting average. With all of Wells' long-term trends tracking in the wrong direction, there is little hope for him to raise that mark. Worse yet, he is not hitting for power at his new pitcher-friendly home park, so there's no reason to start Wells in most mixed leagues when he has a full slate of games at Angel Stadium.
Michael Bourn, OF, Houston: Despite being one of the faster players in the game, until recently, Bourn had not been able to utilize his speed to generate a high BABIP, as he hit too few liners and too many grounders. Over the last several weeks, all that has changed. Bourn has been increasing his line drive rate throughout the season, and he now has the second-highest rate among big league hitters. Bourn came into this season as a top Rotisserie outfielder, but now with the ability to hit even more doubles and triples into the gap, Bourn has become a legitimate top 15 outfielder in Head-to-Head formats.
Marlon Byrd, Chicago Cubs: With a.314 batting average, Byrd is hitting 30 points above his career norm. It's no accident, as he leads the major leagues with a 27 percent line drive rate. Byrd is normally an average line drive hitter, so at age 33, this is not likely to be a long-lasting trend. For as long as it continues, though, Byrd will be worth starting in mixed Rotisserie leagues.
Glossary xFIP: Also known as Expected Fielding Independent Pitching. It is an estimate of what a pitcher's ERA would be if it were based on factors that a pitcher can control, such as strikeouts, walks and flyballs. xFIP is a derivative of FIP, which was developed by Tom Tango.
Runs Created per 27 Outs (RC/27) -- An estimate of how many runs a lineup would produce per 27 outs if a particular player occupied each spot in the order; ex. the RC/27 for Miguel Cabrera would predict the productivity of a lineup where Cabrera (or his statistical equal) batted in all nine spots; created by Bill James
Component ERA (ERC) -- An estimate of a what a pitcher's ERA would be if it were based solely on actual pitching performance; created by Bill James
GO/AO -- Ground out-fly out ratio
GB/FB -- Ground ball-fly ball ratio
Batting Average per Balls in Play (BABIP) -- The percentage of balls in play (at bats minus strikeouts and home runs) that are base hits; research by Voros McCracken and others has established that this rate is largely random and has a norm of approximately 30%
Isolated Power -- The difference between slugging percentage and batting average; created by Branch Rickey and Allan Roth
Walk Rate -- Walks / (at bats + walks)
Whiff Rate -- Strikeouts / at bats
Stay in touch with the most passionate Fantasy staff in the business by following us via Twitter. You can also follow Al on Twitter ( @almelcbs ) and can e-mail us your questions to DMFantasyBaseball@cbs.com. Be sure to put By the Numbers in the subject field. Please include your full name, hometown and state.Type in "cooking" in the search bar of YouTube and you'll find a cornucopia of content at your disposal. Because anyone with a video camera, a kitchen and an internet connected computer can host their own cooking show, the videos found on the site range from helpful to head-explodingly horrible.
Writing about those helpful videos would probably be useful and a little post about those horrible ones could be entertaining or mean, depending on the kind of person you are. But that would be impossible. After spending five hours on YouTube watching nothing but how-to cooking videos, the good and the God-awful all just blend together. Unfortunately, the only memorable clips from my viewing marathon were the cringe-worthy, creepy cooking videos.
Continue Reading
For those in need of nightmare fuel, here's a list of five of the creepiest cooking videos on YouTube.
5. Richard Simmons cooking with Celine Dion on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show"
Richard Simmons can haunt your dreams all by himself. Throw in Celine Dion, a late-90s version of Rosie O'Donnell, a not-the-least-bit hilarious diarrhea joke in the first minute of Simmons' appearance and you've got yourself one painful cooking segment. This clip reaches its creepy climax when the flamboyant fitness guru busts out the lollipops.
4. "Cooking with trevista"
It looks like this kid was actually trying to create a YouTube video that was equal parts crappy and creepy at the same time. If so, congratulations are in order. It's classified as a cooking show but all our host really does is throw an orange into a jar of peanut butter in his mom's kitchen while getting way too aggressive and way too close to the camera. You'll want three minutes of your |
of new gameplay shown off at the Xbox briefing here at Gamescom.Congratulations to OG for winning the first Dota 2 Major Championship. They came from the Regional Qualifiers, and went through a seemingly impossible road starting in the Lower Bracket and going through all the way to the Grand Finals. On their way to victory they took down Fnatic, Mineski, Virtus Pro, CDEC Gaming, EHOME and Evil Geniuses. In the Grand Finals they faced off against Team Secret and took the series 3-1.
Following the success of the Dota 2 Asia Championships (DAC) last year, Perfect World will be hosting The Shanghai Major which will take place at the Mercedes Benz Arena from March 2-6, 2016. We’ll be announcing more details such as ticketing information as the event approaches. All roster changes will be locked on December 8th for teams looking forward to participating in the Major.
In other Dota news, we are putting the finishing touches on the Desert Map and the underlying technology, and we’re hoping to have it ready around the middle of December when our next update will be released.TONY SAPIANO Sets of traffic lights near Trafalgar Square had their “walk” and “green man” images replaced
Day-trippers and tourists complained they don’t know which way to turn while crossing streets in central London after being confronted by a series of arrows pointing in different directions. Around 50 sets of traffic lights near busy Trafalgar Square had their “walk” and “green man” images replaced with the new designs in June to coincide with an annual Gay Pride Festival. Officials said the seven different same-sex symbols were designed to show Transport for London’s “support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans diversity” in the capital. The solitary “green man”, who has been featured on UK traffic lights since 1969, has now been joined by a male partner or replaced with two green women holding hands.
Other lights feature pairs of female and male gender symbols, or a transgender symbol which combines elements of both sexes. Father-of-two Anthony Smith said he didn’t know what to do when he saw two female symbols on the green traffic light. Mr Smith, of Preston, Lancashire, said: “When the light went green I saw the two female symbols and I thought, ‘Oh right, so my missus can cross with my little girl but what do me and the boy do?’ “This wouldn’t work up north. If you introduced this in Preston people wouldn’t know what you were going on about. I think it’s just a London thing really.”
TONY SAPIANO
TONY SAPIANO Other lights feature a transgender symbol which combines elements of both sexes
Father-of-three Paul LePatourel, 55, who was visiting the city on holiday with his daughter from their home in Birmingham, said: “Quite frankly, it’s ridiculous. "Fair enough, people are gay or transgender, whatever, I have no problem with that, but to change the traffic lights seems a bit bonkers to me.”
Just let people be who they want Jennifer Riordan
Jennifer Riordan, 26, from Leeds, said: “Does it mean women have to walk on one side and men walk on the other? “I have gay and LGBT friends and they’re not my ‘gay’ friends, they are just my friends. "They are reinforcing this stigma by doing these lights. Don’t draw attention to different gender choices, just let people be who they want.”
TONY SAPIANO Tfl said the changes had been made on a temporary basis but the lights are still in placeWhen Ariane 5 flight VA226 launches on September 30, the orbital slot for the 81 West geostationary position will finally get its long-term dweller that it has been promised for over 17 years. Riding along with the Sky Muster satellite, ARSAT-2 is the second geostationary satellite designed and manufactured in Argentina (and all of Latin America).
The birth of a program:
ARSAT-2 is the younger twin of ARSAT-1. It is a near copy of the first Argentinean geosynchronous orbit satellite, with the only difference being the payload and associated structures.
The story begins with the separation of the Argentine military forces from the national space program in the early 1990s.
Given the dire economic situation of the country and the general disarray of the space program that was struggling to organize itself, the government auctioned the exclusive use of satellite Ku-band in the country.
It was a requirement to occupy the single geostationary slot that was assigned by ITU to the country – the 71.8 West position – before the rights lapsed. Additionally, the ground station, as well as all operators, were to be Argentine.
The winning consortium formed Nahuelsat S.A., which leased the required satellites to keep hold of the orbital rights until it successfully launched the Nahuel 1A to the orbital position by early 1997.
By 1998, DirecTV wanted to enter the local market, since it was the country with the highest per capital cable television penetration in the world.
In exchange for that, Argentina gained the rights to a prime orbital real estate: the 81 West orbital slot.
Not only did it include both Ku and C band right, but instead of just allowing signals to Argentina and neighbors, it included all of the Americas from Alaska to Patagonia.
C band is usually used to distribute television channels among broadcasters, and Ku band small antennas are usually used for direct-to-home television like DirectTV.
Since Argentina is the biggest exporter of Spanish media content in the continent, it was a particularly attractive position for the country.
Also given that the slot goes right through the center of the continental USA – and it was acquired as a trade for allowing DirecTV to enter the television market in Argentina – it could potentially enable to tap the direct-to-home TV market of the USA.
Regrettably, Nahuelsat not only failed to launch the promised Nahuel 2 to the 81 West slot but also failed to order a replacement for the aging Nahuel 1A.
With the imminent failure of the only orbital asset, and without any actual willingness to invest in a replacement, after some negotiations the Nahuelsat stockholders accepted to transfer all assets and obligations to the newly created and government owned ARSAT.
The Geostationary Argentine Communications Satellite System:
Instead of ordering a couple of satellites from the international market – and thanks to the successful experience of the SAC-C and SAC-D – country executive powers decided that ARSAT should acquire the satellites from local companies.
The only real choice was INVAP S.E., a technology company that belongs to the Rio Negro Province and has craved a niche in the research nuclear reactor market and had also been building the national LEO satellites.
With the SAC-D, they had shown that they could work to the stringent NASA engineering standards.
The contract for the ARSAT-1 was thus signed by 2008. While INVAP was the prime contractor, the design rights would belong to ARSAT.
From its very conception by top executive officials, the ARSAT program was supposed to bring the country industrial base to the front of satellite development. This meant that ARSAT and INVAP funded CEATSA an environmental test center that could handle the stringent simulations and size requirements of GEO platforms.
While they did rely on foreign suppliers for some commodity elements, like propulsion engines, solar panels and on board computer hardware, over 50 percent of parts, and all design, qualification and testing was done locally.
Also, every single piece of software was written from scratch by Argentine industry, as was the ground control segment.
With this development, the country could control the specification, design, manufacturing, testing and operations of GEO satellites.
The ARSAT-2:
As the previous satellite based on the ARSAT-3K bus, it is a three ton spacecraft, weighting 2985kg at launch, with a bi-propellant capacity of 1,520 liters.
It has an Astrium S400 main engine, and sixteen S10 thrusters. The bare bus measures 1.8m x 2m x 2.9m and its final dimensions are 2.2m x 2.4m x 4.4m when fully equipped and stowed for launch. Its solar panels span 16.4m when deployed and generate 4.2kW at the end of life, of which 3.5kW are available to the payload.
The platform is three-axis stabilized and uses four reaction wheels, dual inertial measurement units, a fine sun sensor, a Selex star tracker and an infrared earth sensor for orbital maneuvering and determination.
While some commodity components like the thrusters, main composite cylinder or the main computer board were supplied by foreign contractors, over 50 percent of parts were manufactured in Argentina, as well as the whole design, integration and software.
Sophisticated modules like the ACE (the Attitude Control Electronics) and TCE (Thruster Control Electronics), the whole structures, and all software and algorithms were done by INVAP.
This was no small feat since it is the critical part of design that usually more heavily covered by dual-use technology transfer laws -like the American ITAR- and geosynchronous orbital maneuvering is just a small step from interplanetary.
Even the ground control station software and satellite control and telemetry system was built by Argentinean contractors.
This enables control of the whole technology stack of the satellite from production to control without foreign help. A critical step from a national security point of view.
This was also no small feat, with the ARSAT-1 requiring more then 1.3 million man-hours, more than 10km of cable, 1,031m² of carbon fiber composite and generating more than 11,500 design documents.
ARSAT-2’s communication payload was supplied by Thales of France. It consists of 20 Ku-Band transponders, sixteen of 36 Mhz and four of 72Mhz for total bandwidth 864Mhz (or 24 36Mhz equivalent transponders) with one 2m deployable and one 1.3m fixed Gregorian antenna.
The C-Band payload is composed of six transponders, four of 72Mhz and two of 88Mhz, for a total bandwidth of 464Mhz (practically thirteen 36Mhz equivalent transponders) using a single 1.6m deployable antenna.
It will cover all the Americas offering data services as well as television content distribution. This is a strategic asset since Argentina is the leader on broadcast content production for Latin America and ARSAT-2 will enable it to distribute it directly through all the continent.
While the payload was supplied as a whole subsystem by Thales Alenia, the integration even to the physical mating and integration with the bus, was done entirely by INVAP with the contractor just overseeing the procedure.
The ARSAT family future:
While originally the idea was to initially build and launch three satellite, ARSAT-1/2/3, the excellent technical results of the ARSAT-1/2 combo meant that there was no need to launch ARSAT-3 right behind the ARSAT-2.
Originally envisioned as a Ku-band and C-band satellite co-located with ARSAT-2 in the 81 West slot, later strategic consideration switched its mission to a Ka-band multi-spot satellite. Since this would require new slot rights negotiations within the ITU, the project was delayed a while.
Never to lose the chance of converting a delay in an opportunity, ARSAT has signed an agreement with the Ministry of Science and Technology to help to evolve the bus to the most modern technologies.
They are currently trading the ARSAT-3H and ARSAT-3E platforms for the satellites that will come after ARSAT-3 and ARSAT-4. The ARSAT-3H would be a new hybrid platform, that would use chemical propulsion for orbit rising, and electrical propulsion for station keeping. While still weighting around 3 tones, it would have 8.4kW of power at the end of its 15 years expected life, with 6.8kW available to the payload. It would offer a 60% increase in power at the same weight and with an extra cost of just 30%.
The ARSAT-3E would be a purely electrical design that would use the higher efficiency electric propulsion both for orbital maneuvering and station keeping. Purely solar electric satellites, like the Boeing 702SP platform, can usually halve the weight for a given payload power envelope when compared to a purely chemical propulsion system. The increased efficiency would be applied to weight and cost reduction while staying in the ARSAT-3H power envelope.
Being the clear leader in satellite design and manufacturing in Latin America was a huge national effort, and Argentina clearly believes in pushing it forward to the bleeding edge of the world technology.The term “minority,” at least as used to describe racial and ethnic groups in the United States, may need to be retired or rethought soon: by the end of this decade, according to Census Bureau projections released Wednesday, no single racial or ethnic group will constitute a majority of children under 18. And in about three decades, no single group will constitute a majority of the country as a whole.
As the United States grows more diverse, the Census Bureau reported, it is becoming a “plurality nation.”
“The next half century marks key points in continuing trends — the U.S. will become a plurality nation, where the non-Hispanic white population remains the largest single group, but no group is in the majority,” the bureau’s acting director, Thomas L. Mesenbourg, said in a statement.
The new projections — the first set based on the 2010 Census — paint a picture of a nation whose post-recession population is growing more slowly than anticipated, where the elderly are expected to make up a growing share of the populace, and that is rapidly becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. All of these trends promise to shape the nation’s politics, economics and culture in the decades to come.
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The nation’s total population is not expected to hit 400 million until 2051, which is 12 years later than the bureau previously projected, said Jennifer Ortman, a demographer with the Census Bureau. The prediction that the nation’s population will grow more slowly reflects the bureau’s projections that there will be fewer births and fewer immigrants coming to the United States, based on recent trends.Rattlesnake tells their side of the story
Rattlesnake has just released an official statement regarding the alleged exposed article former Speed manager Marco A. Fernandez announced yesterday night, an hour prior to Speed Gaming International's grand final game against DK.
The statement started off with Rattlesnake thanking both Speed Gaming and DK for putting up a good show in MLG Columbus and moved on to explain Fernandez was the one who delayed the players' payment and everything he wrote are blatant lies.
Rattlesnake went on to say Speed Gaming will be going to China to compete in the G-League although they did not indicate if the team will be staying in China after the tournament ends. According to a chatlog posted by Fernandez yesterday, Weir, owner of Rattlesnake, allegedly said Speed Gaming players should not go back to their home country after G-League because there will be more matches in January, presumably to save air ticket expenses.
Rattlesnake statement: First, let me humbly thank everyone for watching MLG the past weekend. Speed Gaming has not let everyone down despite not performing well on day 1; they came back on day 2 and eventually were awarded the MLG Championship. At the same time, we would like to express our greatest respect for our opponents Team DK as one of the strongest teams in China. The grand finals were extremely tense and exciting, and allowed both teams to learn a lot. I hope that Speed will be able to share and learn with the other Chinese teams upon their arrival in China. As for the questions fans have been asking us about the future of Speed Gaming, here are some answers. 1. Speed Gaming.int's previous manager Mark delayed the payment of to the players, and has been fired during the course of MLG. Speed Gaming is an organisation that strongly believes in protecting the players' rights and benefits, and Mark's actions have caused a lot of anger in the team. Whatever Mark has publicised over the course of MLG (including the Speed Gaming twitter) is nonsense.
2. Speed Gaming.int will arrive and meet their fans in China at the start of december. I believe Speed Gaming will become an integral part of the Chinese scene, and become good friends with the other teams in developing Dota in China.
3. Speed Gaming will continue to be sponsored by Speed Private Limited. towards greater success. We condemn the lies and accusations that Mark has posted on Twitter and other websites, and reserve the right to identify who is responsible for this debacle. We hope you fans will continue supporting us!
From the statement, it seems like Rattlesnake is indicating that the five players of the current Speed Gaming will continue to play under the tag and will now be managed by a new manager. The identity of the new manager has not been announced.
Source: Rattlesnake WeiboWe have all been there, amazing recipes that needs to be converted with no doubts. Finally i got time to creates these super handy charts. I am sure many of you (like i did after writing them) will print this. This way you can keep it in the kitchen at your fingertips.
No more confusions and with the oven temperature chart, no more reason for burning stuff 😛
Volume for dry ingredients:
Volume for liquids:
Weights:
Equivalents:
Oven temperature:
Abbreviations:
Teaspoon: tsp
Tablespoon: tbsp
Cup: c
Pint: pt
Quart: qt
Gallon: gal
Milliliter: ml
Liter: l
Ounce: fl. oz.
Pound: lb
Fahrenheit: F
Celsius: C
If you liked this post and found it interesting, follow this blog to stay tuned and like marmite et ponpon facebook page. Spread the love. Happy reading!Mark Sanchez is going back to school.
According to a source, the Jets quarterback began working yesterday with former NFL quarterback Jeff Garcia, who played under Marty Mornhinweg, the Jets’ new offensive coordinator, in San Francisco and Philadelphia.
The 26-year-old Sanchez, who suffered through a miserable 2012 season, is trying to resurrect his career and will spend his time with Garcia picking the former All-Pro’s brain about Mornhinweg and the intricacies of the West Coast offense.
With the Eagles in 2000, Garcia threw for a career-high 4,278 yards and 31 touchdowns while playing under Mornhinweg.
But before Jets fans get too excited, Sanchez tried a similar maneuver before last season when he worked out with ex-Jet and ex-Dolphin quarterback Chad Pennington in an attempt to familiarize himself with Tony Sparano’s offense.
How did that work out?
– Additional reporting by Brian CostelloAuthor: Marshall Schott
I’ve been told I’m a tad sentimental. I don’t necessarily disagree or think that’s such a bad thing. So what if Mufasa’s death at the hand of his dickhead brother made my eyes well? What’s so wrong with the fact that the closing scene in Lucas, where all the jocks slow-clap the return of Corey Haim’s character from the hospital, creates a knot in my throat the size of a cantaloupe? Besides being a cinematic wuss, I also enjoy taking a step back to look at where things have been and where they may be heading, which is the purpose of this post.
| REFLECTIONS |
I started Brulosophy earlier this year with a main goal of creating a place to share and discuss the results of the homebrew experiments I often perform, in addition to talking about the simplification of process and reviewing what I think are cool products. I wasn’t interested in writing about my regular brew days, there were plenty of fantastic blogs out there that already did that; rather, my interest was in providing content that provoked conversation, made people go “huh.” I thought maybe a few folks would enjoy my articles, perhaps some would hate them, but I never expected this silly idea of mine to become such a source of fun for me. While certainly still small and relatively unknown, I regularly receive emails from brewers thanking me for the contributions I’m making to the hobby, messages encouraging me to keep doing what I’m doing, I’ve even been contacted by some of my homebrewing idols! All because of my annoying tendency to question convention? It’s been an interesting adventure so far, one that I look forward to continuing.
I feel like the last year has been one of settling into a spot where I feel comfortable, testing things out, tossing some to the curb, and adapting others to fit. A few months back I started doing video tastings of homebrew sent to me by readers and soon realized it just wasn’t for me, I felt like a pretentious dork sitting in front of a camera talking about another person’s beer from my subjective perspective. Other people are way better at that than I am, so I dropped it. Likewise, data collection for my xBmts originally consisted of asking people to critique 2 beers that had a single variable manipulated, which was way more difficult than I expected! I eventually decided to adapt my method for collecting data by utilizing an online survey tool and a triangle test, both of which have given the results more power and made analysis much easier.
Another weird thing that occurred this last year was the monetization of Brülosophy. This was something I was very apprehensive about, not only because I didn’t want to send readers the wrong message, but because I wasn’t even sure it’d be worth my trouble. The amount of support I’ve received has surprised the hell out of me. Your contributions have helped immensely, allowing me to perform many more exBEERiments than I ever would have been able to otherwise. I often get asked how I’m capable of providing content so often, and the simple truth is because of all you rad people who continue using my affiliate links and visiting the site on a regular basis. Believe me, I still feel very awkward about generating even a small amount of income off of my website, even if it does all get reinvested. This has been an incredibly humbling experience. I know I don’t say it enough, perhaps it goes without saying, but thank you so much!
| RESOLUTIONS |
I’ve never been one to make resolutions, for me they’re sort of like rules– much less likely to be broken when left unspoken. However, I do have some ideas planned for the coming year.
First and foremost, exBEERiments! I have a loose goal to post results at least twice per month, meaning to keep up I’ll be brewing a minimum of 2 exBEERiment batches per month. I’ve already begun organizing a brew calendar, that ought to help keep me on track, and while I certainly plan to test many new things, I’m also excited to start retesting others in order to increase the data pool.
Over the last few months, I’ve heard from quite a few homebrewers who share a philosophy similar to mine, particularly a skeptical perspective of and desire to test convention. A few of these folks have expressed interest in contributing to Brulosophy in one way or another, potentially even writing articles for the site. This is something I hadn’t considered until recently. After giving it some thought, I’ve decided this could be a really cool way to share even more rad ideas and exBEERiment results. I will maintain editorial sway, of course, and promise not to publish anything I think is shit. The purpose in doing this is to continue providing quality content that homebrewers find helpful and interesting. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work and we’ll put the kibosh on it.
It’s been pointed out to me by more than a couple buddies that, since much of my energy goes toward brewing for exBEERiments of late, my focus on brewing super high quality beer has dwindled a bit. They’re right. When I design an exBEERiment recipe, I try to keep it relatively simple so that any potential differences might be more easily noticed. While the beers I make are definitely drinkable and, dare I say, even quite good at times, my days of diving into a particular style and trying to hone in on an award winning recipe are all but over. Not anymore! For 2015, I plan to work on recipes for a few of my favorite styles and maybe even submit them into a few competitions, something I’ve only done haphazardly in the past.
While on the subject of competitions, I am scheduled to take the BJCP tasting exam later this month, I passed the online portion a couple months back. I’ve not discussed this much because, frankly, I still maintain some reservations about it. It’s not that I’ve got anything against competitions or judges, per se, it’s just never been something I’ve had much interest in, for myriad reasons including my conviction that sensory experience is totally subjective, the time commitment, and my own insecurities– do I really think I have the ability to accurately judge someone else’s beer, a beer they worked hard to create and probably think is awesome? It took a few months, but I’ve finally been convinced there is some value in becoming a judge, especially since there aren’t many in the area I live. I’m doing this thing, and who knows, maybe a whole new world will be opened up to me. Or I’ll bomb the tasting exam, left only to wallow in heaps of self-pity and mediocre homebrew.
I have been considering bringing back homebrew tasting videos, though I’m still trying to figure out how to do it without coming across as a douchy know-it-all and making it interesting enough to want to watch. I mean no offense at all to the dudes out there who really enjoy making/watching standard “here’s-this-beer-watch-me-taste-and-talk-about-it” videos, but they’re not for me. At the very most, I think I’d only post one video every 6-8 weeks, and there’d have to be some compelling reason for it. I’m not quite sure what this might be, if you have any ideas, please don’t hold back!
A number of people have asked if I ever plan to sell Brulosophy merchandise, stuff like t-shirts and caps. As much as I like the idea of people wearing their support, I’m not terribly sure how I’d even approach something like this. If this interests you or if you know more about this type of thing than me (I know nothing), please let me know. I’ve no set-in-stone plans at this point, but I’m definitely open to exploring the option if people are interested.
Finally, I will be attending my first National Homebrewer’s Conference this year and I couldn’t be more excited! I’ve not attended in the past for numerous reasons (grad school, too expensive, babies, etc), but this year I am committed, a hotel room is already booked. What only a few people know is that I submitted a couple proposals to speak at NHC this year. I’ve heard back that one was not accepted, though as of the writing of this article, I’ve yet to hear from the Board about the second proposal I submitted, titled A Skeptic’s Guide to Homebrewing. While I’ve never been one for public speaking, I’m excited about the opportunity to potentially blowhard about this stuff I spend so much time doing and thinking about. Regardless of whether my proposal is accepted or not, I’ll still be at the conference enjoying the company of other badass homebrewers. I hope to see you there!
All in all, 2014 has been a fantastic year filled with experiences I never imagined, small as they may seem to some. I’ve learned so much since starting Brulosophy and look forward to all the interesting things to come. I sincerely hope you all have the happiest of New Years celebrations and would like to extend a very hearty cheers to everyone!
If ever you’re around my neck of the woods, hit me up, I’m always happy to meet up with cool people and share some of the beer I make. As always, never hesitate to shoot me exBEERiment suggestions, questions, or comments, I always try to respond promptly.
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Like this: Like Loading...Abstract Objective The aim of the study is to evaluate the long-term near-transfer effects of computerized working memory (WM) training on standard WM tasks in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Method Sixty-seven children aged 10–12 years in Vestfold/Telemark counties (Norway) diagnosed with F90.0 Hyperkinetic disorder (ICD-10) were randomly assigned to training or control group. The training group participated in a 25-day training program at school, while the control group received treatment-as-usual. Participants were tested one week before intervention, immediately after and eight months later. Based on a component analysis, six measures of WM were grouped into composites representing Visual, Auditory and Manipulation WM. Results The training group had significant long-term differential gains compared to the control group on all outcome measures. Performance gains for the training group were significantly higher in the visual domain than in the auditory domain. The differential gain in Manipulation WM persisted after controlling for an increase in simple storage capacity. Conclusion Systematic training resulted in a long-term positive gain in performance on similar tasks, indicating the viability of training interventions for children with ADHD. The results provide evidence for both domain-general and domain-specific models. Far-transfer effects were not investigated in this article. Trial Registration: Controlled-Trials.com ISRCTN19133620
Citation: Hovik KT, Saunes B-K, Aarlien AK, Egeland J (2013) RCT of Working Memory Training in ADHD: Long-Term Near-Transfer Effects. PLoS ONE 8(12): e80561. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0080561 Editor: Evelyn Kroesbergen, Langeveld Institute, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Received: April 30, 2013; Accepted: October 2, 2013; Published: December 9, 2013 Copyright: © 2013 Hovik et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: Funding from a grant from the Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Eastern & Southern Norway and a grant from The Norwegian Resource Center for ADHD, Tourette and Narcolepsy. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Introduction Studies consistently show working memory (WM) to be impaired in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) [1]. WM processes mediate a range of cognitive skills contributing to lower academic performance [2] and poorer adaptive functioning in major life activities for young adults with ADHD [3]. Proponents of computerized WM training advocate the use of training programs to treat the cognitive deficits associated with ADHD, and point to studies suggesting that children with ADHD can improve their WM by practicing on adaptive computer-based programs [4], [5]. However, the effectiveness of WM training has been seriously questioned recently [6], [7], and the lack of a theoretical consensus on the construct working memory [8], [9] complicates the interpretation of results from intervention studies. Computerized training studies involving children with ADHD commonly assess WM by administering tasks measuring WM capacity [7], [10]. Most of these training studies presume a two-component view of WM, consisting of 1) transient storage of information, and 2) manipulation of information remembered transiently [4], [5], [11], [12]. A distinction between visual and auditory modalities is also common in these studies [5], [11]–[13]. For all practical purposes, the storage and manipulation components of WM are equivalent to the specific temporary memory systems and separate resources (slave systems) supporting processing and multitask coordination (Central Executive) in the Multicomponent Model proposed by Baddeley [14], [15]. The model divides the role of attention in controlling action into two distinct mechanisms; one which is automatic and the other that is attentionally demanding, for example, when encountering a novel problem [16]. Several brain areas and networks are likely involved in WM processes, but considerable evidence suggests that activation in the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex correlates with increasing manipulation load on WM tasks [17], [18]. It is precisely the manipulation aspect of WM that is thought to be impaired in children with ADHD as a result of frontostriatal dysfunction [1] and/or energetic dysfunction in pre-frontal systems [19], [20]. The brain's plasticity has been documented even in adults [21]–[23], and preadolescents are undergoing dynamic changes in grey and white matter substance as a natural part of their development [24]. Changes may be easily precipitated in young brains already undergoing dynamic change, but a central question is whether the effect of the change through training applies to similar (near) or dissimilar (far) tasks. Although a taxonomy of learning transfer has yet to be accurately described [25], near-transfer of learning refers to a gain in skill within the same training context; far-transfer, on the other hand, refers to the functional transfer of learning from one training context to anothe`r. A clear distinction should therefore be made between a gain in task-related performance and a gain in ability. Similar to any athlete training individual components of his or her sport, however, the precise relationship of how an improvement in a specific skill contributes to an overall ability is not always straight-forward. The indirect effects on measures of WM are published elsewhere [26]. The current examination of the effects of a computerized WM training program focuses exclusively on the near-transfer effects of such training. The theoretical separation of learning transfer effects is relevant to the current debate about the WM construct that revolves around whether WM resources are separable into pools of domain-specific resources (e.g. visuospatial and auditory WM) [27]–[29] or are better accounted for in a domain-general model, in which a centralized component (e.g. The Central Executive) operates on information in short-term, domain-specific storage components [14], [30]. The pattern of near-transfer effects from training intervention studies could contribute to the theoretical debate by identifying the impact of specific training on domain-specific versus domain-general components of WM. Most PC-based training studies on children with ADHD administer a battery of tests and report gains on particular WM measures. Strong criticism has been raised of the single-test approach to assessing cognitive functions [10]. Due to the diffuse nature of the WM construct, single tests alone should not be interpreted as an increase in function. Multiple tasks tapping the same construct but differing in other respects (e.g. design, modality) provide a more robust outcome measure [10] and a more powerful predictive tool [31]. In response to this criticism, the current study uses composite measures grouped empirically through a component analysis to assess the impact of training on the WM construct. The subjects in the study were tested with six tasks assumed to measure aspects of WM. In response to the criticism leveled at using single task scores, the six measures were grouped in composite scores based on a principal component analysis. First, when comparing the performance by the training group to the control group, we expect that there should be a significant gain by the training group compared to the control group on all composites as a consequence of having trained systematically on similar tasks over a five-week period. Second, we expect any improvement to be most evident in composites relating to the visual domain, as the exercises in the WM training program are presented predominantly visually (only 4 of 13 depend on auditory input). Third, if the component analysis yields a manipulation composite that is differentially improved by training, we need to investigate whether it represents an actual increase in the manipulation system or is merely an artifact of increased storage capacity reducing the cognitive load on the controlled manipulation tasks. In order to test for this, we will control for an increase in simple storage capacity. An increase in manipulation beyond a gain in simple storage capacity may be an indication of a genuine improvement in the executive component of WM. The persistence of the predicted gains for the training group compared to control group over the long term is unclear due to the lack of published studies showing lasting effects from training on similar WM measures [6].
Methods Participants The flow of participants in the study is presented in Figure 1. The protocol for this trial and supporting Consort checklist are available as supporting information, see Checklist S1 and Protocol S1 and S2. PPT PowerPoint slide
PowerPoint slide PNG larger image
larger image TIFF original image Download: Figure 1. The diagram specifies the flow of participants through the enrollment, allocation, follow-up and analysis phases of the RCT study. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0080561.g001 Candidates for the study were recruited by their therapist. They had to be 10–12 years of age and previously diagnosed at specialist outpatient clinics with F90.0 Hyperkinetic disorder (ICD-10) (WHO, 1992), equivalent to the DSM-IV diagnosis of ADHD combined type, and in treatment for ADHD within the Departments for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Vestfold or Telemark Hospital Trusts, Norway. Exclusion criteria were IQ below 70 (WISC-III or WISC-IV), or a comorbid diagnosis of Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Tourette's Syndrome, Conduct Disorder or evidence of psychosis or epilepsy. Only one candidate was excluded based on the exclusion criteria. Seventy two of the original 77 children recruited to participate in the study completed the study. Of the 72 children completing the study, five children were omitted from the analyses presented here due to changes in medication during the project period. Of the 67 children included in the presented analyses, forty-one of the participants were medicated with methylphenidate (MPH) |
and pieces of ‘digital network intelligence’ logged from Mexico daily, in order to find that nugget of information about energy policy that’s going to get you noticed? For all the doomsaying certainty of the news stories that have periodically filled front pages since early June we are still in the dark about most of the NSA’s actual methods and day to day activities. The NSA employs more than thirty thousand people and has an annual budget of nearly $11 billion; outside its headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland, it operates major facilities in Georgia, Texas, Hawaii and Colorado, and staffs listening posts around the world. The leaks are, at best, a series of tiny windows into a giant fortress. It’s still hard to spy on the activity within.
The documents we’ve seen – a fraction of the total number in the hands of Guardian and Washington Post journalists – are a blur of codenames. EVILOLIVE, MADCAPOCELOT, ORANGECRUSH, COBALTFALCON, DARKTHUNDER: the names are beguiling. But they don’t always tell us much, which is their reason for existing: covernames aren’t classified, and many of them – including the names of the NSA’s main databases for intercepted communications data, MAINWAY, MARINA, PINWALE and NUCLEON – have been seen in public before, in job ads and resumés posted online (these have been collected over the years by a journalist called William Arkin, who has written several books on American secrecy and maintains a useful blog). It’s been a feature of the coverage that the magic of the words has been used to stand for a generalised assertion of continuous mass surveillance. On 29 September the New York Times ran a story reporting that MAINWAY was being used ‘to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections’. The next day, not wanting to have its thunder stolen, the Guardian, which after all owned the Snowden story, having broken it, ran a front-page piece saying that MARINA provided the ability to look back on the past 365 days of a user’s internet browsing behaviour. The only new piece of information in the story – new in the sense that it hadn’t been already been reported in the Guardian – was the business of the year’s worth of history. It was a case of my database is scarier than yours.
One reason for the uncertainty over what these things are for and how they work is that the leaked documents aren’t everything you might hope. The ones which have been relied on most heavily in the coverage are PowerPoint presentations that are usually described as ‘training slides’, even though – in the sections which have been made public, at least – they tend not to explain how a particular system is used. They are more like internal sales brochures aimed at the analysts, bigging up the benefits of one method over all the others. ‘PRISM,’ one introductory slide says, ‘The SIGAD Used Most in NSA Reporting.’[*] A series of bar charts shows how relatively rubbish other forms of collection are by comparison. The presentation’s author, PRISM’s own collection manager, proudly notes the ‘exponential’ growth in the number of requests made through the system for Skype data: 248 per cent. ‘Looks like the word is getting out about our capability against Skype.’
The system about which most detail is given, thanks to a presentation that begins with the question ‘What can you do with XKEYSCORE?’, sells itself by advertising – in a bullet-pointed list – its ‘small, focused team’ that can ‘work closely with the analysts’. There’s some geeky speak of Linux clusters and the Federated Query Mechanism – which simultaneously searches current traffic at all of the NSA’s collection sites around the globe – as well as a strong sense of startup culture: XKEYSCORE’s philosophy is ‘deploy early, deploy often’, a weaponised version of the Silicon Valley mantra beloved of Facebook engineers, ‘ship early, ship often’. Some handy use cases are listed: find everyone using PGP encryption in Iran, find everyone in Sweden visiting an extremist web forum. ‘No other system’ – these words highlighted in red – ‘performs this on raw unselected bulk traffic.’ There’s an endorsement from the Africa team, declaring that XKEYSCORE gave it access to stuff from the Tunisian Interior Ministry that no other surveillance system had managed to catch. It’s not unlike a washing powder ad. One of the things these slides are most revealing of is the marketplace within the NSA. At your desk in S2C41, as you sit down to find the best way to home in on dodgy goings-on by senior Mexicans, you have a whole menu of sexy tools to choose from.
The sales-speak nature of this material means that it can be misleading. It was the PRISM system – which the reports said gave the NSA ‘direct access’ to the servers of some of Silicon Valley’s biggest and most beloved companies, including Facebook, Google, Apple and YouTube – that dominated the headlines when the leaks first hit. The idea that the genius behind your perfectly engineered iPhone and the friendly souls behind the colourful Google logo had willingly collaborated with the electronic eavesdroppers to hand over the full set of keys to their multibillion-dollar server farms – when there was no law that could require them to do so – was a shock to many. It was also at some level outlandish: in most cases (if you leave aside Apple), the data the company possesses is what generates its phenomenal value, and it was hard to imagine that this commercially priceless property would be freely shared with anyone, let alone with the government. (Ayn Randist libertarian capitalists don’t like government.) The internet companies themselves categorically denied any knowledge of the PRISM programme, or anything like it.[†]
But ‘collection directly from the servers’ was what the slides said, and the implication was that the full unencrypted traffic from everyone’s favourite web services was being piped wholesale into the NSA’s databases. The implication turned out to be wrong. What happens is that an NSA analyst ‘tasks’ PRISM by nominating a ‘selector’ – meaning an email address or username – for collection and analysis. In other words, PRISM allows an NSA worker to submit a request, which is invariably granted, to monitor an individual Gmail account or Yahoo identity or Facebook profile and have all its activity sent back to the NSA. (In this context, ‘direct access’ is accurate: if a selector has been approved for monitoring, the NSA has access to it in real time.) One of the slides the Guardian didn’t disclose – it appeared a few days later in the Washington Post – showed a screenshot of the tool used to search records retrieved through PRISM. The total count of records in the database – in April, when the slide was made – was 117,675. It’s worth looking at that number. Facebook has a billion users: half of the internet-connected population of the planet has an account. The fraction of those whose full unencrypted activity the NSA was actively monitoring can be no more than 0.01 per cent. This isn’t to pretend that the NSA high-mindedly refrains from seeking access to our baby pictures or inane comments on other people’s baby pictures. But it does suggest that you don’t fill in a form to access a random Mexican’s timeline unless you expect to get something out of it.
Another slide the Guardian withheld – it published only five of the 41 in the full presentation, citing security concerns, though the wish for maximum impact could be another reason for the choice – describes the PRISM ‘tasking process’. The slide shows a flowchart of mind-numbing complexity. After the analyst puts selectors into the Unified Targeting Tool, they are passed to S2 FAA Adjudicators in Each Product Line and to Special FISA Oversight and Processing (SV4), before going to a third department, Targeting and Mission Management (S343), pending Final Targeting Review and Release. Somewhere at the bottom of the line the approved request gets handed over to the FBI’s Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU), the external body which actually interfaces with whichever internet company the NSA needs data from. (You can see why Facebook, Google et al have found it so easy to maintain that they aren’t systematically feeding the NSA.) The internet company hands over the requested data to the FBI – in 90 per cent of cases with no questions asked – and the information is then processed and ingested into NSA databases for all analysts to enjoy.
As ever, the blandly obscurantist codes give little sense of what is actually going on, and it’s easy to suppose – as many do – that all this meaningless superstructure is designed merely to give a semblance of due process to a system that has none. But in fact the arrangement has its devilish logic, each coded unit standing for a whole subsection of the NSA’s huge, hydra-headed military bureaucracy. The full extent of this bureaucracy is one of the most valuable lessons of the leaks. S2 is ‘analysis and production’, S3 ‘data acquisition’. S35 and its subcodes refer to Special Source Operations, the department responsible for conducting the delicate task of arranging ‘partnerships’ with entities that can give the NSA access to data that can’t be reached by any other means: cable companies, internet backbone providers, the maintainers of the switches and relays that keep global communications whirring. It is these arrangements that give rise to many of the more spectacular covernames that have been seen recently: MONKEYROCKET, SHIFTINGSHADOW, YACHTSHOP, SILVERZEPHYR. The type of data these sources provide, whether phone or internet records, is lightly classified: it’s merely secret. The area the source is targeted at – say, counterterrorism in the Middle East – is classified top secret. How the NSA has actually gone about getting hold of these data streams – through what pressure put on what companies by what means – is so sensitive that none of the documents we’ve seen even hints at it.
SILVERZEPHYR (SIGAD US-3273) is a source of particular interest to our man on the Mexico desk. It delivers data from Central and South America, serving up phone and fax metadata, as well as internet records – both metadata and content. An impressive demonstration of what can be achieved with it appears in an NSA presentation that was released last month to Fantástico, a Brazilian news programme, by Glenn Greenwald, the chief shepherd of the Snowden leaks. The presentation is a case study to show the benefits of creating ‘contact graphs’, ‘a useful way of visualising and analysing the structure of communication networks’. The slides describe a two-week ‘surge’ operation that S2C41 carried out in the final month of the 2012 presidential campaign against Enrique Peña Nieto, who was then leading in the polls, and nine of his closest advisers.
The analysts first tasked their systems with ‘seed’ selectors, representing the phone numbers of Peña Nieto and the advisers. Using MAINWAY – the database, you’ll remember, that allows for analysis of phone metadata and the relationships between numbers – S2C41 then produced a ‘two-hop’ contact graph, to show everyone each seed communicated with, and everyone those people communicated with too. Further analysis of the graph showed who in the network was most significant, including targets who until then hadn’t been known. It was then a cinch to run the content of all text messages sent from and received by these significant numbers through a system called DISHFIRE, which extracted any messages that were ‘interesting’. Among these messages were lists of names of the people who would be given senior positions in a Peña Nieto administration. Six months after Peña Nieto’s election, all the people listed had joined the government. A case study like this shows why you really do need all the systems at your disposal to do useful work at the NSA. It’s also a good primer in how to learn things that are unknown to anybody other than the Mexican president-elect, and perhaps his wife.
*
There are rarely complaints in the US media about the practice of spying on leaders and diplomats from foreign countries. It has always been seen as a relatively uncontroversial part of the NSA’s mission, and indeed of the way international affairs are conducted. The Snowden leaks have revealed some recent operations, such as a successful effort to crack the UN’s videoconferencing system, and an infiltration of the EU’s new building on New York’s Third Avenue. These have only been reported in detail in Der Spiegel: the Anglophone press barely cares. It’s hard not to get the impression that international meetings are invariably bugged, and delegates’ phones monitored, to give the home team an advantage in negotiations. The last time there was a significant scandal in the UK about this kind of activity was in 2003, when Katharine Gun, a translator for GCHQ, leaked an email she had been sent by an NSA official asking for her assistance in eavesdropping on member states’ discussions to help force a favourable UN resolution on Iraq. Clare Short, Tony Blair’s international development secretary, claimed that she was given transcripts of Kofi Annan’s bugged conversations at around the same time. It usually takes something like an imminent war to bring such intelligence-gathering to light, but it has gone on since at least the days of Herbert Yardley, the director in the 1920s of the Cipher Bureau, a precursor to the NSA, who helpfully explained his methods in a bestselling memoir called The American Black Chamber.
It might be reassuring to imagine that the US surveillance complex is secretly busy with nothing more sweeping than an old-school foreign surveillance operation, keeping an eye on bigwigs from unfriendly countries. The legend goes that Yardley’s operation was closed down by Hoover’s secretary of state, Henry Stimson, who supposedly said: ‘Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.’ What a nice sentiment. Of course, there’s no evidence that he said any such thing, and the moment the Cipher Bureau was shut in 1929 its files were transported from New York to Washington by the man who had been appointed to head its successor organisation. ‘Immediate steps were taken,’ William Friedman later wrote, ‘completely to reorganise the bureau and its work.’ Along with the files went the secret agreements with the telegraph companies, such as Western Union, which would lend out telegrams for analysis before delivering them. The telegraph companies weren’t always comfortable with the arrangement, but it kept going in one form or another until after the Second World War, when legal orders came into force to compel all the major providers to share the communications they were handling with the organisation that was about to be called the NSA. The programme was called SHAMROCK, and it persisted until the late 1970s, when Senator Frank Church started investigating the NSA’s activities, declaring them to be potentially intrusive on the lives of ordinary Americans. Church’s high-profile investigations led to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, a law which seemed to give more freedom to citizens but was also followed – we now know – by the introduction of a new programme to replace the now outlawed SHAMROCK. BLARNEY – a comfortably familiar Irish name – got going the year FISA was passed and is still a significant presence in the Snowden files.
And then there was 9/11. The President’s Surveillance Program (PSP) authorised broad new powers to collect and analyse Americans’ communications without a warrant. It was, at first, highly secret: the NSA’s own inspector general wasn’t told of its existence until well after it had launched. Gradually the news spread and in 2004 a New York Times reporter, James Risen, started looking into it. The response was dramatic: the Times was dissuaded from publishing its story about it for nearly a year, and in the interim the NSA rushed to find new legal authorities to maintain the supply of information it had come to find so useful. By the time the news was public, alternative systems were already in place, and they were eventually enshrined in a 2008 amendment to FISA, FAA, the authority under which programmes such as PRISM now operate.
Every time one of the spies’ methods comes under the spotlight, questions of legality arise. The law is changed, purportedly to stop such abuses happening again. But inevitably the new law includes a new route by which some version of the old system is made valid again, and a programme that once had to be kept highly secret can be discussed in public as much as you like. In response to the Snowden revelations, a new bill has been put forward, the Intelligence Oversight and Surveillance Reform Act. It sounds benign, but if you’re of a paranoid disposition, you have reason to fear what it might bring.Well, that first successful penile transplant that doctors performed several months ago appears to have worked...extremely well!
The 21-year-old man, who has not been identified, had had his penis amputated three years ago to save his life after suffering gangrene from a botched circumcision. In December, Dr. Andre van der Merwe from Stellenbosch University in Cape Town and a team of fellow surgeons performed a nine-hour surgery to transplant what he described as a "good normal penis" harvested from an organ donor.
The doctor told BBC News recently that the patient's girlfriend has reported that she is about four months pregnant and this showed that the "transplant worked."
"This is what we intended, that he should be able to stand up and be able to urinate and have intercourse," Van der Merwe said. "So it is a milestone for him."The wife of former Butler Bulldog basketball star Andrew Smith says that "death is imminent" for Andrew.
In her latest blog post, Samantha Smith writes, "The doctors tell me death is imminent and that Andrew is going to die from this disease. There are no treatments, no clinical trials…there is nothing left to do. I struggle to grasp what they’ve told me and I spend my nights crying and moaning in pain as I think about losing the one I hold most dear and close to my heart- my husband."
It's been a long road for the Smiths after Andrew's diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma two years ago. Andrew, 25, underwent a bone marrow transplant last fall, but the cancer returned a month later. Samantha Smith reported that the lymphoma transformed into leukemia, evading every treatment and testing the young couple's faith.
Andrew Smith's family asks for prayers as cancer becomes extremely aggressive
The Butler community has responded by showing tremendous support on social media.
Read her latest blog entry here.
Samantha writes, "He is afraid of death and I am afraid of life. I’m afraid of life without Andrew Smith by my side as my spouse, my protector, my best friend, my everything. My heart breaks into a million pieces thinking of all who would lose so much if he goes- a friend, a son, a brother, a teammate, and an inspiration to us all. We would all lose so much because he has impacted every single person that he has ever come into contact with. His kindness is instantaneous to strangers and his caring nature and ever-gentle heart is felt by every person lucky enough to have any sort of relationship with him. Truly, Andrew exudes and shines the Light of Christ."According to the FBI, over 1.5 million background checks on customers were requested by gun dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System in December. Nearly 500,000 of those were in the six days before Christmas.
It was the highest number ever in a single month, surpassing the previous record set in November.
On Dec 23 alone there were 102,222 background checks, making it the second busiest single day for buying guns in history.
The actual number of guns bought may have been even higher if individual customers took home more than one each.
Explanations for America's surge in gun buying include that it is a response to the stalled economy with people fearing crime waves. Another theory is that buyers are rushing to gun shops because they believe tighter firearms laws will be introduced in the future.
The National Rifle Association said people were concerned about self defence because police officer numbers were declining.
A spokesman said: "I think there's an increased realisation that when something bad occurs it's going to be between them and the criminal."
But anti-gun campaigners said those who already owned weapons were simply hoarding more of them due to "fear-mongering" by the NRA.
A spokeswoman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said: "The research we've seen indicates fewer and fewer people are owning more and more guns."
Dave LaRue, of Legendary Guns in Phoenix, Arizona, said Christmas sales were up 25 per cent on the previous year and ammunition sales were also "brisk".
He said: "There are a lot of people concerned about pending gun legislation and the sense about the current administration. People think future availability will be limited and there's a feeling of get it while you can."
The record for gun sales in a single day was set in November, on the day after Thanksgiving, when 129,166 background searches were carried out on customers buying weapons.
Since the near-fatal shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by a deranged gunman in Tucson, Arizona last January there have been increasing calls for tighter gun control. Miss Giffords survived being shot in the head with a semi-automatic handgun, and six other people were killed.Gaslamp “Dungeons Of Dredmor” Games have just revealed their new game, Clockwork Empires. It’s a 3D sandbox building game with a 19th century colonial/Steampunk theme. That sounds exciting enough on its own, but, really, check out this paraphrased feature-list: “New “procedural extrusion” technology lets you design your colony the way you want! Buildings are procedurally generated and extruded directly from the aether to your specifications! Tame the uncharted continents by land, sea, and air! Set forth in mighty Zeppelins to do battle with Sky Pirates, or take to the seas in search of fortune and probably sea serpents! Create magnificent acts of plumbing, link together mighty gears, and build ominous Megaprojects! Tangle with the machinations of malevolent entities! Scry the legacy of the Invisible Geometers, fumigate the baleful moon-fungus of the Selenian Polyps, and cleanse the scuttling creepiness and poor personal and moral hygiene of your everyday, average cultist.” No online DRM, and multiplayer.
Oh yes. It’s going to be moddable, too. Beautiful promotional poster below.High-level officials at the Federal Reserve have spent the last two weeks signaling strongly to the world that the Fed is going to raise rates at their March meeting next week. Before all the speeches by Fed officials the markets were not expecting another increase in interest rates until June, but now the futures markets reflect over a 90% probability that an interest-rate hike is coming at next week’s meeting. With no major data releases during those two weeks, this leads to the obvious question about what changed the Fed’s mindset.
Unemployment, employment, labor force participation rates, and inflation are all relatively unchanged from before the presidential election. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow real-time forecast actually has been declining, lowering its forecast of first-quarter economic growth. What data has changed sufficiently to make the Fed so much more bullish than the past several years?
The big changes in data have been in sentiment. Consumer confidence and business owner confidence have both risen significantly since President Trump’s election. This has been confirmed by the stock market which has seen double-digit gains post-election, reflecting a consensus that the future suddenly looks better than it did pre-election.
Certainly, some of President Trump’s proposals would be good for the economy. Tax reform, repeal of Obamacare, and a reduction in regulation would all be great for economic growth and job creation. However, while President Trump and Congress are making excellent progress at reversing some of the worst and most recent of President Obama’s regulations and seem intent on reducing regulation in general, progress on the other fronts is less certain.
A bill to repeal and replace Obamacare has been introduced now, but it faces opposition from both Democrats and more conservative Republicans, so its passage does not seem imminent. Tax reform is even farther away from legislative reality.
One possibility is that the Federal Reserve believes both that President Trump and the Republicans in Congress support policies that are better for the economy than President Obama’s were and that they will get their plans implemented. Another possibility is that the economy was simply healing itself and the timing of the rate increases matching the beginning of the new administration is simply a coincidence. However, the second possibility is not credible because just before the election the Fed itself was forecasting a much slower uptick in interest rates than it is forecasting now.
The only other alternative to the idea that the Fed thinks President Trump and the Republicans will implement successful economic policy improvements is that the Fed simply dislikes President Trump and the Republicans and does not want to be as accommodating to them as it was to President Obama. While that is plausible given that all the Fed Governors are Obama appointees, it seems a bit of a stretch to imagine that Fed officials would take partisanship to that level immediately upon the election. Thus, we are back to option one: the Fed believes the Republicans are on the right economic policy path and that those policies will bear fruit quite quickly.
So far President Trump and the Republicans in Congress have struggled with their messaging, losing the communications battle to the Democrats and most of the media. In fighting for their economic policies, perhaps they should start to point out that they have at least an implicit endorsement from the Fed. So, let’s get those regulations rolled back and those taxes reformed so that the economy can live up to the Fed’s new, more optimistic expectations.
Follow me on Twitter @DorfmanJeffreyIt is unclear what possessed Woody Allen, of all people, to comment on the accusations of sexual predation against Harvey Weinstein, when he could have just not said anything, not expressed sympathy for an alleged serial rapist, not accused long-silenced women who said they were sexually assaulted of contributing to “a witch hunt atmosphere” and not felt compelled to issue a pouty follow-up statement in which he didn’t apologize but, in fact, reiterated how “sad” he feels for Weinstein because Weinstein is “sick.”
I’m kidding! It’s totally clear why Allen would issue such a statement — why he wouldn’t hesitate to include the astonishing confession that “no one ever came to me or told me horror stories with any real seriousness,” implying that people did tell him about Weinstein but he, with that odd omniscience native to the very rich, deemed them insufficiently serious. It’s also totally clear why Allen felt untouchable enough to add that even if he had believed the “horror stories,” he wouldn’t have been interested, let alone concerned, because he is a serious man busy making serious man-art. He said people wouldn’t bother coming to him anyway, because, as he described it: “You’re not interested in it. You are interested in making your movie.” (That last bit is fair, actually. If I’d been sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein, literally my last instinct would be to go to Woody Allen for help.)
It’s clear because the cultural malfunction that allows Allen to feel comfortable issuing that statement is the same malfunction that gave us Allen and Weinstein in the first place: the smothering, delusional, galactic entitlement of powerful men.
When Allen and other men warn of “a witch hunt atmosphere, a Salem atmosphere” what they mean is an atmosphere in which they’re expected to comport themselves with the care, consideration and fear of consequences that the rest of us call basic professionalism and respect for shared humanity. On some level, to some men — and you can call me a hysteric but I am done mincing words on this — there is no injustice quite so unnaturally, viscerally grotesque as a white man being fired.At this time of year, it’s common to see pictures of the Christmas story or to hear someone retell the story: Jesus in a manger, wise men visiting with gifts, angels and shepherds, etc. But all of these depictions are based on two quite different accounts of Jesus’ birth: one in the Gospel of Matthew and the other in the Gospel of Luke. The two accounts are not only different, but contradictory.
The popular retelling of the Christmas story usually involves a conflation (or mix-up) and harmonization (blurring of differences and contradictions) of elements from these two different stories.
But let’s examine each of them, to seek to understand the distinct stories they each tell:
Story One: Luke
The Gospel of Luke tells the story of how Joseph and Mary travel from their hometown in Nazareth in Galilee, to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus. Luke situates Joseph and Mary’s home in Nazareth. Before the birth of Jesus (Luke 2.3-4), Joseph, Jesus’ legal father, has to travel from his “own town” (2.39) of Nazareth in Galilee, to his “own [ancestral] town” (2.3-4) Bethlehem in Judea. Why do Joseph and Mary have to travel to Bethlehem so close to the time of birth of Jesus? Luke’s answer is that Joseph and Mary had to travel there due to the census of Quirinius, the governor of Syria:
“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David” (Luke 2.1-4)
The idea that Joseph would have had to have traveled to Bethlehem, because it was the town of his ancestors, is most probably a complete fiction. It is fabricated on the basis of the belief that the Messiah/Christ must be a descendant of David.
Then, according to Luke, after Joseph and Mary had travelled to Bethlehem, Jesus was born in Bethlehem:
“While they were there [in Bethlehem], the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son …” (Luke 2.6-7)
Luke then describes the circumcision of Jesus, and the purification of Mary (from the legal so-called ‘impurities’ of childbirth). Circumcision was carried out on the eighth day after birth (Lev 12.3), and the mother was considered ceremonially unclean for the 7 days following childbirth, and 33 days following the circumcision (Lev 12.2, 4). After this 40-day period, the mother had to provide a sheep as a sacrifice to restore her purity. This sacrifice could be changed to two turtledoves or pigeons if she were too poor to afford a sheep (Lev 12.6-8). As Luke 2.24 shows, Mary offered two turtledoves or pigeons:
“After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”” (Luke 2.21-24)
Leviticus 12 sets out the relevant “law of Moses”, the requirements of which took a period of 40 days following childbirth. Luke is then quite clear that Joseph and Mary returned to their “own town” of Nazareth “when they had finished” these 40 days of legal requirements:
“When they [Joseph and Mary] had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.” (Luke 2.39)
The phrase “when they had finished … they returned to Galilee” translates the Greek kai hos etelesan … epestrepsan eis ten Galilaian, literally: “as they completed [all the requirements of the Law]… they returned to Galilee.” Luke is clearly narrating the return to Nazareth as something that occurred just after Mary had completed the 40 days of legal obligations. What’s more, they are returning eis polin heuton (“into their own town”) of Nazareth. So Luke envisages a round trip, from Joseph & Mary’s hometown of Nazareth, to the purported ancestral town of Joseph (Bethlehem), to the Temple in Jerusalem, and back to Joseph & Mary’s hometown.
Story Two: Matthew
But Matthew has Joseph and Mary take an entirely different route, from an entirely different hometown!
In Luke, Jesus is still little more than a newborn baby when he leaves Bethlehem, leaving for Jerusalem after 40 days, the term of Mary’s purification (Luke 2.21-24, 39). By contrast, in Matthew, the wise men who visit provide information to Herod about Jesus’ age that leads to him killing all boys up to two years old. The clear implication of the narrative is that the wise men had given Herod information about the date of Jesus’ birth that led Herod to assume that Jesus was older than a mere one-month-old baby:
“When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.” (Matt 2.16)
In Matthew, Joseph & Mary escape Bethlehem, with Jesus, and live in Egypt for a period. Moreover, in Matthew’s account, Joseph and Mary remain in Egypt for some time after this, awaiting the death of Herod. Yet, according to Luke, Jesus had travelled to Nazareth with his family only after 40 days:
“and [Joseph, the child and his mother] remained there [in Egypt] until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.” … When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” ” (Matt 2.15, 19-21)
Often those who want to harmonize Luke with Matthew posit a trip to Egypt between the visit to Jerusalem and the return to Nazareth. But:
1. Such a harmonization abuses the straightforward statement in Luke that shows Joseph and Mary return home on completing the legal requirements of Leviticus 12. According to Luke, Joseph and Mary returned to Nazareth “as they finished everything required by the law”;
2. Such a harmonization ignores the presentation of Nazareth as the hometown of Joseph and Mary in Luke, versus Bethlehem in Matthew; and
3. Such a harmonization fails to adequately explain why, on being warned to flee straightaway to Egypt by an angel of Yahweh (once the wise men who had visited them, in Bethlehem, had left the place: 2.1-15), Joseph first travelled to Jerusalem (Luke 2.22) the very place where Herod himself reigned!
In addition, for Matthew, Joseph and Mary’s home was in Bethlehem.
Following the birth of Jesus, Joseph is commanded to go to Egypt, from their house in Bethlehem. If this “house” (Matt 2.11) is Joseph and Mary’s own house, this is complete contradiction to Luke’s account, which places Joseph & Mary’s hometown in Nazareth, Galilee. The term oikia (“house”) in Matthew most naturally refers to a family’s abode. Therefore, Matthew should be interpreted as understanding that Joseph and Mary were living in Bethlehem immediately before the birth of Jesus! As Raymond Brown explains:
“Presumably this was the house which served as the home of Joseph and Mary who were inhabitants of Bethlehem. The view is quite different from that of Luke 2.1-7. There have been many attempts, often quite forced, to harmonize the information.” (Birth of the Messiah, p. 176)
There is further evidence later on in chapter 2 of Matthew that Bethlehem was Joseph and Mary’s hometown. For, when Joseph is told to return to Israel:
1. Joseph’s first thought is to return to Judea (the province in which Bethlehem is located), not Nazareth (Matt 2.22). Naturally, Joseph and Mary wished to return to their hometown, which Matthew 2.22 reveals was in Judea. But Nazareth is in Galilee, not Judea!
2. Only after being warned in a dream not to return to Judea, Joseph goes instead to Galilee (Matthew 2.22).
3. On coming to Nazareth, Joseph is not described as returning to the home that Luke believes he has there. To the contrary, Joseph is described as “making his home” there. The phrase “made his home in a town called Nazareth” (Matt 2.23) reveals that Joseph is settling in a new place, which Matthew now introduces for the first time! Far from returning to his hometown, Joseph has arrived in a town that is altogether new to him.
4. What is more, it is only because of Joseph’s arrival in Nazareth at this time that Matthew sees fit to claim that Jesus will now fulfill the prophecy, “He will be called a Nazorean” (Matt 2.23).
So when we actually come to consider the logic of Matthew’s narrative itself, rather than leap to a forced harmonization with Luke, it is beyond reasonable doubt that Matthew must be interpreted as presenting Bethlehem, not Nazareth, as Joseph and Mary’s original hometown. As Raymond Brown summarises:
“Joseph’s first thought was to return to Judea, i.e., to “Bethlehem of Judea” (2.1), because he and Mary lived in a house there (2.11). Since Joseph and Mary were citizens of Bethlehem, Matthew takes pains to explain why they went to Nazareth. In Luke’s account, where they are citizens of Nazareth, the painstaking explanation is centered on why they went to Bethlehem (2.1-5).”
So, in contrast to Luke, Matthew has Joseph and Mary move from their house in Bethlehem, to Egypt, and then settle for the first time in Nazareth!
So, to summarize:
Luke places Joseph and Mary at home in Nazareth, Galilee, from before the birth of Jesus (Luke 1.26-27; 2.4). After a trip to Bethlehem, Judea (Luke 2.5), during which Mary gives birth to Jesus and has him circumcised (Luke 2.6-7, 21), they return home to Nazareth, Galilee. If he is presented to the temple in Jerusalem after 40 days as was the custom (Matt 2. |
iles and their habitats on a trip to Australia a few years ago.
He was captivated by the successful conservation program to restore crocodile populations in NT waterways, and the outlawing of unlicensed hunting.
"Saltwater crocs have the strongest recorded bite force of any animal on the planet — [the] kind of force can easily crush a human skull," Frost said.
Because of the inherent danger in getting close enough to film crocodiles, Frost stayed in a boat while he deployed remote-controlled toy boats jerry-rigged to hold the cameras.
"Even something as simple as a tripod being up on the boat can be dangerous when you're doing this kind of work," Frost said.
"I definitely have an enormous respect for the creature, and my heart is always going.
"I'm always thinking about every little thing that could go wrong to make sure that I stay safe and that I keep my team safe as well... So far I'm still alive, and I've got all my fingers and toes."
Topics: animal-attacks, crocodile, nt
First postedMyanmar's opposition leader explains her vision for the country and why she seeks to become its next president.
Myanmar is a country in transition. After years of unforgiving military rule its borders are beginning to open to outside scrutiny.
The march to freedom is being led by Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace laureate and chairperson of the opposition National League for Democracy.
She had returned to Burma in 1988 after years of living abroad, only to encounter a violent military dictatorship. She became the loudest voice calling for democracy and human rights.
I don't think one person can be wholly responsible for change in his or her country.... I have never claimed that I could do everything I wanted in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi
It did not take the military junta long to recognise the threat she posed to them, and in 1989, the military government, which had renamed the country Myanmar, placed her under house arrest.
Aung San Suu Kyi spent the next 15 years in custody.
In 1991, her determination to win democracy was rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. But today, as she makes the transition from activist to full-time politician pursuing her goal of being president, Aung San Suu Kyi faces many challenges, including the fate of the Rohingya people.
Described by the UN as being amongst the most persecuted communities in the world, the Rohingya saw more than 125,000 people internally displaced in 2012. The Rakhine state is one of the most impoverished of Myanmar, and the waves of violence in the region have worsened conditions.
Aung San Suu Kyi has, however, been criticised for failing to speak out strongly in their defence.
Asked how she would describe what is happening there, she says, "I don't know what is happening there, but what has always concerned me from the very beginning and I have talked about it often, but nobody seems to be really interested in it, is the lack of rule of law. I have always said that the first step we must take is to establish rule of law, that both communities may feel safe, and then we can progress towards a situation where we can talk over the problems and try to find lasting solutions. But when there is no rule of law and people are in fear of their life and their security, it is very difficult for them to be able to sit down and talk things over."
Aung San Suu Kyi says she cannot decide what is done in the Rakhine state.
"I'm not part of the government.... I cannot say why there is no rule of law, but it is not for me to establish rule of law, I don't have the authority. People forget that even as an opposition leader I am the leader of 44 MPs in a legislature of over 600, and yet they expect me to be able to do the things that only government really has the right or authority to do... I think this is the price you pay when you have received so much support and sympathy from the world all over, that they would expect you to live up to certain expectations, but I have never claimed that I could do everything I wanted in Burma," she says.
She is close to realising her lifetime ambition of leading her country. But what is her vision for her country?
On Talk to Al Jazeera, we ask if can she navigate her way to power past the generals, some of whom may have taken off their uniforms, but others still wielding ultimate control.
Source: Al JazeeraDAN JURGENS 4 of 12
In some ways, Dan Jurgens is destined to always be known as the man who killed Superman. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Along with several other co-writers, Jurgens spearheaded Superman's adventures for a major portion of the '90s, writing and drawing several different Superman titles in his time with the character.
Undoubtedly, his greatest contribution to the Superman mythos remains "The Death and Return of Superman," a story in which Jurgens' creation Doomsday slays Superman, only to see him replaced by four imposters, before returning to life and defeating the Kryptonian monster.
The collected edition of "The Death and Return of Superman" remains one of the best selling and most popular comics of all time, and it's no wonder why. While characters, even major ones had died in mainstream comics prior to the event, and some had even come back from the dead, to do something like that with the most popular and recognizable character in the world was unheard of; to say nothing of the quality of the story itself. Jurgens also oversaw the wedding of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, and created numerous villains and supporting characters integral to an entire era of Superman stories.
In 2016, Jurgens returned to Superman as the writer of Action Comics with DC's "Rebirth" relaunch. Jurgens passed the baton Bendis earlier this year, but this latest run only further cements his legacy as one of the greatest Superman creators of all time.Update: The latest news and photos from the Philae mission
At around 10:30 am EST Wednesday morning, a small probe named Philae made history — by becoming the first spacecraft to ever land on a comet.
The 220-pound, box-shaped lander was carried to the comet, called 67P/C-G, by a larger probe named Rosetta, launched and operated by the European Space Agency. In August, Rosetta became the first spacecraft to ever be put into orbit around a comet, and at 3:35 am EST on Wednesday morning, it released Philae.
After a seven hour journey down from Rosetta, the lander successfully made contact with the comet, sinking down an estimated four centimeters into its dusty surface. However, the lander's harpoons did not correctly fire, and Philae slowly bounced off the comet, then landed again.
Ultimately, Philae landed on its side, perhaps next to a crater, jeopardizing its ability to collect sunlight. Still, it's stable at the moment, and has already begun transmitting scientific data, as well as photos:
If it can't gather sunlight, the lander will have just 64 hours or so (the amount of time its battery power will last) to collect all scientific data, telling us more about comets than we've ever known before.
The Rosetta mission
Rosetta was launched from French Guiana in March 2004, and has now traveled more than 3.5 billion miles in space.
The reason it's been traveling so long is that, to reach the comet, Rosetta had to loop around the solar system several times, passing by Earth and Mars so that it could use the planets' gravity as a slingshot. In 2008 and 2010, the spacecraft also flew by a pair of asteroids, allowing engineers to take photos and calibrate Rosetta's cameras before it approached its final destination.
In 2011, after Rosetta had traveled too far from the sun to sustain itself with solar power, it went into hibernation to conserve energy, and was woken back up at the start of 2014. Finally, in August, Rosetta successfully rendezvoused with the comet, a 2.5 mile-wide chunk of rock and ice that approaches the sun in an elliptical orbit, then goes back out once every six and a half years.
Scientists had been expecting a nice, even, roughly spherical object, which would have hopefully provided several level landing areas. Instead, they found a lopsided comet that they've been calling "duck-shaped."
Two previous probes had flown by comets, and in 2005, NASA intentionally crashed a probe into a comet in order to analyze its interior. But putting a craft into orbit around a comet is much more difficult (it is, after all, a spinning, mountain-sized object orbiting the sun at about 84,000 miles per hour, millions of miles from Earth) and Rosetta is the first craft to ever achieve the feat.
Over the past three months, Rosetta has orbited the comet, taking photos of the surface and searching for landing sites. The craft has also analyzed the gases given off by the comet as it nears the sun and warms up.
Rosetta will stay in orbit around the comet for the next year, tracking it as gets continually hotter and begins to vaporize. Data collected during this period will provide new information about the plume of dust and water vapor that forms a comet's tail as it passes by the sun. Then, in December 2015, Rosetta will break away from the comet, which will travel back out toward the outer reaches of the solar system.
Even without the lander, this is by far the most ambitious project ever attempted by the European Space Agency — it involved 10 years of planning and 10 years of travel just to reach this point, and cost an estimated $1.59 billion.
The Philae lander
Despite the many firsts of Rosetta, the most remarkable part of this mission was landing Philae, a dishwasher-sized probe, on the comet's surface.
Much was rightfully made of the difficulty of landing Curiosity on Mars' surface in 2012. But some experts have said that Philae's landing was even more difficult: partly because we've mapped the comet much less thoroughly than we have Mars, and because the comet's uneven shape made it impossible to find a landing site that was entirely level.
Undetected cracks or boulders could have caused the lander to flip, jeopardizing its ability to transmit data back to Rosetta. In terms of space landings, the speed of this mission — going from taking initial photos to landing three months later — was unprecedented.
Making matters even more difficult was the fact that, late Tuesday evening, scientists discovered that the lander's rocket thruster system was malfunctioning. The thrusters were originally designed with the expectation that Philae would be landing on a smaller comet with a weaker level of gravity (they'd be needed to help propel it downward), so they weren't essential for this mission, but it still limited scientists' ability to control the lander.
Still, after a descent of about 19 miles over the course of seven hours, Philae successfully landed on the comet at a speed of about one meter per second (similar to that of a person walking).
Because the harpoons didn't fire, the lander slowly bounced off the comet twice, floating for two hours and traveling a full kilometer. It's currently stable — albeit resting on its side, with only two of three legs touching the surface — but it is currently capable of collecting some data.
Philae now has less than three days' worth of battery life to tell us a ton of new information about both this comet and comets in general. It'll immediately begin using its panoramic camera to provide photos of the comets' surface of unprecedented detail.
The lander carries 10 scientific instruments in total, including a system capable of drilling up to nine inches down into the comet's surface, extracting, and analyzing soil samples. However, its precarious position may prohibit this from happening — drilling could push the lander off the comet's surface entirely.
Another instrument will emit radio waves that will travel through the comet's center, then get picked up by the orbiting Rosetta. Based on the time it takes for these waves to arrive, scientists will be able to map the comet's interior.
Why scientists wanted to put a lander on a comet
All this data will be especially interesting because the comet is believed to have formed 4.6 billion years ago, from material leftover as Earth and the solar system's other planets were coalescing. As a result, understanding the composition of comets could help us better model the formation of the solar system.
Moreover, many scientists believe that in the period afterward, when the solar system was still a chaotic, collision-filled system, comets and asteroids were responsible for bringing water and perhaps even organic molecules to Earth. If water ice is present on this comet, as scientists hope, Philae will calculate the ratio of different sorts of hydrogen isotopes present in it — information that could provide an important clue as to whether the hypothesis is correct.
In other words, data collected by a tiny robot on this lopsided, spinning comet, millions of miles away, could provide a window into the history of all life on earth.
Update: This article has been edited to reflect ongoing developments.If you think they're super cute, then you'd better start booking your ticket to the Moomin ballet now.
But for those of you who find them a bit creepy - it's best to stay away from Helsinki in March because that's when the Finnish National Ballet is putting on the show.
This is the first time Tove Jansson's characters have been made into a dance.
"Although the body of the Moomins isn't the most flexible," the website promises they will feature in the show.
Other characters will "take care of the classical ballet part" in the production, which will tell the story of Comet Moominland.
More related stories The Moomins in love and war
"When everything is not well in the Moominvalley, Moomintroll and his friends heads to the Observatory on the Lonely Mountains," explains the show's synopsis.
"In the Observatory they are told that the comet will hit the Earth within a few days. Will the Moominvalley survive?"
If you can make your way to Finland, adult tickets will set you back 42 euros (£32.50) each.
The show is said to be suitable for children over the age of four - but even if you're a bit older than that and still find the Moomins a little scary, you might also want an adult to accompany you.
Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter, BBCNewsbeat on Instagram and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTubeThe other day Google might have reached into your phone and deleted one of your apps. Did you know they could do that? I didn’t. I’m sure it’s in some fine print somewhere, but it came as a surprise to me. Remember when Amazon deleted certain copies of 1984 from Kindles? Remember the outrage? Should we be outraged now?
[ Get news and reviews on tech toys in ITworld's personal tech newsletter]
On the Android Developer blog, we learn why they deleted these apps. In Google’s own words:
Recently, we became aware of two free applications built by a security researcher for research purposes. These applications intentionally misrepresented their purpose in order to encourage user downloads, but they were not designed to be used maliciously, and did not have permission to access private data — or system resources beyond permission.INTERNET. As the applications were practically useless, most users uninstalled [sic] the applications shortly after downloading them. After the researcher voluntarily removed these applications from Android Market, we decided, per the Android Market Terms of Service, to exercise our remote application removal feature on the remaining installed copies to complete the cleanup.
So OK, these apps weren’t useful to anyone, and sure enough, the Terms of Service says Google retains the right to remotely wipe apps (see section 2, paragraph 4). And as far as I’m aware, this is the first time they’ve exercised this right. They’ve removed apps from the Market plenty of times, generally for copyright violation. But this is the first time they’ve done a remote delete. So are we willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that this isn’t a Terms of Service clause that will be invoked frequently? Is Google still our benevolent overseer? Or should we be grabbing the pitchforks and torches and heading for Google HQ?Every government statement has been rebuffed or contradicted
The Tory Government had a tortuous first week in explaining its Brexit strategy at home and abroad. On almost every statement they were either rebuffed on contradicted – showing that they are confused and indeed bereft of any real plan.
The week commenced in China at the G20 Summit when President Obama repeating that the U.S.’s priority would be to secure a new trade deal with the European Union – rather than focus their energies on a deal with the UK.
This was followed swiftly by an unexpected and totally unprecedented document issued by the government of Japan expressing its disquiet at Brexit and the lack of any strategic plan by the UK government – and importantly how it will effect Japanese companies operating here and in the EU.
Theresa May and the Brexit trio of Ministers (Davis, Johnson and Fox) were left floundering by the Japanese statement which was undoubtedly a result of Japanese companies in the UK notably Nissan, Toyota, Honda and others deciding to issue the stark warnings as a united front.
The UK media immediately picked up on the Japanese document and the item was soon leading news bulletins. The response from the government was lamentable plus the media called in other EU politicians to make comment.
These included politicians in Ireland who were critical of the lack of any post-Brexit plan and from Italy who made it clear that the Brexit vote and in particular restrictions on the free movement of people, would find few supporters in the EU.
However, all was not lost! The Brexiteers received a short lived boost when Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he would negotiate a ‘very strong Free Trade Agreement with the UK’ after Brexit. 24 hours later Australian Minister for Trade Steven Ciobo threw cold water on that plan, indicating that there would be no deal with Australia until they had a trade deal with the EU.
Back to the drawing board.
In the House of Commons on Monday 5th David Davis gave the first ‘explanation’ of government policy from the despatch box which was in effect vacuous waffle peppered with statements such as the UK being a ‘beacon’ and vague talk of ’roundtables with stakeholders in a series of sectors.’
All of this was met with cries of ‘waffle’ and barracking from the Labour benches, with Labour’s Brexit spokesperson, Emily Thornberry landing punches on the complete lack of policy, membership of the Single Market and the triggering of Article 50.
The Tories will find it even more difficult in the coming months as manufacturers and trade unions in manufacturing set how they believe Brexit should be handled, what are the key priorities and a clear refusal to see manufacturing traded off to appease the hard line Brexiteers — those who want out now and at any price, such as Iain Duncan Smith who said members of the Cabinet were keen to start the formal process of leaving the EU in 2017 — only to find others in the Tory party arguing that triggering Article 50 could not take place until later 2017 at the very earliest.
The promises of ‘business as usual’ and other counties banging at our doors to sign trade deals from the hard line leavers are going nowhere.
Their overly optimistic statements about securing trade deals within two years along the lines of the ‘Norway option’ or the ‘Swiss option’, are looking like wishful thinking – as are the ‘Canadian option’ and latterly the ‘Australian option’.
Those leavers at any price appear to be happy to abandon the UK economy and manufacturing to WTO rules which will cause untold damage to industry, jobs, investment and exports.
Equally, the Prime Minister’s insistence that she will use the Royal Prerogative to trigger Article 50 was rightly criticised by Labour’s Barry Gardiner, who described May as operating like a ‘Tudor Monarch’ — ending treaties without consulting Parliament. Given that one of the aims of the Brexiteers was to bring back the sovereignty of Parliament, the Prime Minister making a decision without it being debated and endorsed by Parliament smacks of hypocrisy.
The mixed messages on the Single Market, the slapping down of David Davis over expressing his own opinions about what trade deals are achievable, and potential legal arguments on Article 50 will continue to dog the government and to create uncertainty for manufacturers and our members working in manufacturing companies.
The next few months will see manufacturers’ organisations and trade unions set out their views on what Brexit should look like for manufacturing, jobs and investment.
At the moment everything in the garden seems rosy but expect stormy waters ahead as the pressure piles on the government to sort out what is its Brexit policy devoid of ‘waffle’.
They will need to listen to the views of manufacturers and the people who actually make the economy work.
Tony Burke is assistant general secretary of Unite responsible for manufacturing
URGENT APPEAL: We need to raise £10,000 in the next few weeks to keep holding the right to account. Help us build a better media and back the crowdfunder to keep Left Foot Forward's progressive journalism alive.Time Machine is a new Printers Row Journal feature offering a look at past Tribune books coverage. This week, we offer H.L. Mencken's 1925 review of “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Scott Fitzgerald's new novel, "The Great Gatsby" is in form no more than a glorified anecdote, and not too probable at that. The scene is the Long Island that hangs precariously on the edges of the New York City trash dumps — the Long Island of the gandy villas and bawdy house parties. The theme is the old one of a romantic and preposterous love — the ancient fidelis ad urnum motif reduced to a macabre humor. The principal personage is a bounder typical of those parts — a fellow who seems to know every one and yet remains unknown to all — a young man with a great deal of mysterious money, the tastes of a movie actor and, under it all, the simple sentimentality of a somewhat sclerotic fat woman.
RELATED: TRENDING LIFE & STYLE NEWS THIS HOUR
This clown Fitzgerald rushes to his death in nine short chapters. The other performers in the Totentons are of a like, or even worse, quality. One of them is a rich man who carries on a grotesque intrigue with the wife of a garage keeper. Another is a woman golfer who wins championships by cheating. A third, a sort of chorus to the tragic farce, is a bond salesman — symbol of the New America! Fitzgerald clears them all off at last by a triple butchery. The garage-keeper's wife, rushing out upon the road to escape her husband's third degree is run down and killed by the wife of her lover. The garage keeper, misled by the lover, kills the lover of the lover's wife — the Great Gatsby himself. Another bullet, and the garage keeper is also reduced to offal. Choragus fades away. The crooked lady golfer departs. The lover of the garage keeper's wife goes back to his own consort. The immense house of the Great Gatsby stands idle, its bedrooms given over to the bat and the owl, its cocktail shakers dry. The curtain lurches down.
Profiting by Criticism
This story is obviously unimportant and, though, as I shall show, it has its place in the Fitzgerald canon, it is certainly not to be put on the same shelf with, say, "This Side of Paradise." What ails it, fundamentally, is the plain fact that it is simply a story — that Fitzgerald seems to be far more interested in maintaining its suspense than in getting under the skins of its people. It is not that they are false: it is that they are taken too much for granted. Only Gatsby himself genuinely lives and breathes. The rest are mere marionettes — often astonishingly lifelike, but nevertheless not quite alive.
What gives the story distinction is something quite different from the management of the action or the handling of the characters; it is the charm and beauty of the writing. In Fitzgerald's first days it seemed almost unimaginable that he would ever show such qualities. His writing then was extraordinarily slipshod — at times almost illiterate. He seemed to be devoid of any feeling for the color and savor of words. He could see people clearly and he could devise capital situations, but as writer qua writer he was apparently little more than a bright college boy. The critics of the Republic were not slow to discern the fact. They praised "This Side of Paradise" as a story, as a social document, but they were almost unanimous in denouncing it as a piece of writing.
It is vastly to Fitzgerald's credit that he appears to have taken their caveats seriously, and pondered them to good effect. In "The Great Gatsby," highly agreeable fruits of that pondering are visible. The story, for all its basic triviality, has a fine texture, a careful and brilliant finish. The obvious phrase is simply not in it. The sentences roll along smoothly, sparklingly, variously. There is evidence in every line of hard and intelligent effort. It is a quite new Fitzgerald who emerges from this little book, and the qualities that he shows are dignified and solid. "This Side of Paradise," after all, might have been merely a lucky accident. But "The Great Gatsby," a far inferior story at bottom, is plainly the product of a sound and stable talent, conjured into being by hard work.
Reversing the Order
I make much of this improvement because it is of an order not witnessed in American writers; and seldom, indeed, in those who start off with popular success. The usual progression indeed, is in the opposite direction. Every year first books of great promise are published — and every year a great deal of stale drivel is printed by the promising authors of year before last. The rewards of literary success in this country are so vast that, when they come early, they are not unnaturally somewhat demoralizing. The average author yields to them readily. Having struck the bull's-eye once, he is too proud to learn new tricks. Above all, he is too proud to tackle hard work. The result is a gradual degeneration of whatever talent he had at the beginning. He begins to imitate himself. He peters out.
There is certainly no sign of petering out in Fitzgerald. After his first experimenting he plainly sat himself down calmly to consider his deficiencies. They were many and serious. He was, first of all, too facile. He could write entertainingly without giving thought to form and organization. He was, secondly, somewhat amateurish. The materials and methods of his craft, I venture, rather puzzled him. He used them ineptly. His books showed brilliancy in conception, but they were crude and even ignorant in detail. They suggested, only too often, the improvisations of a pianist playing furiously by ear, but unable to read notes.
These are the defects that he has now got rid of. "The Great Gatsby," I seem to recall, was announced a long while ago. It was probably several years on the stocks. It shows, on every page, the results of that laborious effort. Writing it, I take it, was painful. The author wrote, tore up, rewrote, tore up again. There are pages so artfully contrived that one can no more imagine improvising them than one can imagine improvising a fugue. They are full of little delicacies; charming turns of phrase, penetrating second thoughts. In other words, they are easy and excellent reading — which is what always comes out of hard writing.
Pen of Accuracy
Thus Fitzgerald, the stylist, arises to challenge Fitzgerald, the social historian, but I doubt that the latter ever quite succumbs to the former. The thing that chiefly interests the basic Fitzgerald is still the florid show of modern American life — and especially the devil's dance that goes on at the top. He is unconcerned about the sweatings and sufferings of the nether herd; what engrosses him is the high carnival of those who have too much money to spend, and too much time for the spending of it. Their idiotic pursuit of sensation, their almost incredible stupidity and triviality, their glittering swinishness — these are the things that go into his notebook.[Editorial note: This is taken from the book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.]
by Carl Sagan
My parents died years ago. I was very close to them. I still miss them terribly. I know I always will. I long to believe that their essence, their personalities, what I loved so much about them, are — really and truly — still in existence somewhere. I wouldn't ask very much, just five or ten minutes a year, say, to tell them about their grandchildren, to catch them up on the latest news, to remind them that I love them. There's a part of me — no matter how childish it sounds — that wonders how they are. "Is everything all right?" I want to ask. The last words I found myself saying to my father, at the moment of his death, were "Take care."
Sometimes I dream that I'm talking to my parents, and suddenly — still immersed in the dreamwork — I'm seized by the overpowering realization that they didn't really die, that it's all been some kind of horrible mistake. Why, here they are, alive and well, my father making wry jokes, my mother earnestly advising me to wear a muffler because the weather is chilly. When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there's something within me that's ready to believe in life after death. And it's not the least bit interested in whether there's any sober evidence for it.
So I don't guffaw at the woman who visits her husband's grave and chats him up every now and then, maybe on the anniversary of his death. It's not hard to understand. And if I have difficulties with the ontological status of who she's talking to, that's all right. That's not what this is about. This is about humans being human. More than a third of American adults believe that on some level they've made contact with the dead. The number seems to have jumped by 15 percent between 1977 and 1988. A quarter of Americans believe in reincarnation.
But that doesn't mean I'd be willing to accept the pretensions of a "medium," who claims to channel the spirits of the dear departed, when I'm aware the practice is rife with fraud. I know how much I want to believe that my parents have just abandoned the husks of their bodies, like insects or snakes molting, and gone somewhere else. I understand that those very feelings might make me easy prey even for an unclever con, or for normal people unfamiliar with their unconscious minds, or for those suffering from a dissociative psychiatric disorder. Reluctantly, I rouse some reserves of skepticism.
How is it, I ask myself, that channelers never give us verifiable information otherwise unavailable? Why does Alexander the Great never tell us about the exact location of his tomb, Fermat about his Last Theorem, John Wilkes Booth about the Lincoln assassination conspiracy, Hermann Goring about the Reichstag fire? Why don't Sophocles, Democritus, and Aristarchus dictate their lost books? Don't they wish future generations to have access to their masterpieces?
If some good evidence for life after death were announced, I'd be eager to examine it; but it would have to be real scientific data, not mere anecdote. As with the face on Mars and alien abductions, better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy. And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy.
The fundamental premise of "channeling," spiritualism, and other forms of necromancy is that when we die we don't. Not exactly. Some thinking, feeling, and remembering part of us continues. That whatever-it-is — a soul or spirit, neither matter nor energy, but something else — can, we are told, re-enter the bodies of human and other beings in the future, and so death loses much of its sting. What's more, we have an opportunity, if the spiritualist or channeling contentions are true, to make contact with loved ones who have died.
J.Z. Knight of the State of Washington claims to be in touch with a 35,000-year-old somebody called "Ramtha." He speaks English very well, using Knight's tongue, lips and vocal chords, producing what sounds to me to be an accent from the Indian Raj. Since most people know how to talk, and many — from children to professional actors — have a repertoire of voices at their command, the simplest hypothesis is that Ms. Knight makes "Ramtha" speak all by herself, and that she has no contact with disembodied entities from the Pleistocene Ice Age. If there's evidence to the contrary, I'd love to hear it. It would be considerably more impressive if Ramtha could speak by himself, without the assistance of Ms. Knight's mouth. Failing that, how might we test the claim? (The actress Shirley MacLaine attests that Ramtha was her brother in Atlantis, but that's another story.)
Suppose Ramtha were available for questioning. Could we verify whether he is who he says he is? How does he know that he lived 35,000 years ago, even approximately? What calendar does he employ? Who is keeping track of the intervening millennia? Thirty-five thousand plus or minus what? What were things like 35,000 years ago? Either Ramtha really is 35,000 years old, in which case we discover something about that period, or he's a phony and he'll (or rather she'll) slip up.
Where did Ramtha live? (I know he speaks English with an Indian accent, but where 35,000 years ago did they do that?) What was the climate? What did Ramtha eat? (Archaeologists know something about what people ate back then.) What were the indigenous languages, and social structure? Who else did Ramtha live with — wife, wives, children, grandchildren? What was the life cycle, the infant mortality rate, the life expectancy? Did they have birth control? What clothes did they wear? How were the clothes manufactured? What were the most dangerous predators? Hunting and fishing implements and strategies? Weapons? Endemic sexism? Xenophobia and ethnocentrism? And if Ramtha came from the "high civilization" of Atlantis, where are the linguistic, technological, historical and other details? What was their writing like? Tell us. Instead, all we are offered are banal homilies.
Here, to take another example, is a set of information channeled not from an ancient dead person, but from unknown non-human entities who make crop circles, as recorded by the journalist Jim Schnabel:
We are so anxious at this sinful nation spreading lies about us. We do not come in machines, we do not land on your earth in machines... We come like the wind. We are Life Force. Life Force from the ground... Come here... We are but a breath away... a breath away... we are not a million miles away... a Life Force that is larger than the energies in your body. But we meet at a higher level of life... We need no name. We are parallel to your world, alongside your world... The walls are broken. Two men will rise from the past... the great bear... the world will be at peace.
People pay attention to these puerile marvels mainly because they promise something like old-time religion, but especially life after death, even life eternal.
A very different prospect for something like eternal life was once proposed by the versatile British scientist J.B.S. Haldane, who was, among many other things, one of the founders of population genetics. Haldane imagined a far future when the stars have darkened and space is mainly filled with a cold, thin gas. Nevertheless, if we wait long enough statistical fluctuations in the density of this gas will occur. Over immense periods of time the fluctuations will be sufficient to reconstitute a Universe something like our own. If the Universe is infinitely old, there will be an infinite number of such reconstitutions, Haldane pointed out.
So in an infinitely old universe with an infinite number of appearances of galaxies, stars, planets, and life, an identical Earth must reappear on which you and all your loved ones will be reunited. I'll be able to see my parents again and introduce them to the grandchildren they never knew. And all this will happen not once, but an infinite number of times.
Somehow, though, this does not quite offer the consolations of religion. If none of us is to have any recollection of what happened this time around, the time the reader and I are sharing, the satisfactions of bodily resurrection, in my ears at least, ring hollow.
But in this reflection I have underestimated what infinity means. In Haldane's picture, there will be universes, indeed an infinite number of them, in which our brains will have full recollection of many previous rounds. Satisfaction is at hand — tempered, though, by the thought of all those other universes which will also come into existence (again, not once but an infinite number of times) with tragedies and horrors vastly outstripping anything I've experienced this turn.
The Consolation of Haldane depends, though, on what kind of universe we live in, and maybe on such arcana as whether there's enough matter to eventually reverse the expansion of the universe, and the character of vacuum fluctuations. Those with a deep longing for life after death might, it seems, devote themselves to cosmology, quantum gravity, elementary particle physics, and transfinite arithmetic.TrashTalk Theater Sci-fi Double Feature
THIS EVENT IS IN THE PAST! WHEN Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 6:30 p.m.
WHERE
Map The Victory Theater, 2558 Imperial Ave. San Diego, CA 92102
AGES 18+
COST $7
Interactive artist and cult movie curator Jason Ponce presents a special TrashTalk Theater sci-fi double feature, with interactive screenings of local San Diego filmmaker Bill Perrine's documentary "Children of the Stars" (2012) and the spectacular sci-stoned cult classic "Zardoz" (1974).
To participate in TrashTalk Theater, bring your own web-enabled device such as a laptop, smartphone or tablet computer.
This March 7th, TrashTalk Theater is teaming up with Billingsgate Media to present our first documentary screening. Offering a |
less entity defined by the storyteller. Haunters are very powerful, and depending on their level, they can choose from a vast array of abilities with extensive synergy to scare, control and manipulate other players in their own unique way.
Victims play the role of one of the protagonists and explore the mysterious stories created by the Storyteller, but driven by the Haunter. The Victim’s experience can be either solo or co-operative depending on the story. Victims strive to remain hidden from the Haunter in order to survive and achieve their goal(s) defined by the Storyteller.
The Haunter cannot directly hurt the Victims unless he is materialized
Features:
Kaidan System: A comprehensive system for creating horror scenarios. It allows the players to:
- Create levels in different settings such as hotels, mansions, hospitals, etc.
- Create characters including Victims (protagonists) and Haunters (antagonists) with highly varied abilities and characteristics.
- Integrate user created riddles and puzzles into the game level to create a unique experience and story.
- Add user-generated content such as text, voice and images to enrich and narrate your story.
A comprehensive system for creating horror scenarios. It allows the players to: Create levels in different settings such as hotels, mansions, hospitals, etc. Create characters including Victims (protagonists) and Haunters (antagonists) with highly varied abilities and characteristics. Integrate user created riddles and puzzles into the game level to create a unique experience and story. Add user-generated content such as text, voice and images to enrich and narrate your story. Scare or Get Scared: Asymmetric Multiplayer Horror game where a solo Haunter scares a group of Victims utilizing unique game mechanics.
Asymmetric Multiplayer Horror game where a solo Haunter scares a group of Victims utilizing unique game mechanics. Community Driven: The game is driven by the community of players who create, share, play and rate the horror stories.
The game is driven by the community of players who create, share, play and rate the horror stories. Role-playing Elements: Playing as the Haunter is a unique role-playing experience. The Haunter tries to scare other players while driving the story in his/her own way.
Playing as the Haunter is a unique role-playing experience. The Haunter tries to scare other players while driving the story in his/her own way. Procedural Level Generation: Based on the Storyteller’s input for each scenario, levels will be procedurally generated, so every single story can be experienced in many different forms.
Based on the Storyteller’s input for each scenario, levels will be procedurally generated, so every single story can be experienced in many different forms. Victim Characters: Victims are the human characters in each scenario. By customizing their items and abilities, they’ll fit almost any of the stereotypical characters in the horror genre.
Victims are the human characters in each scenario. By customizing their items and abilities, they’ll fit almost any of the stereotypical characters in the horror genre. Haunter Classes: Haunters have various classes based on stereotypical villains in the horror genre as well as a vast array of abilities to ensure every Haunter can be different.
Haunters have various classes based on stereotypical villains in the horror genre as well as a vast array of abilities to ensure every Haunter can be different. Virtual Reality Support: The game is going to support Virtual Reality to further enhance the horror experience.
The randomly generated levels will be highly detailed
Kaidan will be available on Windows, Mac and PS4. The full release will be distributed on Steam and the Playstation Store. Also, a DRM-Free version will be available for Windows and Mac.
Being the Storyteller is like writing a script, but giving the actors extreme freedom to play and interpret the material in their own way.
The Storyteller narrows the gap between player and designer. Players will be given a dedicated storytelling tool called the Kaidan System to create a horror scenario which will be played, shared and rated by the community of players.
The Kaidan System consists of three main parts: Start, Middle and End. Characters and the setting of the story are described and locked-in in the Start section. Puzzles and riddles are designed in the Middle section to create gates and obstacles that Victims must overcome. In the End Section, multiple endings are set up for the Haunter and Victims to experience based on their performance.
There is a prototype of the Kaidan System available on our website. Click here to check it out.
The structure of each section of the Kaidan System will be explained in more detail below.
Here is an example of using the Kaidan system to re-create The Shining movie.
Haunter's Ghost Class
Haunter's Psycho Class
When you want to play as the Haunter, you look for the scenarios that fit your own Haunter’s abilities and your own taste. Do you prefer to scare a single female character in an abandoned Japanese mansion with your newly unlocked ability or do you prefer to trigger paranoia and anxiety with your possession abilities among a group of friends? Or maybe you might want to play as the villain in a re-creation of your favorite horror movie?
Energy System
The Haunters’ primary resource is depleted through the use of their abilities and the only way to gain energy is to successfully scare the Victims. By using their abilities cleverly, Haunters generate energy to achieve the goals set by the Storyteller, such as killing all the Victims or not allowing them to find an object.
Haunter’s Game Flow
This diagram depicts the Haunter’s game flow
There are four actions/phases of the Haunter’s gameplay.
Seek: Victims dwell in another dimension and are hidden from the Haunter. The Haunter uses special abilities to find the Victims by their sight, sound or smell.
Lay Traps: In this state, the Haunter works ahead of the Victims laying physical traps, possessing objects they must interact with or summoning other creatures to torment them.
Disturb: To Disturb, is to willingly allow the Victims know of your presence by making sounds, showing yourself, or triggering any various supernatural event. This builds up the tension and amplifies the effect of any upcoming confrontation between the Haunter and Victims.
Hurt: Once the right opportunity presents itself, the Haunter can emerge to inflict physical or mental damage upon the Victims such as pushing them off ledges to their death, jumping out of a wall they are unsuspiciously looking at, or possibly completely possessing a Victim if their Sanity has reduced to a low enough state.
Abilities
There are 8 schools of abilities for the Haunter and roughly 50 abilities in total. Most of the abilities are available to all classes.
ُTime-Space Manipulation allows the Haunter to manipulate the time-space continuum.
Past Vision: Sees a vision of the recent history, seeing victims as holograms.
Teleport: Set several teleport points and teleport between these points.
Space Loop: Create a loop in the space continuum, the Victims will be trapped inside the loop.
The Haunter can conjure other creatures.
Swarm: Summon an insect which rapidly reproduces and applies psyche damage to nearby victims.
Stalker: Summon a shade which stalks the target Victim. The shade grows in darkness and shrinks in bright areas. When the shade is strong enough, the Victim will die.
Flying Demon: Summon a flying demon. The Haunter can look through her eyes.
The Haunter can manipulate the darkness. Makes it a nightmare for the Victims.
Devour Light: Gradually drain the brightness of nearby lights.
Curse of Darkness: A light devouring darkness surrounds the target Victim.
Dark Track: Victims will leave footprints in dark areas.
Dark Form: Haunter can materialize in darkness
Hunt abilities enables the Haunter to find the Victims who dwell in another dimension, by their sight, sound or smell.
Smell: Sense the smell of the Victims when they linger in a location for too long.
Blood Pool: Creates a pool of blood. Victims that step into the pool will leave footprints behind for a duration.
Dark Vision: See the target Victim as they step into dark areas. In absolute darkness the Victim can be seen through the walls.
The Haunter creates illusions for the Victims to hurt them mentally.
Illusionary Chaser: The Victim sees an illusionary chaser for a duration. If the illusion reaches its target, it will apply psyche damage.
Companion: The Victim sees illusionary visions of other Victims wandering in the level.
Illusionary Door: An illusionary door. Disappears when reached.
Haunter temporarily takes a material form to hurt the Victims.
Wall Form: Go inside the walls and jump out when seen by the Victims.
Appear: Appears for a few seconds. Only usable when not in sight of Victims.
Haunter Clone: Create an inanimate clone of the Haunter in the level.
The Haunter communicates with the Victims.
Demonic Deal: Make a deal with one of the Victims. Target’s victory condition changes to eliminating other Victims.
Whisper: Whisper to one of the victims, others will not hear.
Visual Telepathy: Target Victim will see what the Haunter sees.
Speak: Speak to victims. All nearby victims will hear.
The Haunter controls and exploits his/her target by temporarily possessing it.
Complete Possession: Take full control over the target Victim. The Victim has no control over his/her own body until the Haunter leaves the body.
Observe: See and hear from the eyes and ears of the target Victim. The eyes of the Victim will change and can be seen by other Victims.
Dead Possession: Completely possess a dead body.
You will have an avatar which changes based on your abilities
Progression:
You start the game with a limited number of abilities. As you progress in the game, completing scenarios, you upgrade your abilities and unlock new ones similar to classic RPGs.
Rating System:
Both the Haunter and Storyteller’s progression are heavily based on a rating system which reflects the subjective opinion of the Victims in a scenario. We are aware of the fact that these subjective opinions might not be accurate enough to determine the progression as there will be random ratings and such; but we are certain that these inconsistencies can be reduced by utilizing statistical analysis on the ratings and play testing in large scales; this is an example of where the backers can significantly help us during the development. As a result of this rating system, you do not progress by simply killing the Victims, but by giving them an enjoyable and scary experience.
Role-playing:
The Haunter is designed with a strong emphasis on role-playing. Haunters are going to be very powerful and have dozens of abilities such as possessing Victims, making them float in the air, whispering in their ears with their own distorted voice or even controlling the flow of time. This freedom and variety of game mechanics opens up the possibility for a real role-playing experience where you can dramatically change the progression of the story and the experience of other players based on how you want to proceed in the story. Do you want to mercilessly kill all the Victims or forgive the little girl? maybe you want to manipulate the Victims into killing each other!
Victim customization system lets you create stereotypical horror characters
Playing as the Victim becomes a unique cooperative or solo survival horror experience. You will browse the scenarios created by players and choose the one you like. After reading the backstories of the Victims and their items and abilities, you start playing the game as one of the Victims. You don’t know what to expect as each Haunter can play the scenario differently. You are not aware of what abilities the Haunter brings to the session and how he is going to use them. Should you keep yourself sane so you don’t get possessed? Or should you be careful not to be fooled by illusions? Should you avoid entering the darkness or making the faintest sound? Is it safe to linger too long in a room? You won’t know!
Sanity System:
The Sanity System represents the mental well-being of the Victims and is entangled with the Haunter’s Energy System. When you get scared by the Haunter, your sanity decreases, the Haunter gains energy and you become more vulnerable. For example, the abilities in the Possession and Illusion schools are only effective in low sanity states. Sanity increases by being in bright areas, being together and using special items and abilities. It decreases when you are alone or in darkness or by the actions of the Haunter.
Sanity is a very valuable resource. You’re immune to many of the Haunter’s most dangerous abilities if you stay sane. So if you want to pass through a very dark hallway you better go with your friends, otherwise the Haunter could easily take advantage of the situation.
Victim’s Game Flow
A diagram depicting the Victim’s game flow
There are five phases a Victim could go through.
Exploration and Puzzle Solving: Victims start by exploring the level together and carefully look for items, notes or any other clues provided by the storyteller. They solve puzzles or search for items to pass through the Gates and proceed to reach the objective(s) set by the Storyteller. In this state, the Victims are probably completely hidden from the Haunter. The smallest mistakes however could reveal the group to the Haunter. The Haunter might see you when you enter the darkness or might detect you if you move too quickly. They sense your smell if you stay in a room for too long. He/she can use abilities to see your recent past so you shouldn’t leave traces of your presence when you are searching a room. If you are lucky and play smart you won’t be found.
You should explore the environment in search of the clues
Anxiety: In this phase, the Victims have received some signals which may indicate the presence of the Haunter or traps laid by him/her. The signals (either visual or aural) never give concrete and accurate information. For example, the Victims might hear the Haunter whispering in their ears saying things such as that they see you and are about to kill you at any moment! In this state, you will experience an intense anxiety. You should be super cautious, as a small mistake can lead you and your friends to your death. You must try to interpret the signals and do the best possible thing. Depending on the situation, that might be remaining still or running as fast as you can!
Startle: Victims will now be directly confronted with danger. You get startled and the Haunter gains energy; although the danger might not even be real. The Haunter might have used abilities to create a fake clone of himself.
Struggle: After you confront the danger, you escape from it. The Victims will relentlessly run and try to find a safe place. Abilities and items could also be used to hide the group or to banish the Haunter.
Recovery: Victims try to recover from the mental or physical damages they have sustained in Startle or Struggle phases. They try to recover their lost sanity by being in bright and safe areas, being close to other Victims and using items and abilities. Physical damage to a Victim is harder to mend if the right items are not available.
Bright areas are your safe haven
Items and Abilities
Victims have items and abilities which are set by the Storyteller. These items and abilities are selected from various kits. Each kit is related to a stereotypical character in the horror genre. Currently there are three different kits for the Victims.
Final Girl kit
Exorcist Kit
Medium Kid Abilities
Immersion
The experience of playing as the Victim is designed with an emphasis on immersion. Any situation is a potential threat but you can always prevent it if you pay close attention. For instance, if your friend is possessed by the Haunter, you can find subtle signs of possession in his/her face and voice or when the Haunter is looking at you, you will hear certain noises, there are dozens of visual and aural cues to give you information about the dangers. You must immerse yourself in the game and constantly analyze the cues in order to survive.
Members at Metanoia team have already shipped games on mobile and PC platforms. Including Shadow Blade and Garshasp: the Monster Slayer.
Metanoia team was born in a game jam from two game developers creating a game about a player chasing another player. The initial concept of Kaidan slowly brought more experienced indies together and the size of the team expanded as the concept of the game was evolving. What connected us as a team was simply a passion to create something that truly innovates.
We have already invested a significant amount of time in Kaidan during the past year. A few of us have worked full-time on the project without being paid. This is all because we believe in Kaidan, and more than that, we believe it’s up to us indies to explore the uncharted areas of our beloved medium and push it forward. We know there are a lot of people out there who are like us. They are waiting for a change, for something new, and Kickstarter helps us connect with these people, so they will:
Help us tackle the financial problems, so the team can work full-time on the project.
Guide us in the development process with their constant feedbacks and ideas so we won’t get lost in these uncharted areas!
Having a community to actively play the game is a very important factor for a multiplayer game. Our backers ensure us that we have a great and dedicated community to help the game community prosper. We expect many great storytellers emerge from our backers community!
Milestones:
Currently we have passed three major milestones:
Timeline of the project
1 vs. 1 Prototype: This was a 1 vs. 1 version of the game without the storytelling features. The Haunter had 10 abilities and the Victim had three items. After hearing lots of screaming it was verified that it’s absolutely possible to scare someone in a multiplayer horror game and it is highly enjoyable to scare someone!
Kaidan System Prototype: We designed and tested an intuitive and deep system which could create horror stories. We came up with a tool that enables players to recreate many horror stories using a few stereotypical characters and settings, so it’s achievable to give the players a set of tools to create their own horror story.
1 vs. many Prototype: In this prototype we increased the number of Victims and tackled the technical problems in networking. Also we substantially enhanced the visual fidelity.
Now that our two main assumptions are verified, and major technical risks are evaluated, we can begin the production of the game after a successful Kickstarter campaign. We plan to support the game post launch with additional content and patches.
Our promises to our backers:Each day, 3D printing seems to become more popular. Since the original MakerBot brought us the first consumer-accessible 3D printer, the whole market has exploded with new niches and new ways for people to print their own objects. These days you can print just about anything your mind can imagine.
Last April, Solidoodle was the first company to introduce a sub-$500 3D printer. What started off as an affordable printer for everyone has become a popular printer among schools in particular, and a viable manufacturing method in its own right. We had a chat with Solidoodle founder Sam Cervantes to talk about what the 3D-printing business is like, and to pick his brain about where he thinks 3D printing will go next.
TechHive: How did you go from being an aerospace engineer to working in the 3D-printing business?
Sam Cervantes: Well, it’s funny, because my first experience with 3D printing was when I was an aerospace engineer. I was working as an aerospace engineer maybe 10 to 12 years ago. Somebody had printed a part of a jet engine, and they threw it in my lap—it was about the size of a TV tray or a cafeteria tray—and they said, "Here you go—and by the way, it’s potentially toxic."
The first time I saw a consumer 3D printer printing … I was so captivated by this wonderful new technology that was affordable and within reach of the consumer. —Sam Cervantes
At the time I realized 3D printing had a lot of potential. The part was very high resolution, and it was a big part. I realized that 3D printing had a lot of potential, and that it had a long way to go. The material at the time was slightly hazardous, and the part was really expensive—I think it cost $5000 just for one printed part.
So that was my first experience. Fast-forward to 2008 or 2009: I sold my first consumer 3D printer, and I thought it was really cool. The first time I saw a consumer 3D printer printing, I couldn’t take my eyes off it for hours. I was so captivated by this wonderful new technology that was affordable and within reach of the consumer.
Solidoodle A close-up of a 3D printout compared to a quarter.
TH: What made you decide to start up your own 3D printer with Solidoodle?
SM: I worked with a few other startups and then I ended up starting my own company, Solidoodle. At the time, there was no other 3D printer that was both affordable and easy to use. My goal with Solidoodle was to make a printer that was fully assembled for just $499, and nobody had ever done that before. I worked really hard, I cut out waste, and I achieved it in April 2012 when we launched the Solidoodle 2. It just took off beyond our wildest expectations.
TH: What are some of the best uses of 3D printing you have seen come out of your own printer?
SM: One of my favorite things to see is fathers printing out toys for their children. In addition to teaching the kids about technology at an early age—in their developmental years—it is just plain fun. It’s a family experience.
Taking it back to my early years, my dad always had the latest computer, whether it be the TRS-80 or the Mac 512K. And we would play computer games, and he’d teach me to write little computer programs. That was so instrumental for me when I was growing up. So, now dads have a new technology for playing with their kids. Dad loves it because it’s hot new technology, and Mom allows him to buy it because he can play with their kids.
Solidoodle The Solidoodle 2.
Another big use of our printers is in schools. Teachers love to buy our printers, put the printer in the classroom, and teach kids about technology. Kids can print out little projects; if they’re in a drafting class, they can print out prototypes of whatever they are drawing.
The third really cool use, to me, is designers and engineers—people who design professionally for a living. Designers, engineers, and architects use the printer to print out stuff for work. They probably have [another] 3D printer they can use to print at really high resolution, but it’s really expensive, and it’s a lot to lend [it to] some department somewhere. They have to get authorization to use it, and it's really tricky to use; it’s complicated.
Ours is affordable—an engineer can afford to put it on his desktop. Engineers will print little designs, parts, or new ideas. The cool thing is that they can quickly prototype. They don’t need to get the design right the first time, because it is so inexpensive to prototype.
Solidoodle
TH: Are there any specific 3D printing projects that you have liked in the past?
SM: Sure. We printed a tyrannosaurus. We had to print a number of different sections and then glue them together. It was a little project, but it was a lot of fun. I want to say it was 12 to 14 inches; this thing is huge. That’s probably one of our favorite prints here.
We also printed a soccer ball. It’s made of a number of different little pieces that snap together. It’s actually the size of a soccer ball, and you can kick it around because of the springiness of the material.
We had a customer that started a business. They printed little, really high-resolution game pieces. They started a game design company that created a Monopoly-style board game, each with the little board pieces—and they not only make prototypes, but also small production runs.
Next page: 3D printing in homes, factories, and elsewhereSister Simone Campbell, head of the Catholic social justice lobbying organization NETWORK — and a leader of the “Nuns on the Bus” tours — testified before Congress yesterday at a hearing on poverty in America.
The hearing, “The War on Poverty: A Progress Report,” was organized by the House of Representatives Committee on the Budget, headed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). In his opening remarks, Ryan laid out his reasons for calling the hearing. “Forty-nine years ago, Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty,” he said. “Well, since then, we’ve spent $15 trillion on that war. So what do we have to show for it? Today, 46 million Americans are living in poverty. […]The fact is, we’re losing this War on Poverty, and we need to know why.”
On trial in the hearing was the effectiveness of social safety net programs, which Ryan described as redundant, layered upon one another like a “sedimentary rock,” and often unnecessary. “Some programs displace the efforts of local communities to help families in need,” he said. “Government should not displace these efforts, it should support them.”
As the leader of an organization that for 41 years has endeavored to help the working poor, Sister Campbell represented one such non-governmental organization. But the government programs, she said, were indispensable in her work.
“The Census Bureau’s supplemental poverty measure and my daily experiences tell us that every day in America, supports such as the EITC, SNAP and Medicaid are making critical differences in the lives of low-income families, particularly children,” she testified. “The safety net does lift millions of people out of poverty — in fact, in 2011, government benefits lifted a total of 40 million people out of poverty.”
Watch her full testimony, here:
Campbell came under fire from some conservatives, including Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI), who joked that he was excited to challenge a nun after years of Catholic school. He demanded, “What is the church doing wrong that they have to come to the government to get so much help?”
Campbell replied, “Justice comes before charity… Everyone has a right to eat, and therefore there is a governmental responsibility to ensure everyone’s capacity to eat. Love and care makes a difference, but the issues are so big there isn’t sufficient charitable dollars there.”
For more on Sister Simone’s thoughts on poverty, watch her interview with Bill on Moyers & Company from last year.At a 1995 news conference, then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) discusses a partial shutdown of the federal government. Behind him, from left, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) confers with Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.) and Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). (The Washington Post /James A. Parcell)
Republican lawmakers were forced to choose between two competing parties Wednesday night: A picnic on the White House lawn or a reunion inside a committee room with Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay.
Given the choice between ice cream sundaes and hot dogs on a perfect, crisp late-summer evening or a panel discussion about the future of the GOP, 10 current lawmakers attended the latter, according to Roll Call, which had a reporter there.
The Capitol Hill shindig, which was really an opportunity for Gingrich, DeLay and other former members to pontificate about what’s wrong with today’s GOP, was scheduled to celebrate a high (the highest?) point in Republican congressional history: the 1994 midterm elections.
Yes, Loop fans, it has been nearly 20 years since the so-called Republican Revolution, when Gingrich and his Contract With America swept House races in the middle of President Bill Clinton’s first term.
Great to get together with the Class of 94 last night. #contractwithamerica http://t.co/77oMzk6U2J pic.twitter.com/uD78vU6jC5 — Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) September 18, 2014
The event was open to the press, according to Roll Call reporter Emma Dumain, but Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who was elected in the 1994 wave and moderated the discussion, kicked it off noting there were no press so they could “say what we really think!”
So what do they really think? Nothing too juicy. Sounds like it was pretty standard GOP red meat fare, though Gingrich was critical of his party’s overall pessimism.
“You have to sound like you’re more than anti-Obama, and you’re more than some … politician whose primary role in life is to raise money for your consultant to buy attack ads,” Gingrich said. “It’s pathetic … and it’s turning people off.”
(A bit odd for the former speaker given that he stayed alive in the 2012 presidential race with help from Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson.)
Of the nearly a dozen class of ’94 lawmakers still serving who stopped by the reunion, only one was spotted hanging at the White House later: Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.). He’s going through a tough break-up, so it’s best to keep yourself busy.In the past month, the consumer versions of both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive have been released along with their games — some available on both platforms, and some exclusives. For virtual reality fans, though, it's a bit of an annoyance if the demo you want to play isn't available on the headset you shelled out hundreds of dollars for. For that reason, it was probably only a matter of time before unofficial workarounds surfaced, like this proof of concept program on GitHub that allows Rift exclusives Lucky's Tale and Oculus Dreamdeck to play on the Vive.
The code was posted to Reddit by user CrossVR, who stresses that you still need to own the games to get them working on the Vive, but that the code could also also be used to "port" other titles. "It may work with plenty of other games, but that hasn't been tested by myself," writes CrossVR. "In the future more games will be supported, but I'm glad to see such swift progress already."
Our colleague at Polygon, Ben Kuchera, tested the system — named Revive on GitHub — and said it works just fine. In fact, Kuchera notes that the port of Dreamdeck (a VR demo sampler that shows off varying animation styles) is actually better on the Vive, as the headset's enhanced tracking functionality allows you to actually walk around the scenes. "The Vive's chaperone system, which shows you the limits of your play space, also works just fine on the Rift titles," writes Kuchera. "They seem to run nearly as well as native Vive titles in our testing."
Unofficial ports like this are going to be an interesting factor in the competition between the Vive and the Rift for VR supremacy. (Not forgetting Sony's Playstation VR, of course, which arrives this October.) Will Oculus or HTC or Valve do anything to try and limit these workarounds, or is it too niche for these companies to care? For the moment, at least HTC Vive owners will be happy, getting to play games and demos that were previously for the Rift only.A video showing three Sydney police officers brutally beating a young woman has gone viral, with over 750,000 views on Facebook. During the clip, the victim is repeatedly hit with a police baton and appears to be kicked in the head by a male officer.
Police brutality has been hitting the headlines in the US, but now it seems the unfortunate trend has made its way to Australia. The woman in question, Claire Helen, who works as a model and actress and was on the receiving end of recurring blows from a police officer, said: “It was the most frightening and humiliating experience of my life.”
Law enforcement officers allege that Helen punched a policewoman in the mouth, as well as resisting arrest – an action that the model stringently denies. "They pushed me down. They hit me and kicked me. They pulled my dress over my head," she said, speaking to Channel Nine. Onlookers could be heard shouting, "Let her go," and, "She's not resisting arrest.”
Helen, who is 1 meter, 60 centimeters tall and weighs 55 kilograms, insists she was just enjoying a quiet night out when she was accosted by law enforcement officers, who were much bigger than her.
"We weren't drunk. We'd been with people playing soccer and went out to have a few drinks. I'm not the sort of person who goes out getting pissed on a Wednesday night. I'm trying to make it as a model and actress. I can't go out every night getting wasted. I definitely don't ever get in circumstances like this," she told Channel Nine news.
The incident happened in the Kings Cross area of Sydney, which is home to a number of bars and nightclubs, after Helen and a group of friends haggled over a taxi fare, according to police. The law enforcement agency also added that a male member of the group punched the taxi driver in the stomach.
However, Helen alleges that the taxi driver had charged the group the wrong amount, which led to the trouble starting.
Sydney actress says she's the victim of brutal police assault....details on @7NewsSydney at 6 pic.twitter.com/jCdtDeF85C — Adam Walters (@AdamWalters07) December 4, 2014
"He had the meter running before we got in, so we got out," she said. "He said something to us and we said something back, but then he pushed one of my friends and called the police. Then the police showed up and you saw what happened," she added, Channel Nine reported.
READ MORE: Aussie state gives police power to disperse protests pre-emptively
The video has taken the internet by storm and has already been viewed by over three quarters of a million people on Facebook. Many users criticized Helen and defended the police. One woman wrote: “She deserved it. You’re supposed to respect your elders and respect the law,” with another adding, “She’s not resisting arrest?? Really... I thought that if you weren't resisting they would’ve had the cuffs on you 1 sec into the video… she got what she deserved.... hopefully that taught her a lesson.”
Kings Cross Superintendent Michael Fitzgerald said he was satisfied police had used appropriate force, adding: "Police are not punching bags, neither are taxi drivers."
He added that police have reviewed CCTV footage of the incident, and they say it justified why they took such a heavy-handed approach.
"I have viewed the footage that has been uploaded on social media," Fitzgerald said. "But I've also had the opportunity to view the entire CCTV from the City of Sydney cameras which shows the entire incident. [It] clearly shows the female offender punch the female police officer in an unprovoked assault which caused the wrestle that you see on YouTube," Fitzgerald added, ABC News reported.
The officer who repeatedly struck Helen with a police baton will not face any charges, police said. Helen and three men have been arrested with a range of offences, including assaulting a police officer, assault, affray and resisting arrest. They have been granted bail until a court hearing on January 6.After scoring the most impressive win of his career against Mark Hunt last week in South Australia, Stipe Miocic made his bid to challenge for the heavyweight title. Of course, whether the UFC grants him that shot remains to be seen.
And with fellow contenders Travis Browne fighting the resurgent Andrei Arlovski on May 23 at UFC 187, Miocic could end up on the outside looking in. It’s still a little bit up in the air as to who will face the winner of UFC 188’s unifying title bout between interim champion Fabricio Werdum and actual champ Cain Velasquez.
Yet during an appearance on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, the former Cleveland State wrestler Miocic said it’s not really that debatable. When asked directly if he thought he should be the No. 1 contender after the sustained beating he put on Hunt, Miocic didn’t beat around the bush.
"Yes I am, yeah," he said. "I feel that I am and I feel that I deserve it."
Miocic said that his camp has been in contact with the UFC to discuss the title shot, but that that everything is very preliminary right now.
"My manager’s talked a little bit, nothing much more than that," he told Ariel Helwani. "So we’ll see what happens. I just beat the fifth-ranked guy decisively. I feel like I deserve it. I showed that I belong. I showed that, especially in that fight before even though I lost against the former champ [Junior] dos Santos. I’ve been through a five-round fight twice. So I want a shot at the title."
The 32-year-old Miocic is 7-2 in the UFC (13-2 overall), and is coming off the TKO of Hunt in Adelaide. Before that, though, he and former heavyweight champion dos Santos went toe-to-toe for five rounds at UFC on FOX 13 in Phoenix. Though he ended up on the wrong end of a unanimous decision, Miocic thinks he showed enough of his mettle to stay in the top contender’s spot.
Before the dos Santos decision, Miocic defeated Fabio Maldonado, Gabriel Gonzaga and Roy Nelson respectively. Yet it was his work against Hunt over the course nearly 23 minutes that everybody has on their minds.
The fight was nearly called on a couple of occasions, with Miocic even pleading with referee John Sharp at one point as he rained down blows on "The Super Samoan." That the fight went an additional two rounds was a topic of debate in the aftermath.
Asked if he was wondering what he had to do to get the referee to stop the fight, Miocic instead complimented Hunt’s granite chin.
"Yeah, I mean, I was doing whatever I could, but it’s the fight game so I just had to keep going until I get that W no matter what," he said. "Mark’s as tough as they come, man. He’s got a great chin. The guy can take it better than anyone. He’s a tough guy.
"I thought I had it in the third."
Miocic said that he had no problem with Hunt’s corner not stopping the fight.
"I wouldn’t want my corner throwing in the towel no matter what," he said. "I wouldn’t want my corner to do that.
"There’s always that puncher’s chance, too."This year’s “Party for the Planet” celebration officially unveiled two exclusive research stations located within Rafiki’s Planet Watch and the Main Entrance of Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park. These new research stations, offered in partnership with Hewlett-Packard and Conservation International, will provide Guests the opportunity to get a hands-on look at the technology scientists use to learn more about animals and their natural habitats.
Many of the tools showcased at these |
what the IRA did?" -- referring to their use of terrorist violence. Each time he refused to give a straight answer. As Nolan himself put it at the beginning of the interview, quoting from a Daily Telegraph article in June: "This is a man who sympathised with violent Irish republicanism in the 80s, invited IRA representatives to the Commons a fortnight after the Brighton bombing in 1984 and at a Troops Out meeting in 1987 he stood for a moment's silence for eight IRA terrorists killed in an SAS ambush." He is also a man who invited Hamas and Hezbollah representatives into the UK parliament. Even The Guardian, regarded by many as anti-Israeli, has castigated Corbyn for this and his other associations with terrorists and anti-Semites.
It does not stop there. During an interview with one of Britain's most eminent political journalists, Andrew Marr, Corbyn called for dialogue with Islamic State. A week later, in The Spectator, Toby Young wrote an article entitled, "Jeremy Corbyn and the hard left are wilfully blind to the evils of Islamist Nazis." Of course, Corbyn himself did not volunteer to fly out to Raqqa to have a cosy chat with Islamic State's self-proclaimed leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in a spirit of dialogue.
What is the reason for this staggering naïveté? You can find some of the answer by looking at again at the Hamas Covenant and Hizbullah's Open Letter. Here are some sentences from the former:
The Islamic Resistance Movement [i.e. Hamas] found itself at a time when Islam has disappeared from life. Thus rules shook, concepts were upset, values changed and evil people took control, oppression and darkness prevailed, cowards became like tigers: homelands were usurped, people were scattered and were caused to wander all over the world, the state of justice disappeared and the state of falsehood replaced it. Nothing remained in its right place.
Here is a single statement from the latter:
As for our friends, they are all the world's oppressed peoples.
In other words, both Hamas and Hizbullah supposedly exist to fight for the rights of the oppressed, Franz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth," the victims of Western imperialism and colonialism, of American arrogance, of a worldwide Jewish/Zionist/Masonic conspiracy. What socialist would not reach out to condemn his own people and his own culture, would not repudiate his own history, merely to reach out to these victims? If Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic State, al-Qa'ida, the Iranian regime, and all the other promoters of violence proclaim themselves to be the champions of the downtrodden masses, are they then to be applauded, rewarded and financed?
It is not just the "hard left" that does this. The broad liberal press, newspapers -- such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Independent, Haaretz -- together with a broad consensus of politicians and church leaders, are always happy to tell us that when terrorist groups maim and kill innocent civilians it is not their fault, for the conditions of oppression under which they live have purportedly given them no choice other than to fight back; that the Palestinians have given up hope, that they and their children have no other choice but to shoot and stab their way to yet more years of failure, despair and security measures.
Most of us in the West have much to thank many real liberals for: the abolition of slavery, the cause of civil rights and anti-racism, recognition of the rights of homosexuals, empathy for the disabled, free education, the campaign against religious intolerance, and much more. Liberals share these achievements with many others from the "right" and centre, with Jewish and Christian ethical standards, with a growing sense of a shared humanity as set out in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But many pseudo-liberals have betrayed these same values and proven themselves unworthy of the work of their own ancestors -- men and women who would never have sat side by side with terrorists, lied about Israel, fostered anti-Semitism or tolerated the abuse of women and children.[5] In all likelihood they would never have denounced the values of Western civilization, or valued the monstrous over the humane.
Dr. Denis MacEoin is an academic and journalist specializing in Islam and the Middle East.
[1] The occupation is perfectly legal in international law under UN Resolution 242 (1967), and was reaffirmed in the Oslo II Accord, Article XI. See Alan Baker, "The Legal Basis of Israel's Rights in the Disputed Territories," Jan. 2013.
[2] For a very full and wholly tendentious list of these "violations" see here.
[3] Liberal support for terrorism has recently been demonstrated by the new leader of Britain's Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, who has famously described Hamas and Hezbollah as his "friends."
[4] For a broad discussion of this, see Kenneth Marcus, The Definition of Anti-Semitism, Oxford U.P., 2015, chapter 6
[5] For a detailed and eloquent account of how the political left lost its way through the twentieth century and the early twenty-first, see Nick Cohen, What's Left? London, 2007.Every once in awhile, I’ll come across an app that implements some hardening techniques that make reversing a little more interesting. This was the case when I recently tried proxying the API requests for Yik Yak, a popular social media application exclusively available for mobile platforms that allows semi-anonymous user communication across a 5-mile radius (typically college areas).
Opening the app while performing a self-MitM attack effectively kills all API communication — typically, an indicator of SSL pinning.
After decompiling the APK and reviewing the Java source code, it was clear that the developers had also used an obfuscation tool to optimize/protect their build. Here’s an example method:
public int hashCode() { if (e == null) { i1 = 0; } else { i1 = e.hashCode(); } l2 = f; i3 = g; if (h) { c1 = '\u04CF'; } else { c1 = '\u04D5'; } j3 = fs.a(i); if (j == null) { j1 = 0; } else { j1 = j.hashCode(); } k3 = Arrays.hashCode(k); l3 = Arrays.hashCode(l); i4 = Arrays.hashCode(m); if (n == null) { k1 = 0; } else { k1 = n.hashCode(); } if (o == null) { l1 = 0; } else { l1 = o.hashCode(); } j4 = (int) (p ^ p >>> 32); if (q!= null) { i2 = q.hashCode(); } return ((((((l1 + (k1 + ((((j1 + ((c1 + (((i1 + ((j2 + 527) * 31 + k2) * 31) * 31 + l2) * 31 + i3) * 31) * 31 + j3) * 31) * 31 + k3) * 31 + l3) * 31 + i4) * 31) * 31) * 31 + j4) * 31 + i2) * 31 + Arrays.hashCode(r)) * 31 + s) * 31 + fs.a(t)) * 31 + b(); }
Note that the variables, classes, and methods have been renamed from their original, human-friendly forms. As I looked over more of the code, it also seemed like string constants were obfuscated — a feature found in third party tools like DexGuard. While obfuscators are generally a good practice for several reasons, they only marginally delay the reversing process by making the code harder to follow. In my experience, obfuscators also make Java decompilation less reliable, so I’ll mostly be working with smali (examples are in Java when available).
Next, I began grepping the smali source files for strings relating to common SSL pinning implementations. I quickly found what I thought would be the pinning check:
.method public checkServerTrusted([Ljava/security/cert/X509Certificate;Ljava/lang/String;)V.locals 3.prologue const/4 v2, 0x0.line 153 iget-object v0, p0, LCG;->e:Ljava/util/Set; aget-object v1, p1, v2 invoke-interface {v0, v1}, Ljava/util/Set;->contains(Ljava/lang/Object;)Z move-result v0 if-eqz v0, :cond_0.line 163 :goto_0 return-void.line 160 :cond_0 invoke-direct {p0, p1, p2}, LCG;->a([Ljava/security/cert/X509Certificate;Ljava/lang/String;)V.line 161 invoke-direct {p0, p1}, LCG;->a([Ljava/security/cert/X509Certificate;)V.line 162 iget-object v0, p0, LCG;->e:Ljava/util/Set; aget-object v1, p1, v2 invoke-interface {v0, v1}, Ljava/util/Set;->add(Ljava/lang/Object;)Z goto :goto_0.end method
I bypassed the above method by editing it to immediately return void, but after building, signing, and installing the new APK, I had the same “Internet Connection” error as above. After trying a few different edits/builds with the same result, I began to suspect that Yik Yak was using some tamper detection logic (a package signature check) in an effort to prevent reverse engineering. I confirmed this by installing an unmodified, though resigned, APK that resulted in the same error.
In order to bypass the tamper detection, I changed focus and started searching for its decision point. In Android, developers can access the package’s signatures using the PackageManager class like this:
PackageManager pm = context.getPackageManager(); String packageName = context.getPackageName(); Signature[] sigs = pm.getPackageInfo(packageName, PackageManager.GET_SIGNATURES).signatures;
Since signatures are returned as instances of android.content.pm.Signature, I searched the source and found the following method:
public static Signature[] a(Context context) { if (context!= null) goto _L2; else goto _L1 _L1: PackageManager packagemanager; return null; _L2: if ((packagemanager = context.getPackageManager()) == null) goto _L1; else goto _L3 _L3: try { context = packagemanager.getPackageInfo(context.getPackageName(), 64); } // Misplaced declaration of an exception variable catch (Context context) { context.printStackTrace(); return null; } if (context == null) goto _L1; else goto _L4 _L4: context = ((PackageInfo) (context)).signatures; return context; }
It was pretty clear that this method was used as a wrapper to fetch the signatures of the current build. Note that on line 12, the value 64 correctly matches the constant value for PackageInfo.GET_SIGNATURES. Searching for usages of this class produced a few results:
Rather than attempt to workaround multiple decision points, I decided to spoof the package signature by altering the above method to return the signature of the official Yik Yak build. In order to do that, I needed to know the signature that the app was looking for. I briefly hunted through the code in the results above, but didn’t find the hard-coded signature (probably due to obfuscation). Instead of further searching (or debugging) the code, I ran a script that extracts the signature from a given APK:
After I had the expected signature, I patched the above smali method to return it:
.method public static a(Landroid/content/Context;)[Landroid/content/pm/Signature;.locals 4.prologue const/4 v0, 0x0 const-string v0, "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".line 11.local v0, "fake":Ljava/lang/String; const/4 v2, 0x1 new-array v1, v2, [Landroid/content/pm/Signature; const/4 v2, 0x0 new-instance v3, Landroid/content/pm/Signature; invoke-direct {v3, v0}, Landroid/content/pm/Signature;-><init>(Ljava/lang/String;)V aput-object v3, v1, v2.line 13.local v1, "sig":[Landroid/content/pm/Signature; return-object v1.end method
Here’s that same code in Java:
public static Signature[] a(Context context) { String fake = "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"; Signature[] sig = new Signature[]{new Signature(fake)}; return sig; }
Now that the package signature check had been bypassed, I installed the new build to test — unfortunately, I had the same error. Since this was likely due to some additional pinning code that I missed, I searched through the sources again and found this method:
public void a(String s, List list) { List list1; boolean flag; flag = false; list1 = (List)b.get(s); if (list1!= null) goto _L2; else goto _L1 _L1: return; _L2: int l = list.size(); int i = 0; label0: do { label1: { if (i >= l) { break label1; } if (list1.contains(a((X509Certificate)list.get(i)))) { break label0; } i++; } } while (true); if (true) goto _L1; else goto _L3 _L3: StringBuilder stringbuilder = (new StringBuilder()).append("Certificate pinning failure!").append("
Peer certificate chain:"); int i1 = list.size(); for (int j = 0; j < i1; j++) { X509Certificate x509certificate = (X509Certificate)list.get(j); stringbuilder.append("
").append(a(((Certificate) (x509certificate)))).append(": ").append(x509certificate.getSubjectDN().getName()); } stringbuilder.append("
Pinned certificates for ").append(s).append(":"); i1 = list1.size(); for (int k = ((flag)? 1 : 0); k < i1; k++) { s = (Dx)list1.get(k); stringbuilder.append("
sha1/").append(s.b()); } throw new SSLPeerUnverifiedException(stringbuilder.toString()); }
Bypassing this method with return-void finally disabled the pinning implementation, allowing me to successfully proxy the app’s API requests.
GET https://notify.yikyakapi.net/api/getAllForUser/***REMOVED*** HTTP/1.1 Host: notify.yikyakapi.net Connection: Keep-Alive Accept-Encoding: gzip Cookie: __cfduid=***REMOVED*** User-Agent: Dalvik/2.1.0 (Linux; U; Android 5.1.1; Nexus 6 Build/LMY48M) 3.0
The infosec world is full of examples of companies poorly handling software security, but it’s certainly progress to see more efforts to improve such security by organizations like Yik Yak (at least as far as Android is concerned).
Share this:[Update: In a Facebook message posted this morning, Sega says "we’ve found the problem within the game code that was stopping people playing offline and it’s been corrected by the dev team. The fix is now being tested by SEGA QA to ensure it is working properly and we’ll let you know when it will be implemented via our social channels ASAP. We’ve looked into the DRM complaints and can confirm this was not the cause of the problem. We apologize for any inconvenience any of the bugs may have caused players of the PC version at launch and would like to reassure them again, that as with this particular bug, we are on the case and working on fixes so everyone can have an uninterrupted and enjoyable experience playing Sonic Mania both online and offline."]
Original Story
I had high hopes of returning to Sonic Mania and slapping an Ars Approved sticker on my early-August review once its PC version launched. I figured, by then, the console editions would have received patches to a few noticeable glitches and a tidy PC port would seal the deal on an easy game recommendation.
Then I tried loading the Windows version of Sonic Mania while my Steam account was offline. That's when Sonic Mania informed me, in no uncertain terms, that "Steam user must be logged in to play this game."
Turns out, Sega has applied the much-maligned Denuvo copy-protection system to Sonic Mania's PC version—and this Denuvo implementation won't unlock the game for players so long as Steam is operating in "offline mode." Until the game receives an update, Sonic Mania fans hoping to play the PC version in an offline capacity are out of luck. (Your backup option, should you want to do something like board a plane, is to boot the game while connected to Wi-Fi, then disconnect from the Internet and leave the game running in the background until you're ready to play. It's not necessarily an ideal workaround.)
"Sonic Mania is intended to be played offline, and we're investigating reports on that," an account named "Sega Dev" wrote on the game's Steam news page shortly after its Tuesday launch.
Whether any fix to its online-authentication issue takes hours, days, or weeks is unclear at this point. But the same news post had less good news for anybody looking for a change of heart on Denuvo. The post simply described the game's Steam store page's failure to mention that Denuvo was a requirement as an "error." "We're fixing that now," the game's representative wrote, and sure enough, Sonic Mania's Steam store page now explicitly mentions Denuvo. (That same store page made no mention of Denuvo when the Steam version rose to the top of Steam's pre-sale charts throughout August.)
Weirdly, official Sonic the Hedgehog PR manager Aaron Webber asked fans to directly complain to Sega about Mania's use of Denuvo: "Please do share your feedback on DRM or any issues you're having at the link above. Make your voices heard." We can't recall a similar internal dig at DRM ever coming from an affected game's staffers.
As for Mania's PC port: the glitches I noticed after playing the console versions appear to have been fixed, and the result is a remarkably smooth experience (at least, if you're online for now). In a few hours of testing, I noticed a grand total of three one-frame hitches in animation, which may hint to a minor memory leak—and the fact that I noticed exactly three hitches is a testament to how otherwise impeccably Sonic Mania runs on Windows. Here's to hoping legitimate offline PC players will get a shot at such play as well, without having to dig around for a probably-coming-soon Denuvo crack.× Judge dismisses suit to stop operations at Huntsville clinic that performs abortions
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – Friday, a judge dismissed a lawsuit by pro-life advocates to shut down Huntsville’s only women’s clinic that provides abortions.
The Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives re-opened last month at a location at 4831 Sparkman Drive, after receiving the appropriate approval from the City of Huntsville Zoning Board and the Department of Public Health.
Pro-life advocates filed a lawsuit and a temporary restraining order against the City of Huntsville Zoning Board, saying that the clinic should have never been approved by the zoning board and operations would cause “irreparable harm” to the nearby community.
They also argued that a medical zoning variance issued in 1998 to a business at 4831 Sparkman Drive should not have transferred to the Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives.
Friday, Judge Alan Mann cited a lack of standing when he dismissed the case. He also denied a temporary restraining order against against the clinic.
Court documents show the suit was dismissed with prejudice, so it cannot be filed again.
In his ruling, Mann said:
“This Court does not render the decisions contained herein lightly and does so only after having thoroughly considered and carefully reviewed all of the submissions in support of, and in opposition to, defendants’ motion to dismiss and supplement to motion to dismiss. The Court has taken into account all of the arguments of counsel, the testimony and evidence presented at the hearing, as well as all of the relevant and applicable law. The Court does not in this case, nor should it in any case, interpose personal feelings or politics in the rendering of a just and legal decision.”
For our past coverage on this case, click here.Here is the news release from Metro:
Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Board Chair Antonio Villaraigosa announced today that Metro will officially open to the public both the Culver City Station and the Farmdale Station along the recently opened Metro Expo Line on Wednesday, June 20 at 12 noon.
In addition, it was announced that patrons boarding trains at both the Farmdale and Culver City Station will receive free passes to use the Expo Line on June 20.
“The opening of the Culver City and Farmdale stations completes the first phase of the Expo line, connecting Angelenos from the Westside to Downtown and beyond,” said Mayor Villaraigosa. “We are answering the call from voters to provide more transit options and creating career opportunities for Angelenos in the process.”
The public opening of the Culver City Station coincides with Downtown Culver City’s Third Wednesday “Summer Solstice” Happy Hour which features special offers and free goodies from over 25 participating businesses throughout the downtown area, as well as outdoor entertainment and activities. The event takes place every third Wednesday of the month from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. in beautiful downtown Culver City.
The public is encouraged to take advantage of the opening of the Culver City Station and take the Metro Expo Line, in a short walking distance to the event, to sample artisanal cuisine and cocktails, shop at unique boutiques, view art, and enjoy a variety of live music and entertainment. For a complete list of freebies, offers, discounts and entertainment, visit www.downtownculvercity.com.
“The opening of the Culver City station is a tremendous milestone in the construction of the Expo Line from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica,” said Culver City Mayor Andy Weissman. “We look forward to the Expo Line bringing much needed congestion relief to our region and providing an efficient new mode of public transportation to help commuters get from home to work, recreation and to school. We welcome the opportunity to bring more visitors to shop and to dine and to create a dynamic transit oriented hub at Washington/National as this exciting, eagerly awaited project comes on line to Culver City.”
Poised to open both stations along the Metro Expo Line, Metro over the next few weeks will continue to run test trains into the new Culver City Station located at Washington and National to ensure all systems are operating properly.
The segment of the Metro Expo Line operating from downtown Los Angeles to the La Cienega/Jefferson Station opened to the public on April 28. Trains have been bypassing the Farmdale Station adjacent to Dorsey High School going only as far as the station at La Cienega and Jefferson. With the opening of the Farmdale Station, students attending Dorsey High School will have an additional transportation alternative by using the new Metro Expo Line.
Phase I of the Metro Expo Line is a new $932 million, 8.6-mile light rail line from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City. It has 12 stations with two stations shared with the Metro Blue Line. The new light rail line serves USC, Exposition Park, The Mid-City communities, the Crenshaw District and Culver City.
Phase II of the Metro Expo Line, a $1.5 billion 6.6-mile extension from Culver City to Santa Monica, is funded under the Measure R half-cent sale tax initiative approved by the voters in 2008. Phase II will have seven stations serving West Los Angeles/Santa Monica and is expected to be completed in 2016.
Both Phase I and II of the Metro Expo Line are being built by the Exposition Metro Line Construction Authority. Once completed, they are turned over to Metro to operate. For more information about the new Metro Expo Line, visit metro.net/expo or buildexpo.org.
Like this: Like Loading...President Barack Obama shook the media world Tuesday by announcing he is commuting the 35-year prison sentence of US Army leaker Chelsea Manning. While responses on his actions are split, with some calling it “joyous news” and others–including a writer from a putatively liberal outfit like Media Matters–insisting she was “a traitor, not a whistleblower,” the build-up to Obama’s decision was uniform: Major print media almost completely ignored Manning’s pleas for clemency.
The editorial boards of the most influential newspapers in the United States—the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and USA Today—published nothing in support of Manning. When an outlet did register an opinion, as with the New York Post (1/13/17), it was to adamantly warn against commuting or pardoning her.
The only sympathetic commentaries we found in major papers over the past year were in the LA Times (9/16/16)—an op-ed by N+1 associate editor Richard Beck that called, not for a pardon itself, exactly, but for “widespread, coordinated support for a full pardon” for Manning—and a piece by Michael Tracey (“Let Chelsea Manning Go Free”) that appeared in the New York Daily News (1/17/17) 45 minutes before the commutation was announced. (The paper’s editorial board retorted later that day with “Leniency for a Traitor: Obama Clemency for Criminal Leaker Manning Is Unjust.”)
On the reporting side, it’s worth noting that the New York Times’ Charlie Savage has devoted a considerable amount of time over the past few months to documenting Manning’s difficulties as a trans woman in a men’s prison (1/13/17)—and reporting, for example, her placement in solitary confinement as punishment for a suicide attempt (9/23/16).
But on the editorial side—the department charged with driving popular opinion—support for mercy for Manning was nonexistent. This is especially striking, given that her exposure of government secrets through WikiLeaks was the basis for countless media reports (FAIR.org, 12/4/12)—including revelations about a 2007 US military attack in Iraq that killed two Reuters journalists. Manning’s conviction under the Espionage Act—even though she had given secrets to media, not an enemy power—posed a chilling threat to all media sources who seek to expose government wrongdoing.
The Washington Post hasn’t always been this stingy with appeals for leniency. In 2009–10, they ran not one, not two, but three columns calling for clemency for filmmaker and confessed child rapist Roman Polanski:
Anne Applebaum: The Outrageous Arrest of Roman Polanski (9/27/09)
(9/27/09) Richard Cohen: Let Polanski Go—but First Let Me at Him (9/28/09)
(9/28/09) Richard Cohen: Thank You, Switzerland, for Freeing Polanski (7/13/10)
Needless to say, both Applebaum and Cohen have been silent on the issue of Chelsea Manning, whose crime, unlike Polanski’s, never actually harmed anyone. The New York Times also made room to publish a pro-Polanski op-ed in 2009, “Why Arrest Roman Polanski Now?” (10/3/09). (Times alum Judith Miller, whose relaying of false intelligence reports helped paved the way for the blood-soaked invasion of Iraq, had the chutzpah to demand on Twitter—1/17/17—“How many people died because of Manning’s leak?”)
After Obama’s decision on Manning, the coverage was even worse. In addition to a predictable denunciation from the New York Post (1/17/17), the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin (1/18/17) piled on Obama, insisting his “grave misstep” wasn’t “popular” with Democrats (because popularity, apparently, is now a moral rubric one should strive for). The Wall Street Journal editorial board (1/18/17) published what was, even by its own standards, an incredibly vulgar take, referring to Manning as “a gender celebrity” and Obama’s move as “politically correct clemency.” The anonymous editorial would courageously misgender Manning three times.
Also notably absent from mainstream editorial advocacy leading up to Obama’s announcement were Puerto Rican activist Oscar López Rivera and Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who have been in federal prison for 35 and 40 years, respectively. The Chicago Tribune had one of the few newspaper editorials addressing the latter’s case—”Clemency for Leonard Peltier? Never” (1/13/17)—although Time (8/31/16) did publish an opinion piece from Peltier’s daughter seeking freedom for her father. López Rivera received clemency from the president on Tuesday, while Peltier still holds out hope for the same.
It’s a strange day when the president of the United States is actively to the left of all major media outlets on an issue. Now that Obama has given the Manning commutation his seal of approval, some in the press will likely follow in praise. But when Manning needed support most from the fourth estate, the supposed protectors of transparency and justice in the US media were, per usual, nowhere to be found.
Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org. You can find him on Twitter at @AdamJohnsonNYC.As the sun sets and the Friday night lights go on at football fields across California this week, thousands of high school players will prepare to clash.
In the stands, proud parents will look down on the field nervously, outwardly willing their sons to succeed while inwardly praying for their safety.
Missing from the equation, in many of those games, will be certified athletic trainers to watch over the proceedings, ready to address anything from common injuries to life-threatening situations. That’s because California is the only state that does not require its high school athletic trainers to be certified in any way. The state doesn’t even require schools to have trainers at games. So many do not.
It’s a shocking revelation, at a time when injury awareness and concern is at an all-time high — especially in football. We’re worried about the long-term effect of concussions, but we’re not even staffing high school football games with trained professionals? It’s an absurd situation that could be easily rectified.
According to a recent study published in the Orthopedic Journal of Sports Medicine and conducted by the University of Connecticut’s Korey Stringer Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to minimizing preventable death on the playing field, California ranks second to last in the nation — ahead of only Colorado — when it comes to implementing policies that help prevent the leading causes of sudden death in high school athletes. That dismal result is directly tied to the state’s lack of a coherent policy on trainers.
“California is the only state in the nation that does not regulate athletic trainers,” said Samantha Scarneo, director of sports safety for the Stringer Institute, named for a Minnesota Vikings lineman who died from heatstroke in 2001. “There’s been a lot of push to get licensure (legislation), but the governor keeps blocking it.”
Indeed, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed bills in 2014 and 2015 that would have required athletic trainers to be educated and licensed. By explanation, he wrote that the bills would have required anyone using the title “athletic trainer” to go to college, and that would “impose unnecessary burdens on athletic trainers without sufficient evidence that they are really needed.”
Brown might face the issue again next year. There is a bill making its way through the Assembly — AB1510, sponsored by Assemblyman Matthew Dababneh, D-Encino (Los Angeles County) — that would require licenses for athletic trainers. If passed, it would be on the governor’s desk before next fall.
“I felt the need to take action in order for our state to properly protect our student athletes,” said Dababneh, in a statement to The Chronicle. “Athletic trainers are the expert on the sidelines, and the first people able to identify potential injuries. Parents trust these individuals to protect the health of their children but without proper education and training, signs of heatstroke or a concussion can be easily missed. By licensing athletic trainers, AB1510 will effectively protect the athletes by ensuring only qualified individuals can work as an athletic trainer.”
The bill faces opposition from the California Physical Therapy Association, which has held for years that there is no need for a layer of certification for athletic trainers. In a letter to Dababneh last spring, which addressed six concerns, the professional group said, “AB 1510 is highly flawed and addresses no pressing issues facing the State of California and its citizens. Instead this legislation seeks to benefit a single category of individuals.”
Digging a bit deeper, the physical therapists seem most concerned about the scope of the bill, fearing it would give athletic trainers too much leeway to practice medicine.
The bill “absolutely oversteps its bounds and would allow athletic trainers to practice in a way that they’re not trained,” said Chris Reed, a physical therapist and chair of the government affairs committee for the CPTA. “It would be great if we had a bill that would require a trainer on every sideline. This bill doesn’t do that.”
The athletic trainers counter by saying physical therapists are trying to protect their job territory. The argument between the two professional organizations has been going on for years, leading certification efforts down a political rabbit hole the Assembly will wrestle with again in the next session.
In the meantime, sports are being played and California remains the only state without a rational certification process.
“I’m very much for certification,” said Scott Heinrichson, 45, an accredited athletic trainer at St. Francis High School in Mountain View. “We’re dealing with kids on a daily basis. As a parent, you’d definitely want someone in there who is qualified to do that job, not just someone who just says they are qualified.”
We’ve all heard the horror stories. Just this season, a high school football player in Santa Rosa suffered a severe head injury that required brain surgery. During training camp over the summer, a young player in the Bronx collapsed and died, apparently from heat exhaustion. From 1982 to 2015, 735 high school athletes died during and after participating in sports, according to the University of North Carolina’s National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research. According to the Stringer Institute, the leading causes of this most tragic result are sudden cardiac arrest, traumatic head injuries, heatstroke and complications related to sickle-cell trait.
Any of those four medical conditions requires quick-thinking action from a trained |
– and two rigid layers to hold it together. The rest of the phone is not covered by the same four-year guarantee.
A 5.4in quad HD AMOLED display is sandwiched into the five-layer screen, giving it one of the highest pixel densities of any smartphone currently available at 540 pixels per inch. The higher the pixel density the sharper the screen.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Buyers can customise the phone using Motorola’s Maker service, with a variety of backs and colours available. Photograph: Motorola
The rest of the smartphone’s specifications are similar to other versions of the company’s Moto X line, including the phone’s splash resistance. It contains a Qualcomm’s top processor, the Snapdragon 810, and, like the Moto X Style, has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. It also has a two-day battery, like the Moto X Play.
The Moto X Force has a microSD card slot for adding extra storage and wireless charging, but no removable battery. The camera on the back is the same 21-megapixel sensor as used on the Moto X Style, but has optical image stabilisation for removing hand shake. The five-megapixel selfie camera on the front of the phone has its own LED flash.
The Moto X Force reads like a smartphone geek’s wishlist, with only one big exception: it doesn’t have a fingerprint scanner, which is quickly becoming the mark of a high-end smartphone.
It also ships running last year’s Android 5.1 Lollipop, not the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but Motorola promises an update will be available.
The Moto X Force will be available in the middle of November in the UK costing £499 with 32GB of storage and £534 with 64GB, with various customisation options through Motorola’s Moto Maker site.Australia's first electric highway links Perth to South-West
Updated
A network of electrical charging stations dotted throughout Western Australia's South-West now forms the country's first extended road route for electric vehicles (EVs).
Most EV owners plug their cars into a socket at home and they can take anywhere from three to eight hours to fully charge.
Once charged, the car will only go as far as the size of the battery allows, which is about 150 kilometres for most common models.
This has made electric vehicles ideal for zipping around the CBD but difficult to take on longer trips.
But that is now a thing of the past for those who have their sights set on cruising through the South-West.
Anywhere where you've got power lines running past, you can put a charging station. Dr Chris Jones
From Perth to the beachside tourist town of Augusta, 310 kilometres from the capital, 12 publicly accessible charging stations will take just 30 minutes to fully charge a vehicle.
There are fewer than 150 EV owners in Western Australia but it was hoped access to the chargers would encourage more people to buy the cars, which start at $39,000.
The RAC funded the Electric Highway and president Esme Bowen said she hoped the bright yellow charging stations would get people talking.
"I think it's just about getting people exposed to them and I think this highway will give people the opportunity to think, 'What's that car doing? What does it do? What does it mean?'," Ms Bowen said.
Charging stations expected to be built across the country
Dr Chris Jones from the Australian Electric Vehicle Association said there was a reason there were so few EV owners in Australia.
"We do have longer distances than most to travel and so the limited range of the current fleet of EVs plays a part in that," he said.
"We also don't have any government incentives whatsoever whereas most other nations have got something."
The start-up costs are on the more expensive side, but the cost of running an EV is just a fraction of fuel-powered cars.
Owners can use the new charging stations for free until the end of the year when it will start costing between $3 and $5 for a full charge.
Dr Jones said while electricity was not a completely green option, it was preferable to using petrol or diesel.
"EVs aren't saints, the batteries need to come from resources that are dug out of the ground, but they will run on virtually zero carbon emissions if you charge it from solar or wind for the rest of its life, as the majority of EV owners do," he said.
Dr Jones said it was just a matter of time before similar charging stations were built across the country.
"All it took was a bit of motivation; it's an elegantly simple system. All of the infrastructure to deliver the energy is already there, it's just a case of putting the right charger there," he said.
"Anywhere where you've got power lines running past you can put a charging station."
Topics: environment, environmental-impact, human-interest, climate-change, wa, bunbury-6230, augusta-6290
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Instead they have policies, procedures, guidance and toolkits. The bureaucracy that stifles speaking up is fruitlessly employed in the task of encouraging speaking out.
To understand the plight of the whistleblower working with 7,000 or more colleagues, is to understand the loneliness, the dilemma, and the fear and the courage it takes for a junior doctor to denounce a careless, crass and cack-handed consultant; the guts needed for a young nurse to take on the might of management and say, "the nurse-patient ratios where I work are dangerous"; the bottle required for a line manager to denounce the budget pairing that endangers life and limb.
To blow the whistle inevitably means suspension, which means isolation and the forensic scrutiny of personal practice and motives. It means seclusion, suspicion and colleagues put under huge pressure to take sides. The evidence shows that most whistleblowers lose their jobs.
The management bugle is louder than the whistle. Trust management must decide if this is a complainant or a campaign, an axe grinder or someone with a real point, a grudge bearer or standard bearer for issues that must not be ignored. But when an investigation is carried out, it is by trusts themselves – judge and jury in their own court.
Ministers make fruitless laws about candour and honesty. They misunderstand the corrosive climate of fear surrounding NHS staff who have seen how other whistleblowers have been pilloried and denounced.
Internal complaints procedures first go through the line manager, someone likely to be part of the problem. Escalating concerns, to a director, is daunting. An executive open-door policy does not make it easy for staff to walk off the frontline and through the door on the fifth floor.
Serious allegations need forensic evidence that whistleblowers may not have. Trade unions struggle to have their voices heard and MPs are off the horizon. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the Mental Health Act commissioner and Public Concern at Work add to the complexity and even the best employers are mired in Nursing and Midwifery Council, General Medical Council procedures, guidance, and employment law.
Staff acting in good faith, with reasonable evidence that a concern is true, and who have no personal gain to make from complaining should be encouraged to speak out. Why aren't they?
I'll tell you. The success of the NHS is linked to the political fortunes of whoever is in power. It's called "managing up". Passing good news up the line; better no news than bad news, which is never passed up the line. To manage up, you also have to manage down and choke off failure, bad practice and complaints. Hence a corrosive culture of bullying and fear becomes part of an organisation.
There are four things we could do:
1 No trust should investigate its own whistleblowing complaints. Neutral, outside trusts should do it.
2 Safe havens for whistleblowers; hosted in neutral trusts, so that they may carry on working while investigations are undertaken.
3 Recognition that a mention of whistleblowing policies, during the induction process, is not enough.
4 Senior managers should be a permanent fixture on the shop floor, asking staff "how are we doing?" and "what do I need to know today?".
And a national Whistleblowing Day might create a climate of collective courage and action.
The chief executive at Watford NHS trust, Sam Jones, hosts a daily staff walk-in open forum she calls Onion to "peel back the layers", early morning sessions where scores of staff turn up and talk about problems and successes.
Managers, like Jones, understand laws, guidance and policies will not change the perils of whistleblowing. It takes organisations with courage to hold up a mirror, look at themselves and reflect on what they are missing if they don't ask.
Roy Lilley will be talking at the Speaking Out Summit on the subject of speaking up and whistleblowing on Thursday 8 May.
Are you a member of our online community? Join the Guardian healthcare network to receive regular emails and exclusive offers.James McAvoy has revealed that he has still not watched Trance, his new film made with Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle, since it wrapped.
[James McAvoy in Welcome to the Punch]
The Scottish star, who is currently treading the boards in an 80-performance run of Macbeth at London’s Trafalgar Studios, said he is prepared for a few surprises when he does finally see the finished work:
“I have not seen it since it was finished. And knowing Danny, he radically changes things on a whim – well, not on a whim… I’m actually quite intrigued to see it.”
Trance is Boyle’s first film since 127 Hours, and was completed just before his preparations began as creative director of the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony.
In the thriller McAvoy plays an auction house employee who visits a hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawson) after losing his memory during the theft of a painting.
McAvoy, who won widespread acclaim for his role as a young Scottish doctor who becomes personal physician to Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, said it was fun to play a character with several layers again:
“It’s the best thing you get to do, isn’t it? You get the audience onside and you go, ‘You’ve got to trust me, feel sorry for me…’ Then you do something to the audience. That’s what I love. “I’ve done it a couple of times. I did it in Last King of Scotland – ‘Hey, I’m just an normal boy, a backpacker…’ But by the end of it, people are going, ‘You’re a f***ing c***!’” he laughs. “You’ve made them feel for you, up until the start point where you start really f***ing up. “And I like that – it’s good fun to do. And in Trance the challenge was playing such a sap, playing such a pitiful character.”
After a self-imposed career break to help actress wife Anne-Marie Duff raise their young son, McAvoy will be an almost constant presence at cinemas for the rest of 2013.
Before Trance hits screens, there is the British thriller Welcome to the Punch, in which McAvoy plays a detective with one last chance to catch a former criminal played by Mark Strong.
McAvoy believes Welcome to the Punch is not your typical British flick:
“There are guns in it, and cops and robbers. But it’s a sophisticated cops and robbers movie. It’s very un…” he begins. “It’s not what Britain does a lot. It looks like a Michael Mann movie,” he says of the director of Heat, “melded with a Hong Kong actioner. It feels to me like British movies quite often feel too modest to go for it.” “I’ve got slick suits at the beginning, then I’m T-shirt and jeans. And the slickness is left to Mark Strong. My guy’s a little more unravelled than slick suits. And by the end we’re just bulletproof-vested and bloodied up.”
You can also see McAvoy later this year in the Irvine Welsh adaptation Filth, and American film The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, in which he stars alongside Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty).
Read the full interview in Scotland on Sunday.
Welcome to the Punch is released this Friday (March 15) and Trance is out on March 27.
Are you looking forward to Trance or Welcome to the Punch? Tell us in the comments below, on Twitter with #wow247 or on our Facebook page.Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, say they will fight any cuts in the federal Pell Grant program, for which spending has ballooned to the point that the Obama administration admits it can’t be maintained.
In its 2012 budget proposal for the Department of Education, the administration called the program’s growth “rapid and unsustainable,” but despite the grim numbers and Republican proposals for big cuts, Mr. Harkin on Monday said Pell Grants must be protected against any reductions.
“Any reduction to the Pell program would come at a much higher cost for our country down the road,” Mr. Harkin, chairman of the Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee, told The Washington Times, adding that while “tough budget decisions” are needed, Congress must raise taxes and cut spending elsewhere while “continuing to make investments in education.”
Education Secretary Arne Duncan last month projected the program, designed to help low-income students afford college, could face a $20 billion shortfall in 2012, another in a recent run of annual deficits that has been been masked in past years.
President Obama’s 2009 stimulus plan, for example, funneled $15.6 million into Pell Grants. A bill last year to rework the administration’s health-care plan dumped in $13.5 billion, but the program still had a $8.6 billion shortfall, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The administration wants $41.2 billion in the fiscal 2012 budget to keep Pell Grants at a $5,550 maximum per student. House Republicans voted to slash that to $4,015 per student as part of House Resolution 1, a 2011 spending plan voted down in the Senate last month.
But Republicans seem ready for a fight. Sen. Michael B. Enzi, Wyoming Republican and HELP Committee member, called for “systemic changes” to the program Monday.
House Republicans also are pushing reform.
“I supported the Pell spending reductions in H.R. 1 … Doing nothing while spending spirals out of control is not a responsible option,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Republican and chairman of the education subcommittee on higher education and workforce training.
The administration has proposed several changes it hopes can save the program.
First, Mr. Obama and Mr. Duncan want to eliminate interest subsidies for graduate and professional students, saving an estimated $2.2 billion in 2012 and $32.9 billion over the next decade. Second, the administration hopes to axe the “two Pells” provision, under which students who attend college year-round could get two grants during the same calendar year.
But outside scholars believe the proposed remedies, particularly the elimination of “two Pells,” is window dressing.
“It isn’t going to save any money. It’s just going to push back graduations,” said David M. Canaski, president of Financial Aid Training and Consulting and former director of financial advisement at the State University of New York-Cortland.
Mr. Canaski said the administration’s plan, while saving money year to year, could discourage the best students from completing college in fewer than four years since they would have to pay for a third semester with no government help.
The program’s price tag continues to increase largely because the cost of college keeps skyrocketing. Since 1980, Pell Grant funding has gone up 480 percent, but tuition has followed suit, rising 439 percent, according to Lindsey Burke, an education policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation.
“[The Pell program] has done nothing to mitigate the college cost problem,” she said.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.1. Horses do not seem to colic because the weather changes. It’s hot one day – it’s cool the next. Or the rain moves in. Your horse colics. What could be a more reasonable association? But the weather changes all of the time, and horses colic all of the time (colic is, after all, the most common medical condition of the horse). One seems not to have anything to do with the other – at least, not consistently, according to the studies – but since they both occur often, it’s easy to make an association. Most studies have even shown that weather changes don’t cause colic. If you’d like to see a few of the studies, including one that does show an association, Study 1, Study 2, Study 3 and Study 4.
On the other hand, I’m not sure what you would do with information that weather changes cause colic if it were true. It kind of reminds me of the old joke about the silly person who, upon finding out that most automobile accidents occur within 25 miles of your home, moved. The association between weather and colic isn’t confirmed, but it’s not something that you could do anything about, even if it were true. I don’t really worry much about things like that.
2. Horses don’t twist their intestines when they roll. Have you ever seen a horse lie down and roll, happily scratching his back and rubbing his sides in the dirt? Have you ever seen a horse develop a twisted intestine afterwards? Didn’t think so.
Horses that are uncomfortable from the pain of colic will often lie down and roll. They are trying to find a way to get comfortable, just like when you lie down on the couch after, say, a bad meal. Horses with colic pain will often change positions and roll around. They’re just trying to get comfortable: trying to get away from the pain.
So here’s another curious observational fallacy. The pain that occurs from a twisted intestine is extreme. One of the ways that horses with intestinal twists (volvulus, strangulation, entrapment, and such) show that extreme pain is by rolling around. But it’s the twist that comes first, not the other way around. In human medicine, it’s thought that intestines twist around scar tissue, or maybe from the weight of feed – to my knowledge, no one knows if there’s anything like that in horses. If you’re really interested in this problem in humans, CLICK HERE to read a great article from MEDSCAPE.
If a horse is beating himself up from rolling around frantically in pain, there’s certainly ample reason to keep him from doing so. However, if your horse rolls, the gut isn’t in danger of twisting. In the worst cases, it has probably already done so.
3. Walk your horse, no matter what. I think that the idea that horses need to be walked when they have a colic probably comes from the concern over twisting a gut. “If they can’t lie down, they can’t twist their gut,” is how the thinking must go, I guess.
Walking is not directly therapeutic for a colic. If a horse is relatively comfortable lying down, there’s no real reason to get him up just so that he can walk. Imagine you, on the couch, feeling bad after that spicy food your ordered against your better judgment; how would you feel if someone came up to you and said, “OK, let’s go, we’re going for a walk.” Justifiable homicide, in my book.
That said, there may be some slight benefit to walking a horse with colic. It may help distract the horse with a mild case colic, and help him forget about his pain. It also gives the owner something to do until the veterinarian arrives!
4. Banamine® (flunixin meglumine) is a potent pain reliever for your horse with colic. When it was first released, a few decades ago, flunixin was heavily advertised as the”drug to treat colic (with some beautiful illustrations). Based on those advertisements, it seems that horse owners have learned that the drug is a “must” for treating horses with colic. In fact, some people even say that it is so potent that it works within minutes of its administration, (which, given what we know about how the drug works, isn’t possible).
The scientific evidence doesn’t back up the idea that flunixin is a very potent drug, and it certainly doesn’t seem to be a “must” for treating a horse with colic. In fact, experimental studies on the drug have shown that it’s not very effective at all at treating the pain of colic (CLICK HERE). Flunixin is a useful drug in certain circumstances, but it’s not a miracle drug for anything.
NOTE: There’s no reason at all to give any drug for any condition, without a proper diagnosis. If you have flunixin in a medicine chest or tack box, I personally don’t think you should give it to your horse with colic without consulting with your veterinarian first.
5. Add “alternative” treatments to help your horse with colic. Some people may add things such as acupuncture or massage to their efforts to help a horse with colic. Others may add any number of supplements that are said to help prevent colic, or do such things as “aiding” in digestion. Keeping horses is expensive enough – save your money.
In general, there’s no evidence at all to indicate that any “alternative” things are helpful, either in the prevention or treatment of colic.* In the case of acupuncture, there’s good evidence that it doesn’t help at all (CLICK HERE). If your horse has a colic, focus on getting quick and proper diagnosis and treatment. Don’t look for any “alternatives” to that!**
When it comes to colic, the two most important things to keep in mind that 1) It’s the most common medical condition of the horse, and 2) most cases of colic will resolve on their own, or with medical treatments (of course, there are many individual exceptions). Adding treatments that lack evidence of effectiveness only adds to your costs, not to mention anxiety. Of course, if you’re worried – and in some cases, you certainly should be – you should always consult with your veterinarian. Keeping a level head is always the best way to go!
For more information on colics and Dr. Ramey visit www.doctorramey.com(CNN) -- U.S. gasoline prices increased nearly 33 cents in two weeks, the second-biggest two-week jump in the history of the gasoline market, according to a new survey of filling stations.
The latest Lundberg Survey of cities in the continental United States was conducted Friday. It showed the national average for a price of self-serve unleaded gasoline at $3.51, an increase of 32.7 cents from the last survey two weeks earlier, survey publisher Trilby Lundberg said.
The jump was the biggest since a 38-cent hike between August and September 2005. At the time, the price increase was driven by damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.
"This time around, the spike comes not from nature, but from people," Lundberg said. "The armed struggle in Libya has shocked international oil markets and here it is at the pump."
As the fighting between opposition forces and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's troops begins to look more like a civil war, expect prices to continue to rise, she said.
Prices have risen nearly 82 cents since September 2010, the survey found.
While Libya is not among the top suppliers of U.S. oil, and only 3% of Libyan oil exports head to the United States, global economics link the events there to the pumps at home.
Libya produces a light, high-gravity crude oil that is most in demand by less complex refineries around the world, Lundberg said. As this oil becomes unavailable, it forces buyers of crude to substitute crude with similar properties from other oil producers, thereby increasing demand and starting a chain reaction that raises prices of crude and gasoline in the United States.
The current average price of $3.51 is 61 cents below the all-time high price recorded in July 2008. Today's price is 78 cents higher than a year ago, Lundberg said.
On a side note, Lundberg noted that the rising gas prices could dampen the nation's economic recovery. Gas demand -- one of the reflections of the American economy -- has been growing at a rate of 1%, she said.
"Higher prices today are certainly capable of halting that gasoline demand growth, which would reflect bad news in the economy," she said.
The Lundberg Survey sampled prices at about 2,500 gas stations. Of the cities surveyed, the highest average price in the continental United States was in San Diego at $3.87 per gallon. The lowest price was in Billings, Montana, at $3.15.
California has garnered headlines lately for its high gas prices, though the average price in the state remained below $4, at $3.83 per gallon for regular gas. The average California price for premium does break that barrier, at $4.04 per gallon.
Average per-gallon prices in other cities:
-Charleston, South Carolina: $3.32
-Houston: $3.36
-Atlanta: $3.43
-Boston: $3.48
-Las Vegas: $3.51
-Seattle: $3.60
-Chicago: $3.75Experts know far more than they did about daily life in North Korea, but very little about the country's elite politics
North Korea's vicious denunciation of Jang Song-thaek offered unprecedented detail of the case against him – but did not necessarily help analysts understand why he was purged, as the multiple and conflicting surmises about his removal indicate.
While experts have vastly more information on daily life in the country than a few years ago, basic details of elite politics remain a mystery.
When Kim Jong-il vanished from public view in 2008, world leaders were left to wonder whether he was even alive; it later emerged he had suffered a stroke. News of his death in 2010 did not leak before Pyongyang's announcement two days later.
"We don't even know when Kim Jong-un was born – how do we dare to pretend we know anything that goes beyond that?" said Ruediger Frank of the University of Vienna, who has spent 25 years following the country.
"There's very little that we know for sure."
North Korea watchers have limited tools at their disposal. One of the most important is simply parsing official propaganda and comparing it to historical precedent, sometimes judging the absences and omissions to be as significant as what appears.
Others say that information from defectors and outsiders who deal with North Koreans is gradually expanding knowledge of top-level affairs. Much of the information on the Kim family's personal affairs has come from Kim Jong-il's former sushi chef, a Japanese citizen who worked for the late leader for several years. Snippets have also come from Kim Jong-il's eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, who lives in Macau.
"Up until the last few years, even the intelligence agencies didn't know much. The US agencies still don't, but South Korea now have extremely good knowledge," said Hazel Smith, a North Korea expert at the University of Central Lancashire.
"They have hugely improved human intelligence sources. People are phoning out of the North on mobile phones. North Korean agents are coming into South Korea – which means South Koreans are going into the North. You have a whole stream of information which you never used to have."
The North's announcement of Jang's expulsion from the party and removal from his posts was presaged by briefings from South Korean intelligence last week. The two aides who the spy agency said had been executed were attacked as "confidants" in Friday's KCNA report.
The South has benefited from a number of well-placed defectors who were not at top levels of the system but had a good sense of how it was working, Smith said. There are widespread rumours that the purge of Jang has led to attempts by senior aides to defect.
Foreigners involved in business deals with the North are another conduit for information, Smith said, and the South is also likely to have some access to signal intelligence.
But with tight controls on who knows what, strictly limited access for foreigners and heavy potential punishment for those who let information slip, North Korea's elite remains one of the most secretive in the world.Nicolas Ghesquière by Juergen Teller | Source: System
PARIS, France — After months of silence, Nicolas Ghesquière has finally spoken out.
System magazine's Jonathan Wingfield interviewed Nicolas Ghesquière several times between early December 2012 and late March 2013. This was the first time Ghesquière had chosen to speak publicly about his shock departure after 15 years at Balenciaga.
Ghesquière opens up about why he left Balenciaga, his thoughts and impressions about the current state of the fashion industry and what the future has in store. As he mentions at one point in this defining conversation, “The best way to move forward is to go back to work.”
What follows is a global exclusive excerpt from the interview.
At what point into the job at Balenciaga did you realise you needed to wise up to the business side of the brand?
NG: Straight away. It’s part of being a creative because the vision you have ends up in the stores. It actually makes me smile today when I think about it because it was me who had to invent the concept of being commercial at Balenciaga. Right from the start I wanted it to be commercial, but the first group who owned the house didn’t have the first notion of commerce; there was no production team. There was nothing.
What was your vision for the brand?
NG: For me, Balenciaga has a history that is just as important as that of Chanel, even if it’s a lesser-known name. It had the modernity, it was contemporary, and I’ve always positioned it as a little Chanel or Prada.
But what makes Chanel and Prada bigger structures?
NG: The people that surround the designers. Miuccia Prada has an extraordinary partner, whereas I was doing everything by myself.
So without the right people, building something as big as a Chanel or Prada is unimaginable?
NG: I don’t know if it’s impossible, maybe the system will change, but what’s clear is that those brands have family and partners surrounding them, and they have creative carte blanche. Prada, for example, has made this model where you can be a business and an opinion leader at the same time, which is totally admirable. It’s the same thing at Chanel. Sadly, I never had that. I never had a partner, and I ended up feeling too alone. I had a marvellous studio and design team who were close to me, but it started becoming a bureaucracy and gradually became more corporate, until it was no longer even linked to fashion. In the end, it felt as though they just wanted to be like any other house.
You’re saying this spanned from a lack of dialogue?
NG: From the fact that there was no one helping me on the business side, for example.
Can you be more specific?
NG: They wanted to open up a load of stores but in really mediocre spaces, where people weren’t aware of the brand. It was a strategy that I just couldn’t relate to. I found this garage space on Faubourg-Saint-Honoré; I got in contact with the real estate guy who’s a friend of a friend, and we started talking… And when I went back to Balenciaga, the reaction was, ‘Oh no, no, no, not Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, you can’t be serious?’ And I said yes really, the architecture is amazing, it’s not a classic shop. Oh really, really… then six months went by, six long months of negotiations… it was just so frustrating. Everything was like that.
And the conversations, like that one about the store, who would you have them with?
NG: I’d rather not say. There wasn’t really any direction. I think with Karl and Miuccia, you can feel that it’s the creative people who have the power. It was around that time that I heard people saying, ‘Your style is so Balenciaga now, it’s no longer Nicolas Ghesquière, it’s Balenciaga’s style.’ It all became so dehumanised. Everything became an asset for the brand, trying to make it ever more corporate – it was all about branding. I don’t have anything against that; actually, the thing that I’m most proud of is that Balenciaga has become a big financial entity and will continue to exist. But I began to feel as though I was being sucked dry, like they wanted to steal my identity while trying to homogenise things. It just wasn’t fulfilling anymore.
When was the first time you felt your ambitions for the house were no longer compatible with Balenciaga’s management?
NG: It was all the time, but especially over the last two or three years it became one frustration after another. It was really that lack of culture which bothered me in the end. The strongest pieces that we made for the catwalk got ignored by the business people. They forgot that in order to get to that easily sellable biker jacket, it had to go via a technically mastered piece that had been shown on the catwalk. I started to become unhappy when I realised that there was no esteem, interest, or recognition for the research that I’d done; they only cared about what the merchandisable result would look like. This accelerated desire meant they ignored the fact that all the pieces that remain the most popular today are from collections we made ten years ago. They have become classics and will carry on being so. Although the catwalk was extremely rich in ideas and products, there was no follow-up merchandising. With just one jacket we could have triggered whole commercial strategies. It’s what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t do everything. I was switching between the designs for the catwalk and the merchandisable pieces – I became Mr Merchandiser. There was never a merchandiser at Balenciaga, which I regret terribly.
Did you never go to the top of the group and ask for the support you needed?
NG: Yes, endlessly! But they didn’t understand. More than anything else, you need people who understand fashion. There are people I’ve worked with who have never understood how fashion works. They keep saying they love fashion, yet they’ve never actually grasped that this isn’t yoghurt or a piece of furniture - products in the purest sense of the term. They just don’t understand the process at all, and so now they’re transforming it into something much more reproducible and flat.
What’s the alternative to this?
NG: You need to have the right people around you: people who adore the luxury domain. There has to be a vision, but there also has to be a partner, a duo, someone to help you carry it. I haven’t lost hope!
At the time when you were starting to feel that frustration, did you talk to any other designers who were in the same situation?
NG: Yes. What’s interesting is how my split from Balenciaga has encouraged people to get in touch with me, and they’ve said, ‘Me too, I’m in the same situation. I want to leave too.’ There are others, but my situation at Balenciaga was very particular.
In spite of the increasingly stifling conditions you felt you were operating in, were you nonetheless scared by the prospect of leaving Balenciaga?
NG: I just said to myself, ‘Okay, well you have to leave, you have to cut the cord.’ But I didn’t say anything to anyone, apart from to a few very close people, because, you know, I’ve become pretty good at standing on my own two feet.
Once you’d decided enough was enough and you made your intentions clear, was management surprised that you wanted to leave?
NG: Yes. I think so, because I’d shown my ambitions for the house. There’d been lots of discussions, of course, and there were clearly some differences, but that sort of decision doesn’t just come out of nowhere. I’d been thinking a lot too. I was having trouble sleeping at one point. [Laughs] But there’s usually something keeping me awake.
After the announcement, did lots of people in the fashion world contact you?
NG: I didn’t actually see all the reactions straight away because I was in Japan at the time; one of my best friends had taken me on something of a spiritual trip to observe people who make traditional lacquer and obi belts; it was such a privileged environment with tea ceremonies. On the other side of the world, there was this violent announcement being made. When I got back to Paris I saw the press, and with all the commentary going on I actually learnt things about myself; it was quite beautiful in fact. Generally the reaction had been very positive, even on Twitter there were some very satisfactory things being written. Ultimately, I felt okay in the end because it seemed very dignified. I haven’t expressed myself up until now, but I would like to say thank you to everyone, I really am very grateful.
Did you ever think about making a personal announcement?
NG: No, I never wanted to express myself like that. I don’t know how to do that.
What’s the most exciting thing about this period of time for you?
NG: Preparing for the next chapter and having the time to observe what’s going on in the industry. People could have forever associated me with Balenciaga. We saw clearly when the split took place that there was a desire for my name, so I disassociated myself naturally from the house. That could have been a risk. It would have been different if Balenciaga had disassociated itself from me, but people had seen me develop my signature and knew that it might happen. That’s exciting because whatever choice I make, the possibilities are open, and that was confirmed with |
You can use anything you like. Lightly grease your pan with some coconut oil (which is what we do). You could put down wax paper instead if you wanted. Once your marshmallow mixture is starting to look like it has some body to it (almost forming peaks), pour the mixture into the prepared pan, using a spatula for spreading. Allow the marshmallows to sit uncovered for a few hours. Once marshmallows have set for a few hours you can start to cut into desired shapes using a sharp knife. Store in an airtight container. We store our sugar-free marshmallows in the refrigerator. ** for those that do not want to use gelatin – you can try agar agar – 3/4 tsp – 1 tsp 3.1 http://purelytwins.com/2013/02/08/how-make-sugarfree-marshmallows-gelatin/ All rights reserved to Purelytwins.com
A simple recipe to make homemade marshmallows that are sweetened with stevia.
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til next time,
xoxoOTTAWA – A U.S. consultant hired by Ottawa to assess Canada’s eventual recreational pot market says jurisdictions that regulate cannabis should expect “unbelievably high” sales growth in the first few years as criminals are driven out of business.
Adam Orens, a founding partner of the Marijuana Policy Group, said he is not yet authorized to discuss his findings on the future Canadian pot market because his organization is under contract with Health Canada.
However, a look at the group’s estimates for Colorado’s regulated cannabis industry suggests Canada can expect its own sector to generate billions of dollars per year in direct and indirect economic activity.
Colorado’s marijuana industry churned out nearly US$2.4 billion in economic activity in 2015, created 18,000 full-time jobs and pumped US$121 million in tax revenues into state coffers, Orens’ group reported in a study released last fall.
A key takeaway from the Colorado research is that newly legalized pot industries should be ready for a sales jolt over the first few years as black-market transactions shift to the regulated market, Orens said.
His Denver-based firm found that Colorado’s regulated marijuana sales skyrocketed 42.4 per cent between 2014 — the first year recreational pot sales were permitted in the state — and 2015, when they totalled US$996 million.
“We’ve had unbelievably high year-over-year growth rates in sales,” Orens said in an interview, adding the group expects similar sales booms in other pot-regulating places such as Washington state, California and Oregon.
“This is a conversion of an existing, informal market into a formal, regulated market and you’re going to see several years of very fast growth.”
After the initial surge, however, he noted the Colorado study predicted considerably slower sales growth under the expectation that the black market will gradually be swallowed up. The report projected sales growth of 13.1 per cent in the state in 2020.
While every jurisdiction is different, Canada’s population is seven times larger than Colorado’s.
The Trudeau government, which recently introduced legislation to legalize recreational pot, has begun assessing the economic impacts of a regulated pot industry in Canada as well as taxation options.
To date, the feds have provided few details in public on how the new industry could benefit the economy and the government’s bottom line.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said the feds’ first concerns are taking weed out of the hands of kids and yanking the profits away from criminals. He has indicated any revenues from marijuana taxation should fund addiction treatment, mental health services and public health education.
To elbow out illegal vendors, Finance Minister Bill Morneau recently hinted Ottawa would keep pot taxes low enough to stay competitive with street prices. Morneau has also stressed that maximizing federal revenues on marijuana will not be a priority.
A spokesman for Health Canada said the Marijuana Policy Group has been contracted to analyze the expected future demand for non-medical cannabis in Canada.
Eric Morrissette wrote in an email that the findings will help Ottawa develop policy related to the implementation of cannabis legislation and complement some publicly available studies.
In November, the parliamentary budget office projected 2018 sales tax revenue — for Ottawa and the provinces combined — to be as low as $356 million and as high as $959 million. That’s assuming regulated retail pot sells for $9 per gram, in line with current black-market prices.
Earlier this month, the C.D. Howe Institute think tank estimated legalized cannabis would generate about $675 million next year in combined federal and provincial revenue from existing sales taxes.
Deloitte estimated last fall that Canada’s soon-to-be-legalized pot industry could generate as much as $22.6 billion in economic activity.
In Colorado, Orens’ group estimates that every US$1 spent on retail pot creates US$2.40 worth of economic activity. By comparison, the research found that retail trade in Colorado generates US$1.88 per dollar.
Of the 18,000 full-time jobs created in 2015, the Colorado study said about 12,500 were directly involved in the pot business.
He said the direct positions ranged from “bud-tender” retail associates to growers, while indirect employment included jobs in services such as law firms, security and transportation.
The report said the state collected about US$121 million from sales and excise tax revenues combined in 2015. Orens said that number grew to around US$200 million last year.
In one example, he noted the City of Denver’s revenue figures have shown it had enough leftover cash to fund projects such as housing assistance, even after it spent money on marijuana regulation and enforcement.
“For public revenues, there’s a lot good going on,” Orens said.
“Now, I think what needs to be said, though, is that cannabis is not balancing budgets. We’re not funding government with this money, but it helps.”
Follow @AndyBlatchford on Twitter
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said state tax revenues were about $135 million in 2015.Is pollution shrinking our penises? Otter study points to humans
Study finds male otters sex organ weighs less due to smaller penis bone
Modern chemicals in food chain could be interfering with hormones
Same phenomenon could also affect human men
New threat: Otters are at risk again because river pollutants are harming their reproduction
Scientists have uncovered a worrying trend in'shrinking' male sex organs in otters - and warn it could start be affecting human men too.
Research into the water mammal suggests that modern chemicals may be to blame for the alarming phenomenon of shrivelling organs.
A report by the Cardiff University Otter Project indicated the animal - one of Britain's
best-loved predator species - is not in the rudest health.
Analysis found a decrease in the size of penis bones in male otters along with other
changes that gave 'cause for concern' about the size of sex organs.
It questions if endocrine disrupting chemicals - also known as hormone disrupters -
could be to blame.
And experts are warning the study could be behind similar problems in humans with increasing number of boys born with undescended testicles, sex organ malformation and reduced sperm counts.
Gwynne Lyons, director of the (CHEM) Trust, said the study showed it was time to end the complacency surrounding male reproductive health in humans as well as other species.
She said: 'If we are to protect our wildlife, we need good information on the reproductive health of key species.
'These findings highlight that it is time to end the complacency about the effects of pollutants on male reproductive health.
'This is particularly as some of the effects reported in otters may be caused by the same EDCs that are suspected to contribute to the declining trends in men's reproductive health and cause testicular cancer, undescended testes and low sperm count.
'In reality humans and wildlife are exposed to a cocktail of many chemicals every day and some may be adding up to cause problems,' she said.
High levels of pollutants were probably to blame for a crash in otter populations in
Britain in 1970s.
The Environment Agency funded post-mortem examination of otters since the 1990s revealing a gradual decline in pollutants over time - and otter populations have increased.
But the new study co-authored by the Chemicals, Health and Environment Monitoring (CHEM) Trust suggests there are links between hormone disrupting chemicals and problems with male reproductive health.
Experts studying the reproductive health of the mammals in England and Wales were concerned to find a decrease in the weight of otters' penis bones.
Other health problems in males included an increase in undescended testicles and cysts on sperm-carrying tubes.
The study, funded by the Environment Agency, was co-authored by the Chemicals, Health and Environment (CHEM) Trust and the Cardiff University Otter Project, and featured on BBC One series Countryfile last night.
'We were surprised to see the reduction in the baculum weight,' said co-author Dr Elizabeth Chadwick, project manager at the Cardiff University Otter Project, referring to the bone found in males' penises.
'It's certainly something that needs further investigation.'
Leading otter researcher Dr Eleanor Kean, of Cardiff University's School of Biosciences, said: 'The otter is an excellent indicator of the health of the UK environment, particularly aquatic systems.
'Persistent organic pollutants were banned in the 1970s, but other chemicals, in current usage, are not yet being monitored in wildlife.'
At risk: Endocrine disrupting chemicals are causing cysts on the tubes that carry sperm, undescended testicles and a reduction in penis weightWhy Carrie Lam thinks we are all stupid
How stupid does Carrie Lam think the people of Hong Kong to be? After cutting short her Christmas break for a suddenly called meeting with Beijing officials for the second time in the space of a week, she told us that the purpose of her visit was to discuss pressing “cultural heritage conservation” issues, presumably arising from the secretive plan to establish a local branch of Beijing’s Palace Museum.
And, adding contempt to her hopes of amnesia among Hong Kong people, Lam gave an assurance that, as on her first trip, she would not be discussing her bid for the chief executive post, a post that just weeks ago she declared to be of absolutely no interest to her.
However, visiting Beijing was definitely the right place to be for a fulsome exercise of double talk. For it was here, while Lam was busying herself on “cultural matters”, that China’s top leaders were showering praise on Leung Chun-ying, the man they had just been forced to rule himself out of the race for a second term as chief executive.
The way this was done was very much like a scene out of those wonderful mafia movies where the Cosa Nostra bosses decide that one of their number has to retire and they shove him out of the door at a splendid banquet where he is showered with praise while they check their weapons to make quite sure that he heads for the exit without turning back.
So it was with the hapless CY who was feted in Beijing for his many achievements in office, endorsements that he repeated to the media without blinking while being told to clear his desk. And he is sticking to his story that no one pushed him but that he suddenly decided to go following an outbreak of concern about his family.
This reminds me of attending a posh event marking the departure a most senior official from the old colonial regime who had just given a speech waxing lyrical about how she would have more time to spend with her family. I happened to be standing near the back and met her husband, who had come late. “What’s she been saying?” he asked, “apparently she’s going to be spending more time with you”, I told him. “That’s news to me”, he said unhappily.
Of course, politicians who are either aspiring for office or are being squeezed out of office tend to be fact-challenged. In this respect, the rag bag of demi-politicians in Hong Kong are not that different from their counterparts elsewhere in the world.
Nor are they that different in assuming that the Great Unwashed a.k.a. the public are gullible souls who actually believe everything they say. Or do they?
Does CY, for example, really believe that he has taken great strides toward poverty alleviation or that he has acted decisively to improve the housing situation? It’s hard to furnish a definitive answer here because politics is a cynical business, yet it is quite amusing to see that these claims are being repeatedly made by the exiting chief executive and are being echoed by his small but perfectly formed band of supporters.
Talking of which, support that is, just wait and see how quickly this small band of supporters shrinks even further once CY takes his leave of Government House. With no patronage to offer and no chance of making cosy deals, he will find that those who were closest to him have short memories or indeed memories in altered states that suddenly allow them to recall the many faults of the departed leader.
In a curious way, this is one of the reasons why Regina Ip, another contender for the chief executive job, is rather admirable because she does not strive to alter history or pretend that things did not happen.
Her supreme self-confidence is sufficient for her to believe and publicly state that, for example, her stewardship of the controversial Article 23 legislation, that provoked her departure from government, was not a mistake and she has no regrets. She maintains that it is her critics who are at fault.
Ip is also candid about her previous failed attempt to secure the top job. She better get prepared for the consequences of a similar bout of candid talk as a failure to rearrange the facts is considered something of a black mark for office seekers who need the approval of Beijing where no fact is too small as to be incapable of reinterpretation.
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AC/RAWASHINGTON, D.C. — Rajon Rondo is on his third strike, knowing one misstep, one false move will have him playing in China or have him searching for an assistant coaching job.
The Bulls know this, too, which is why they hold the cards for his immediate future and beyond.
Put him in moth balls with little communication, yank him in and out of the lineup or rotation as they so please, the team holds the cards and Rondo knows his history has much more to do with this than the actual present.
"Without a doubt. It's a test for me," he calmly said to CSNChicago.com after his one-game reprieve from the dungeon of the bench resulted in a close loss to the Washington Wizards, a game where Rondo acquitted himself well in 27 minutes with 12 points, six assists, four rebounds and three steals.
Previous transgressions make it easier to create the optics of Rondo being the problem more than he actually may be, with run-ins in Boston, Dallas and Sacramento being on his rap sheet.
Rondo doesn't lament where he is, but he certainly knows why things are perceived as such to the general public. But it doesn't stop the thinker from thinking and coming up with the conclusion that he's being insulted.
Considering he stays up at night watching games two or three times over, then comes into meetings with coaches the next morning with index cards of suggestions that don't merely revolve around his teammates' weaknesses but his own, it's not hard for him to connect the dots.
"It's a slap in the face. I'm not the first person to get slapped in the face in life," said Rondo to CSNChicago.com. "I don't feel any type of way. Either way, when you put away... I don't make excuses. This is who I work for, and it's a job."
It's a job he still loves and the players he identifies with most have the labels that lead teams to stay away — guys like DeMarcus Cousins and Monta Ellis — teammates in Sacramento and Dallas, respectively.
Those players are still in the league. Josh Smith, another close friend, is not — playing in China after failing to come to terms with a team this past offseason, following stints with Detroit, Houston and the Los Angeles Clippers since the start of the 2014-15 season.
"We're just different," said Rondo to CSNChicago.com. "KG (Kevin Garnett) told me, it's what makes me who I am. Stubbornness, not the know-it-all attitude but the work ethic. That's what makes me, me."
Smith just turned 31 last month. Rondo, his teammate at Oak Hill Academy, will turn 31 next month.
"I feel like I have at least 6-7 years," Rondo said. "The time I was on the bench, my perspective changed. I look at substitution patterns, watching other coaches call timeout. Always preparing. I even took a board home practicing my plays. I'm always trying to use my time wisely. I'm out there studying the game, how to become a coach, how to run things. Trying to continue to learn the game."
[RELATED: Rajon Rondo addresses benching]
Who knows if he's taking notes from Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg or associate coach Jim Boylen, the coaching staff member who could've very likely told Rondo that he needed to be saved from himself, but it would be ironic if it were the case.
The murky communication with Hoiberg, the lack of communication from the front office about his future in Chicago or potentially elsewhere could make him a ticking time bomb, if he didn't see it coming.
"Does it bother me? It would bother me if I didn't expect it, if it wasn't a surprise," said Rondo to CSNChicago.com. "My intuition is crazy. It's a gift and it's a blessing. I'm able to be in a situation at age 30, playing basketball. My perspective is different, this doesn't define me. It's my job."
Calling it a job is likely a way to detach himself from the situation so that frustration won't take over.
Carefully choosing Chicago given his reputation and the results of this experiment means he could likely be in the same position in six months — almost tacitly saying what was communicated to him isn't how things have laid out.
"I was very cautious this summer, where I chose to play," Rondo said. "What I was told in the meeting, It's a little different than what I was told in the meeting. Once I learn the system, I can run the show. It's what I do. I don't come in like I know it all. I put the extra work in."
After all, he's on his third strike and is the easy person to blame in the Bulls' underachieving — hence his not being able to help himself by saying "I felt fast" after Tuesday's game — an obvious shot to Hoiberg telling him that Rondo looked slow before his benching.
"I've been in this game a long time, great players, great coaches," Rondo said. "What happened to me early is kind of a curse. I expected it would be how it was my early years in Boston. How the veterans were in the locker room. How the players were all for one another."
"KG (Kevin Garnett) always told me, this isn't how it usually is around the league. it's a little surprising I'm going through it but at the same time, I was warned that this is the NBA."
He knows he's also the odd piece who doesn't fit in with Jimmy Butler's ascension and Dwyane Wade's homecoming, and has probably figured out the Bulls likely wouldn't have signed him had they known Wade would actually leave the Miami Heat in free agency.
But just because it was easy for him to put the pieces together that the pieces don't fit together doesn't mean he'll sit idly or cower in the corner, or perform with less vigor when his name is called upon.
It merely means he'll play the way he always does, or at least the way he intended to play when agreeing to terms with the Bulls — and it's no surprise to see how much energy he played with Tuesday with the younger players following eagerly, as they likely bonded over opportunity that doesn't come often.
In his mind, his expectations are simple but apparently hard to fulfill.
"I managed to get three hall of famers the ball (in Boston) and keep everybody happy," Rondo said. "All I have is two here, I had one last year. It's what I do, I run the show. It's a little different."
And it's clear the decision-makers with the Bulls don't like things being a "little different", thus leading to this impasse, one without a clear solution or person to blame.Vancouver, B.C. – The Vancouver Canucks released their 2011 Western Conference Final broadcast schedule today. Vancouver will host the winner of the Detroit/San Jose series in a best of seven series starting May 15, 2011 on CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada and Versus at 5 p.m. Pacific Time. All games will also be broadcast on Team Radio (AM 1040).
Please note the following scenarios are dependent on the winner of the Detroit/San Jose series.
2011 WESTERN CONFERENCE FINAL SCHEDULE IF DETROIT ADVANCES
#1 Vancouver vs. #3 Detroit
Game 1: Sunday, May 15, 2011 5 p.m. Detroit at Vancouver CBC, RDS, VERSUS
Game 2: Wed., May 18, 2011 6 p.m. Detroit at Vancouver CBC, RDS, VERSUS
Game 3: Friday, May 20, 2011 5 p.m. Vancouver at Detroit CBC, RDS, VERSUS
Game 4: Sunday, May 22, 2011 12 p.m. Vancouver at Detroit CBC, RDS, NBC
*Game 5: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 6 p.m. Detroit at Vancouver CBC, RDS, VERSUS
*Game 6: Thursday, May 26, 2011 5 p.m. Vancouver at Detroit CBC, RDS, VERSUS
*Game 7: Saturday, May 28, 2011 5 p.m. Detroit at Vancouver CBC, RDS, VERSUS
2011 WESTERN CONFERENCE FINAL SCHEDULE IF SAN JOSE ADVANCES
#1 Vancouver vs. #2 San Jose
Game 1: Sunday, May 15, 2011 5 p.m. San Jose at Vancouver CBC, RDS, VERSUS
Game 2: Wed., May 18, 2011 6 p.m. San Jose at Vancouver CBC, RDS, VERSUS
Game 3: Friday, May 20, 2011 6 p.m. Vancouver at San Jose CBC, RDS, VERSUS
Game 4: Sunday, May 22, 2011 12 p.m. Vancouver at San Jose CBC, RDS, NBC
*Game 5: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 6 p.m. San Jose at Vancouver CBC, RDS, VERSUS
*Game 6: Thursday, May 26, 2011 6 p.m. Vancouver at San Jose CBC, RDS, VERSUS
*Game 7: Saturday, May 28, 2011 5 p.m. San Jose at Vancouver CBC, RDS, VERSUS
*If neccessaryThe presidential race is in full swing and different interest groups are going for different candidates. The presidential race probably doesn’t matter nearly as much as people think because the federal budget is mostly set.
If you add up all military spending, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and interest on the debt, it makes up over 80% of the entire budget. All of the many other departments and alphabet agencies get to fight over the remaining 20% or less.
Unless there is a drastic change in public opinion, Medicare and Social Security aren’t going to be touched, at least for now. We may see the official retirement age go higher in coming years, but none of the candidates are talking about that now.
In terms of the military, we really do have a military-industrial complex. The lobbyists and special interests seem almost too powerful to overcome. This would actually be the easy area to cut spending just by ending wars and interventions in the Middle East, not to mention having troops stationed all throughout the world. And with more focused and reduced spending on actual defense, we might actually be safer for it.
The interest on the debt is set for now, although it gradually increases due to the increase in the overall debt level. If interest rates ever spike up, this portion of the budget will spike as well.
So overall, the candidates are going to fight over little things that don’t matter much. The Republicans can’t even stop funding Planned Parenthood. There is no way there will be any significant cuts in the budget unless they are forced by a lack of money.
From the point of view of a retiree or someone closing in on retirement, who is the best candidate to support out of self-interest? Who will be the most likely to help retirees, or basically take the least amount of money from their retirement?
As mentioned, nobody is touching Medicare or Social Security for now. The most that will happen is that the retirement age gets raised by a couple of years to delay the insolvency. If you are already retired, you won’t see your benefits cut in nominal terms.
In inflation-adjusted terms, you may have more to worry about. We have recently seen no cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security payments, while it is hard to believe that there is no price inflation. So in a sense, this is a cut.
The biggest factor that will likely impact current retirees is inflation. The faster that prices rise, the harder it will be to keep up their living standards.
The Candidates
It is interesting that Hillary Clinton does well on the Democratic side in terms of seniors. They are the most likely to vote for Clinton, while Bernie Sanders has the young people on his side. These are all generalities, of course.
Hillary Clinton might just be the worst candidate for retirees though. She is the worst of all worlds. Despite what her reputation may be, she is a pro war candidate with a history of intervention. She supported the Iraq War; she oversaw the invasion of Libya while Secretary of State, and was still there when the U.S. began intervention in Syria. She can say whatever she wants, but she is part of the military-industrial complex.
And while Clinton may not describe herself as a socialist as Bernie Sanders does with himself, she obviously loves big government in almost every aspect. She already tried to nationalize healthcare in 1993 and she is not going to cut any major programs or departments. With Clinton, we will get more spending and more debt.
Bernie Sanders is no doubt terrible in terms of domestic policy, but he probably would not be able to do that much damage with a Republican-led Congress. If anything, Sanders might scale back military intervention overseas, although we can’t be certain about that. If he did, then he would not be using the leftover money to lower taxes or pay down the national debt. Sanders and the Congress would find domestic programs to spend it on.
Overall, Sanders would likely not be any worse than Clinton in terms of damaging the economy.
On the Republican side, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio probably would not be as different as what they make you think. Unfortunately, it would be the status quo. We don’t really know what anyone will do in terms of foreign policy until they are actually in office, but they would not likely scale down the interventionist foreign policy.
Ted Cruz may be a fiscal conservative, but he is not speaking up about eliminating entire departments from the federal government. But even if he advocated getting rid of, say, the Department of Education, we know it isn’t going to happen. And even under the remote chance it did happen, it would still barely put a dent in the federal budget. The government would still be running massive deficits.
Donald Trump is a bit more of a wild card. He has been somewhat critical of the wars, but again, we don’t know what he’ll do in office. He has talked about slapping tariffs on Chinese goods, which would hurt American consumers. This would be particularly bad for seniors on fixed incomes.
The bottom line is that I don’t see any way that any of the major candidates would bring about enough change to reverse the spiraling debt. As long as the debt continues to grow, it is going to hurt our living standards, and especially for retirees.
We talk about the debt hurting future generations, but it will hurt retirees just as much. In order to fund the debt and the increased spending, the politicians are going to rely on the Federal Reserve to create more money out of thin air. As prices rise, it will hurt retirees more than anyone because many of them are on fixed incomes. They don’t get the benefit of rising wages, even if the rise in nominal wages lags behind.
Other Choices
If you really want to see something change, you can consider a protest vote. The Libertarian Party always runs a presidential candidate. There are not many big names running this year, but Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, has thrown his hat in the ring.
I understand that Johnson is a long shot to win, but what is the point of voting for someone in one of the two big parties who is going to do the bidding of the establishment? Maybe Trump won’t listen to the special interests, but he has been short on any specifics in how he would reduce the size of government.
If someone like Gary Johnson were to get in the White House, he might actually stop the wars and bring troops home to safety. That in itself would save a lot of money. If he were to be elected, it would be a signal that the American people really are ready for smaller government.
If retirees do not want to see their nest eggs drained quickly, their best bet is having someone who will cut the federal budget, reduce regulations, and stop the spiraling debt. Otherwise they should expect that inflation will eat up their retirement savings quicker than they could have imagined.
I think Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are representing the protest votes on either side. Perhaps even Cruz supporters feel this way. But I think they will be disappointed that things won’t change as much as they like. If I’m going to have a protest vote, there is no mistaking that a vote for a Libertarian candidate is a vote for smaller government. Of course, you also have the option of not voting or writing in a name of your choice.
And if you are facing a long retirement, you need to make it known to whomever you vote for that you want a smaller federal budget. Otherwise, I am afraid they will be paying for much of the government spending out of your retirement funds. They don’t need to confiscate them directly. They will just devalue the money in your bank account.6 years ago
(CNN) – Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania blamed political polarization for the failure of last month's background check compromise he reached with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, saying some in his party simply voted against the measure to prevent the president from winning a legislative victory.
"In the end, it didn't pass because we're so politicized. There were some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the president do something he wanted to get done, just because the president wanted to do it," Toomey said.
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"The toughest thing to do in politics is to do the right thing when your supporters think the right thing is something else," he added.
His comments came in an interview Tuesday with a roundtable of Digital First Media editors in the offices of the Times Herald newspaper in Norristown, Pennsylvania.
According to the editors at the meeting, Toomey clarified his comment, saying he meant to say Republicans in general, not just his GOP colleagues in the Senate.
Toomey was one of four Republicans who voted on a measure to expand the background check system so that it covers private sales at gun shows and online. Five Democrats voted against the proposal (including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who voted no so he could bring the bill back up later).
In a 54-46 vote, the measure failed to reach the 60 votes needed to move forward in the Senate. Along with the background checks legislation, a ban on assault weapons also went down in defeat.
President Barack Obama said Tuesday in a news conference that he suspected there were Republican members in Congress who vote against their instincts for political purposes.
"Their base thinks that compromise with me is somehow a betrayal. They're worried about primaries. And I understand all that. And we're going to try to do everything we can to create a permission structure for them to be able to do what's going to be best for the country," he said. "But it's going to take some time."
The president and gun control advocates chided lawmakers for failing to pass the proposal, the only one that had a real shot of passing among the slew of gun proposals brought forward in the wake of the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
While Obama, Reid and gun control groups have vowed to keep up the pressure and bring the legislation back for a vote down the road, Toomey expressed doubt that a second vote will happen soon.
"Reid could bring it up for a vote at any time, but we need five people to change their minds," Toomey said.
"It's a pretty heavy lift to get five senators to change their mind on a big issue like this," he added. "It's not likely to happen any time soon. I hope people will reconsider over time."
His comments sounded less enthusiastic compared with those made by Manchin. The senator from West Virginia said Sunday he believes the measure is still alive and together they can persuade enough lawmakers to support it.
"I truly believe if we have time to sell the bill, and people read the bill," it will gain support, Manchin said. "I'm willing to go anywhere in this country, I'm going to debate anybody on this issue, read the bill and you tell me what you don't like."
- CNN's Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF and Scribd versions.
“Beware the ides of March.”
— “Julius Caesar,” William Shakespeare
Sequestration will have major—and negative—impacts on energy and environmental management agencies. Here’s how it will affect all Americans. More families exposed to the cold and heat Children and seniors more vulnerable to air pollution Less investment in clean drinking water and sewage treatment Families and businesses receiving less assistance after extreme weather events Less protection from wildfires Less accurate weather forecasting More dependence on foreign energy imports; more expensive clean energy Less oil and gas production from federal lands and waters National park closures and staff reductions More dangerous seas
The Ides of March falls on the 15th of March every year, but this year that fateful date and the impending doom it foretells could arrive two weeks early—on March 1, when $85 billion in automatic federal spending cuts are set to occur. The so-called sequester will slash 5.3 percent in funding from every federal program except Social Security and Medicaid. For public health and clean energy programs, the sequester means less protection from air pollution and the health problems associated with it, less assistance after severe extreme weather events, more oil imports, fewer permits for oil and gas production on federal lands and waters, and reduced accessibility to our national parks. In short, it’s clear that sequestration will harm middle- and lower-income Americans.
1. More families exposed to the cold and heat
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, provided $3.4 billion in fiscal year 2012 to assist low-income seniors and other households with their heating and cooling bills. The National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, which runs low-income energy assistance programs, reports that, “LIHEAP recipient households are likely to be vulnerable to temperature extremes” and that many of them have medical and other significant expenses.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program provides aid to 8.9 million households, but “only 20 percent of the families eligible for assistance received LIHEAP aid,” according to a 2012 letter from 137 U.S. representatives to the House Appropriations Committee.
The sequester will axe an estimated $180 million in funding from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Since the average household received $450 from the program in 2011, this would mean preventing some 400,000 households from receiving aid from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.
The Weatherization Assistance Program helps to weatherize the homes of low-income families, making them more energy efficient and saving the typical household $400 in their annual heating and cooling costs. Moreover, the Department of Energy reports that:
Funding reductions under sequestration will reduce by more than a thousand the number of homes that would be weatherized in FY2013 and could result in the unemployment of 1,200 skilled weatherization professionals.
2. Children and seniors more vulnerable to air pollution
Sequestration will slash funds used to protect children, senior citizens, and those suffering from other respiratory or cardiac illnesses. These populations are most vulnerable to harm from smog, soot, mercury, and other hazardous pollutants that can lead to asthma attacks, respiratory ailments, learning impairment, and even premature death.
The Environmental Protection Agency warns that sequestration would harm vital programs that reduce air pollution by:
Reducing the funding that the Environmental Protection Agency provides to states to monitor air quality, forcing the shutdown of some critical air-monitoring sites. These monitoring sites provide essential data that is needed to reduce air pollution.
Cutting the number of “environmental cops” on the beat—the inspectors who enforce environmental laws. Enforcement is needed to protect the public from pollution levels that violate public health standards.
Lowering the number of inspections of power plants, oil refineries, and other major polluters to ensure that they comply with pollution limits. Sequestration could result in 1,000 fewer inspections of potential violators in 2013.
Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association, noted that:
As a nation we’ve been making lifesaving progress in the fight against lung disease, but continued progress takes continued funding. Across-the-board cuts could stop this hard-earned progress in its tracks.
3. Less investment in clean drinking water and sewage treatment
The Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act include revolving loan funds to help states finance drinking water purification and sewage treatment facilities—both of which are essential to the country’s public-health infrastructure. The Environmental Protection Agency reports that:
Reductions under sequestration would impact states’ ability to meet drinking water public health standards and to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorus pollution that contam |
by our nature since we were on the hunt for fruits and flowers for too many years. Eventually those natural things were designed by nature itself to be as colorful as possible in order to attract us and other animals. So this is another winning point for gradients, since they basically got the potential to be more colorful, playful and attractive than a flat color.14.0% of the population in South Dakota is of Norwegian ancestry.
A Norwegian Dakotan is a Norwegian American (a person with Norwegian ancestry) in the U. S. states of North and South Dakota. One in three of all North Dakotans is of Norwegian heritage, which is the highest among all U.S. states. South Dakota is number three, behind Minnesota. The immigrants settled primarily between 1870 and 1920.
As of 2009, 312,697 Dakotans claim Norwegian ancestry, 21.4% of the region's population (30.8% of North Dakota's population and 14.0% of South Dakota's population), or 6.7% of the total Norwegian American population.
History [ edit ]
Settlements [ edit ]
The first Norwegians arrived in the Dakotas as early as 1859, shortly after the treaty with the Yankton Sioux was signed July 10, 1859. It took another ten years before the greater influx of Norwegians took place.
North Dakota [ edit ]
Mike Jacobs of WDAY observed that two Governors of North Dakota (Ragnvald Nestos and John Moses) "were born in Norway, almost as good politically as being a native North Dakotan". [14] Norwegian immigrants began arriving in North Dakota in the 1870s. They settled mainly in the eastern and northern parts of the state, but today they're found everywhere in the state. Because of the lack of farmland in Norway, the Norwegian immigrants sought the wonderful fertile farmland of North Dakota. Some of the immigrants had spent a few years in other states before they finally arrived in North Dakota. In 1880 the census recorded 8,814 Norwegians in North Dakota, and by 1900 there were 73,744.[15]
The towns of Columbus and Larson are approximately 100% Norwegian, founded by Columbus Larsson in 1906 and 1907. Columbus had 672 inhabitants in 1960, while it has just 133 in 2010. Although these towns have a strong Norwegian heritage, none of the inhabitants speak Norwegian. Like the trend for the rest of North Dakotans, Norwegians are moving out of the rural areas.
There are several examples of Norwegian ghost towns in North Dakota, especially in the northwestern part of the state.
From Telemark [ edit ]
Telemark settlers found their way to most of the major settlements in North Dakota in the late 1870s and early 1880s. In 1880, a band of people from Telemark, settled in the area of what is now Bue (named for the settlers' Norwegian home in Bø, Telemark) in Nelson County. Their main cash crop was wheat, and they soon found that raising cattle was also quite lucrative. The main markets were in Valley City and Grand Forks.[16]
Sondre Norheim, Father of Modern Skiing, immigrated to North Dakota. On May 30, 1884 Sondre and Rannei left Norway together with three of their children– Anne (21), Åmund (14) and Talleiv (12). Their son Olav and daughter Hæge had left home previously, and their eldest daughter Ingerid, decided to stay back home. Norheim followed in the footsteps of many of his neighbors in Morgedal and immigrated to the United States. After having first settled in Minnesota, they moved to North Dakota, near Villard in McHenry County. He continued to ski when he could, though the climate and flat topography of the Dakota prairie offered few opportunities for downhill skiing. It was said he always had a pair of skis placed outside his door. Norheim grew more religious with age and helped build a Lutheran church in Villard. He died in 1897 and was buried in Denbigh, McHenry County, North Dakota.[17]
South Dakota [ edit ]
According to the 1860 Census there were 129 Norwegians in South Dakota. That changed fast; in 1880 one-tenth of the population was Norwegian, and in 1889 one-third of the population were Norwegians. The towns of Roslyn and Pierpont were originally almost 100 percent Norwegian, but these are very small cities.[18]
Influence [ edit ]
The immigrants from Norway (and the rest of Scandinavia) in the Dakotas have played an extremely important role in the development of the region. Few places in the United States have been so influenced by one ethnic group, and because Norwegians is a relatively small ethnic group, it makes it even more clear.
Cuisine [ edit ]
Lefse is a common and popular dish among Dakotans, not only for those with Norwegian ancestry.
Those who emigrated brought their food traditions, too. The Dakotas are, together with Minnesota, famous for their typical Scandinavian cuisine. Lefse, Krumkake, Lutefisk, and Raspeball/Komle/Klubb (called Potato Dumplings in the United States) is just some of the food traditions there, not only eaten by Norwegian American, but other people in the state. There are a lot of German dishes, too.
Churches throughout the state commonly host annual fellowship dinners open to the community. Perhaps one of the largest authentic Norwegian dinners is the annual Lutefisk Dinner hosted by the First Lutheran Church, Williston, North Dakota, every February.
The largest Scandinavian Festival in North America is the annual Norsk Høstfest held every October, in Minot, North Dakota. This five-day cultural event features Scandinavian dishes, but does accommodate those who are not fond of lutefisk by providing German entrees.
Language [ edit ]
All of the Norwegians who came to the Dakotas spoke Norwegian, and the number of speakers grew with the immigration. Most of them learned English, or at least their children did. There were several Norwegian-language newspapers in the United States. But when the largest waves of immigration ended, in the 1920s, the number of Norwegian speakers decreased. That was because the second and third generation immigrants didn't learn Norwegian as a primary language, and it wasn't necessary because everyone spoke English.
However, some Norwegian words and phrases survived, but are no longer pronounced with a Norwegian accent, such as Uff da. As of 2005, 1,743 speak Norwegian as their primary language in North Dakota, which is only 0.2% of the population, and 1,097 are older than 65 years old. In South Dakota, 256 people speak Norwegian, and all of them are older than 65 years.[19] These numbers are just for those who speak Norwegian as their primary language. The number who understand basic Norwegian is higher.
This is a list of Dakotan communities with the highest percentage of Norwegian speakers:[20]
This is a list of Dakotan counties with the highest percentage of Norwegian speakers:[20]
Demographics [ edit ]
The number of Norwegian Americans is slightly increasing, as the population as a whole, and the percentage of Norwegian Americans in these areas is stable.
Year Dakotans Norwegian Dakotans Percent of Dakotans Norwegian Americans Percent of Norwegian Americans 1980 1,343,485 283,260 21.0% 3,453,839 8.2% 1990[21] 1,334,804 295,467 22.1% 3,869,395 7.6% 2000 1,397,044 308,450 22.0% 4,477,725 6.8% 2009 1,459,227 312,697 21.4% 4,642,526 6.7%
North Dakota [ edit ]
Norwegians in North Dakota are younger than the average population. 13.8% of the population is younger than 18 years old, while the state as a whole is 10.3%.
Of North Dakota's population in the year 2000 at 642,200, 193,158 said that they have Norwegian ancestry, or 30.0%. Of them 95,438 (49.4%) were male, and 97,720 (50.6%) were female. The median age was 35, in contrast to 36 for the whole North Dakotan population, 36.7 for the whole American population,[22] and 39.4 for Norway's population.[22]
Among Norwegians in North Dakota, 12,850 were younger than the age of 5 (or 6.6% of all those with Norwegian ancestry); of the whole North Dakotan population, 39,094 were younger than the age of 5 (or 6.0% of all North Dakotans). Among Norwegian North Dakotans, 13,890 were between 5 and 17 years of age (or 7.1% of all those with Norwegian ancestry), compared to 27,208 between 5 and 17 for the whole North Dakotan population (or 4.2% of all North Dakotans). Among the group, 141,371 were between 18 and 64 (or 73.1% of all Norwegian North Dakotans), compared to 481,301 between 18 and 64 for the whole North Dakotan population (or 74.9% of all North Dakotans). Among the group, 25,047 were older than 65 (or 12.9% of all those with Norwegian ancestry), compared to 94,597 older than 65 for the whole North Dakotan population (or 14.7% of all North Dakotans). Many people of Norwegian descent, particularly the older ones, still continue some traditions that mark them as related to Norway.[23]
The household population number 188,363, when the group quarters population number 4,795. The average household size is 2, when the average family size is 3. Occupied housing units number 77,176; of them, owner-occupied housing units number 52,425 and renter-occupied housing units number 24,751.
119,393 are 25 years, or over. Of them, 105,733 are high school graduate or higher, and 30,129 bachelor's degree or higher. 16,391 is civilian veterans (civilian population 18 years and over). 25,329 has disability status (population 5 years and over). 618 are foreign born. 42,265 is male, now married, except separated (population 15 years and over) and 43,213 is female, now married, except separated (population 15 years and over). Approximately 5,422 said they speak a language other than English at home (population 5 years and over).
104,400 are in labor force (population 16 years and over). Mean travel time to work in minutes (workers 16 years and over) is 16. Median household income in 1999 (dollars) were 36,006, while median family income in 1999 (dollars) were 46,170, per capita income in 1999 (dollars) were 18,249. Families below poverty level number 3,233, while individuals below poverty level number 17,570. Single-family owner-occupied homes number 37,688. Of them, median value (dollars) number 75,500, median of selected monthly owner costs is not applicable, with a mortgage (dollars) number 836, while not mortgaged (dollars) number 272.[24]
South Dakota [ edit ]
Of South Dakota's population in the year 2000 at 754,844, 115,292 said that they have Norwegian ancestry, or 15.2%. Of them 56,361 (48.9%) were male, and 58,931 (51.1%) were female. The median age was 36, exactly the same as for the whole South Dakotan population, slightly lower with 36.7 for the whole American population,[22] and lower with 39.4 for Norway's population.[22]
Among Norwegians in South Dakota, 7,414 were younger than the age of 5 (or 6.4% of all those with Norwegian ancestry); of the whole South Dakotan population, 51,024 were younger than the age of 5 (or 6.7% of all South Dakotans). Among Norwegian South Dakotans, 8,027 were between 5 and 17 years of age (or 6.9% of all those with Norwegian ancestry), compared to 43,586 between 5 and 17 for the whole South Dakotan population (or 5.7% of all South Dakotans). Among the group, 83,830 were between 18 and 64 (or 72.7% of all Norwegian South Dakotans), compared to 481,301 between 18 and 64 for the whole South Dakotan population (or 73.1% of all South Dakotans). Among the group, 16,021 were older than 65 (or 13.8% of all those with Norwegian ancestry), compared to 108,116 older than 65 for the whole South Dakotan population (or 14.3% of all South Dakotans).
The household population number 112,480, when the group quarters population number 2,812. The average household size is 2, when the average family size is 3. Occupied housing units number 45,206; of them, owner-occupied housing units number 32,728 and renter-occupied housing units number 12,478.
71,963 are 25 years, or over. Of them, 64,874 are high school graduate or higher, and 18,155 bachelor's degree or higher. 10,926 is civilian veterans (civilian population 18 years and over). 14,749 has disability status (population 5 years and over). 258 are foreign born. 25,815 is male, now married, except separated (population 15 years and over) and 26,488 is female, now married, except separated (population 15 years and over). Approximately 2,562 said they speak a language other than English at home (population 5 years and over).
63,710 are in labor force (population 16 years and over). Mean travel time to work in minutes (workers 17 years and over) is 16. Median household income in 1999 (dollars) were 38,934, while median family income in 1999 (dollars) were 47,700, per capita income in 1999 (dollars) were 19,025. Families below poverty level number 1,584, while individuals below poverty level number 8,394. Single-family owner-occupied homes number 23,074. Of them, median value (dollars) number 83,000, median of selected monthly owner costs is not applicable, with a mortgage (dollars) number 838, while not mortgaged (dollars) number 285.[25]
Norwegian communities in the Dakotas [ edit ]
The 25 Dakotan communities with the highest percentage of residents claiming Norwegian ancestry are (Those in bold are the largest in the state):[26]
Norwegian counties in the Dakotas [ edit ]
The 25 Dakotan counties with the highest percentage of residents claiming Norwegian ancestry are (Those in bold are the largest in the state):[27]This is not your typical granola. There are no oats to be found which means it’s not only gluten-free its grain-free as well. But what it does have is chocolate, and let me tell you, that is always a good way to start the day.
For those following a grain-free or gluten-free diet, breakfast can be the hardest meal to adjust to. Most of us have spent our lives eating cereal, oatmeal, toast and pancakes in the morning, but my breakfasts lately consist of smoothies, leftover frittata, coconut flour crepes or this granola with homemade yogurt.
It’s a cross between trail mix and granola, rich with the deep dusky flavor of cocoa. Studded with bits of bittersweet chocolate, it rouses you from the deepest of slumbers to the kitchen table. A truly fortifying breakfast, this homemade granola is well worth the time it takes to pour a bowl and grab a spoon in the morning.
At once hearty, but delicate, the granola is bound together into light and crisp cluster from the slurry of honey, cocoa and butter. What sets this granola apart are the nuts; rather than a secondary addition they are the stars in this granola.
Soaked walnuts and almonds are briefly pulsed in the food processor to form small clusters resembling oats. Once coated and baked at a low temperature the clusters clump and crisp to form exquisitely light and crunchy mouthfuls.
Far from the cloying sweet and sugary supermarket versions, this chocolate grain-free granola is just subtly sweet, but entirely decadent due to the double dose of chocolate. Its toasty flavor is as well suited for breakfast as it is for a portable mid-afternoon snack. Mix a few spoonfuls with dried fruit for a homemade trail mix when you’re craving a little something between meals.
It’s breakfast redefined.
Serves Serves about 6 Gluten Free and Grain Free Chocolate Granola Recipe It’s a cross between trail mix and granola, rich with the deep dusky flavor of cocoa. 20 minPrep Time 6 hrCook Time Save Recipe Save Recipe Print Recipe My Recipes My Lists My Calendar Ingredients 1 cup/ 112g raw walnuts
1 cup/112g raw almonds
Pinch of fine sea salt
¼ cup/ 60g raw honey
3 Tablespoons/ 42g unsalted butter
3 Tablespoons/ 23g raw cacao or natural cocoa powder
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 Tablespoons/ 15 g chia seeds
½ cup/40g unsweetened shredded coconut
2 oz/60g bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped Instructions Soak walnuts and almonds covered in water with a pinch of salt overnight or for about 8 hours.(Soaking the nuts first removes the enzyme inhibitors, making them easier to digest) Preheat oven to 200 degrees F/ 93 degrees C. Drain and rinse the nuts and quickly them in a cloth towel. Place the nuts in the bowl of a food processor and pulse briefly until just coarsely chopped. Gently melt together the butter and honey in a small saucepan over low heat stirring continually to combine. Add in the cacao or natural cocoa powder along with a pinch of salt and the vanilla and whisk to blend until well combined. Add the chocolate mixture to the food processor and pulse to combine. Add the chia seeds and shredded coconut to the bowl and pulse again until everything is about the size of oats. Spread chocolate nut mixture evenly on a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet. Bake at 200 degrees for about 4 hours, or until dry and crispy. Cool on wire rack. Stir in chopped chocolate and store in airtight container. Notes Gluten Free, Grain Free, Vegetarian, Paleo 7.8.1.2 32 https://gourmandeinthekitchen.com/gluten-free-grain-free-chocolate-granola-recipe/ gourmandeinthekitchen.com
What’s your go-to breakfast?The New DC Universe continues to roll on, and today, the Source provided us with a look at another upcoming title: World's Finest, which features a cover by the legendary George Perez. Set to be released in May as part of the "Second Wave" of DC's rebooted titles, the story arc by Perez, Paul Levitz and Kevin Maguire is focused on two characters from the alternate world of Earth-2 trying to make their way back home.
But more importantly than that, it's got a new costume for Power Girl, replacing her classic "cleavage window" suit. Truly, it is of dire importance.Power Girl is, of course, most closely identified with the original costume from her first appearance back in 1976 in a story by Gerry Conway, Ric Estrada and Wally Wood. Despite essentially being Earth-2's version of Supergirl, they opted not to go with a varation on the "S" logo, giving Power Girl her own distinctive look in the form of a plain white suit accented by a cutout:
Over the years, this design choice has become both beloved and be-hated by fans and creators, often being criticized as emblematic (or lack-of-emblematic, I suppose) of the trend in designing heroines purely around sex appeal. Dresden Codak artist Aaron Diaz, who tried his hand at redesigning Power Girl with his take on the Justice League, even theorized that fighting crime and flying around with a giant hole in your costume is even less practical than dressing up as a Dracula and trying to drive a giant bat-shaped car through a fictional New York City:
But despite the costume's prominence, this isn't the first time that Power Girl's gotten a new look. Heck, she went through two costume changes in the pages of Justice League Europe alone:
But for whatever reason, they didn't stick around -- probably because they were from a time when Power Girl herself was going through a series of weird versions that briefly saw her retconned into being the time-lost daughter of an Atlantean wizard that was invulnerable to anything except "natural, unprocessed materials," meaning that sticks and stones could quite literally break her bones.
It's also worth noting that both of those costumes were pretty generic, especially the white-and-gold one. Say what you want about the cleavage window, but at least it's a fairly distinctive design element, which is why it was revived for the toothpaste-mascot lookin' one on the right.
In the end, she went back to the original suit, after some tweaks from the phenomenal Amanda Conner that saw more detailed seams (since everyone loves those these days) and the big medallion becoming more of a pauldron:
But with the relaunch and the trend in redesigning characters to fit the new aesthetic of the DCU in the early '90s year 2012, that brings us to the All-New Power Girl:
As for my reaction, well, I'm not crazy about it, and I'll admit that as impractical as it may be, I'm a pretty big fan of the classic suit, particularly Conner's version.
I don't dislike the new costume - the logo is actually a pretty nice touch - but I do think it's interesting that it's extremely reminiscent of Supreme, the Superman analogue created by Rob Liefeld that Alan Moore scripted for a few years:
But that said, I'm wiling to roll with it until the inevitable return of the old suit. If nothing else, having Power Girl in this means that there's a good chance that in the New DC Universe, she never had to have a tortured sobbing monologue about how her cleavage was sadness.
And the further we get away from that, the better.The headline Thursday was about fare evasion — a presentation rejected by the TTC because of its questionable methodology before it was ever made public claimed riders may have been ripping off the TTC to the tune of $49 million per year. That’s about twice the number the TTC has attributed to fare evasion in the past. “It’s obviously comforting to know that we weren’t kind of blowing smoke,” said councillor and TTC board member Joe Mihevc, who has mused in the past about fare evasion rates. “We hear it from our public; we see it. Those of us who ride the TTC, we see it on a daily basis.”
Many people believe fellow passengers boarding by the back doors must be cheating by not paying a fare -- but the rules allow them to do so with a pass, and most riders actually use passes, Edward Keenan writes. ( Richard Lautens / Toronto Star )
I certainly do hear that from the public, too. But I ride the TTC on a daily basis, too, and I don’t know how everyone else is so sure. “Just ride the streetcar,” they say. I do. It’s because I ride the streetcar that I know well that there is no way to easily spot fare evasion there: the streetcar policy is that riders get on by any door they like and must only produce proof of payment if asked. If they have a pass or a transfer, they do not have to show it to anyone to board — on the new streetcars, in fact, there is no one to show it to.
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But those who email me often suggest the sheer number of people boarding by the rear doors and just taking a seat must be getting away with something. Historically, more than half of TTC riders use Metropasses. Many more are transferring from another route. You would expect, in the proof-of-payment system, the vast majority of fare-paying riders to look as if they haven’t paid. Well, that’s what I’d expect. But my experience of the world is that many, many people suspect — strongly and resentfully — that whoever is next to them must be getting away with something. People point to students who they think are obviously over the age of 12 paying no fare, claiming to be children. Again, I wonder, how are they all so sure? I coach a hockey team that has a 12-year-old on it who is significantly taller than I am. My own little brother was almost six feet tall by the time he was 11. I mean, obviously there is some fare evasion. Some people sneak in, and always have. I’ve written before about why I don’t think it’s that big of a problem for the TTC, and why I don’t think they should consider it a priority (and why other big transit systems around the world do not sweat it that much). The TTC’s management has historically also said they don’t think it’s that big of a problem. Their spokesperson says the same now. The buried presentation in question points out that things like the no-collector, proof-of-payment streetcar system have made it easier to evade payment. Which is true. But they have also made it far easier, I think, for the TTC to assess the scope of the problem on streetcars.
They have fare inspectors who randomly check for proof of payment. Presumably the TTC has an idea of how many people those inspectors confront each day and how many fines they hand out. At least for these routes — suspected to be one of the big growth areas for fare theft — the TTC should already know how frequently people are caught without proof of payment. And let’s be clear: not all of those caught are actually evading the fare.
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Reader, it happened to me. I forgot my Metropass — I am a subscriber to the plan — in my jacket at my desk at work in April. Because I didn’t have to show it to anyone, I didn’t realize it wasn’t in my pocket until I met the fare inspector. Despite my honest explanation and my offer to either pay a cash fare or walk back to the office to get my pass, I got a fine. And paid it. That was on top of the $134 pass I’d already bought. Considering the earlier pass that never arrived in the mail and the one that arrived a month late, since I’ve subscribed to the “discount” plan the TTC has been costing me hundreds more than I ever spent on tokens. That’s not fare evasion. It’s the opposite — I have overpaid my fares by a substantial margin this year. I cannot be alone in that. Now, one thing we can all be sure of is that the TTC has recently suffered from a fair amount of what you might call fare repulsion. The machines accepting tokens and payments on streetcar platforms are often out of service. The Presto machines and gates, too, seem to be out of order a good deal of the time. At one point early this year, the TTC estimated Presto gates were out of order 12 per cent of the time. So some riders make mistakes, other riders get confused, other riders try to pay their fares and are unable to do so. These all seem like obvious problems. But many of these problems will solve themselves when the Presto system is fully implemented. When it replaces passes and transfers, then everyone will always have to tap on, and everyone will always have that proof on their card. Presumably the machines will more consistently work. And the proof of age for children and students alike will be built right into the Presto cards themselves. Much “fare evasion” will resolve itself with Presto improvements. But I’m pretty confident that it will not resolve the certainty among riders that everyone else on their vehicle is probably cheating the system somehow. Whatever the actual rate of fare evasion, the rate of angry suspicion is always far higher. Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca. Follow: @thekeenanwire
Read more about:Progressively more and more experts are speaking out against naked body scanners. It almost seems repetitious to report on the ludicrous actions of the TSA, which seem to be increasingly more nefarious each day. However, the naked body scanners are still instituted at major airports, which means that TSA must be continually exposed. Radiation scientists are helping to do just that, with numerous pieces of information regarding the dangers of body scanner radiation surfacing around the web.
Famous neurologist Dr. Russel Blaylock recently commented on the subject:
The growing outrage over the Transportation Security Administration’s new policy of backscatter scanning of airline passengers and enhanced pat-downs brings to mind these wise words from President Ronald Reagan: The nine most terrifying words in the English language are. I’m from the government and I’m here to help you. So, what is all the concern really about – will these radiation scanners increase your risk of cancer or other diseases? A group of scientists and professors from the University of California at San Francisco voiced their concern to Obama’s science and technology adviser John Holdren in a well-stated letter back in April.
The letter Dr. Blaylock is referring to is a letter from the University of California, San Francisco faculty. The letter, highlighting the radiation dangers of the machines, was signed by Doctors John Sedat Ph.D., David Agard, Ph.D., Marc Shuman, M.D., and Robert Stroud, Ph.D.
An excerpt from the letter, which can be read in its entirety here (PDF format), summarizes their concern:
We are writing to call your attention to serious concerns about the potential health risks of the recently adopted whole body backscatter X-ray airport security scanners. This is an urgent situation as these X-ray scanners are rapidly being implemented as a primary screening step for all air travel passengers.
Some argue that the scanners pose no real health risk, as travelers are subjected to similar or higher levels of radiation simply from flying. During high-altitude flights, cosmic radiation is a factor. The difference, however, is the concentration. While the body scanners hone in on the skin, and other vital organs in the body, the cosmic radiation experienced during flights is distributed across the entire body. Quite simply, the focus of the radiation is a large player.
The letter, written by multiple doctors, explains this:
Unlike other scanners, these new devices operate at relatively low beam energies (28keV). The majority of their energy is delivered to the skin and the underlying tissue. Thus, while the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high.
The letter goes on to mention other concerns associated with the body scanners. One of which is the onset of breast cancer in some women. Certain women are extremely sensitive to mutagenesis-provoking radiation, that can lead to breast cancer. So much so that mammograms are not performed on them. The problem lies in their DNA repair mechanisms, rendering them extremely vulnerable to cancer. The body scanners present an extremely large risk to these women.
Body scanners do not only damage our health, but invade our privacy. The use of naked body scanners should be halted, and the risks re-evaluated (or even evaluated to begin with).New software tools to reconstruct neural wiring diagrams quickly and accurately have been developed by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research to allow neuroscientists to understand the structure of the brain’s circuits — the connectome.
The researchers created two new computer programs, KNOSSOS (named for Crete’s legendary palace, renowned for its elaborate labyrinth) and RESCOP, and mapped a network of 114 neurons from a mouse retina faster and more accurately than with previous methods.
The researchers started by staining the neurons of a section of tissue with heavy metals to make them visible. Using three-dimensional electron microscope images, they started at the cell body and followed the dendrites and axons, marking the branch point nodes on the screen. Then they used a computer to generate a three-dimensional image of the section.
The KNOSSOS software is about 50 times faster than other programs in tracing connections between neurons. The RESCOP program allows dozens of people to work on the reconstruction at the same time and allows for error detection and reduction.
With some 70 billion neurons, each neuron linked to about a thousand others via dendrites and axons, and hundreds of thousands of kilometers of circuits, the human brain is so complex that for many years, it seemed impossible to reconstruct the network in detail, the researchers said.
One person working alone with the currently available programs would take at least 30 years to reconstruct a path of just 30 centimeters in length, they estimate. Besides, these procedures are prone to error, since the branch points are not always easily recognized and the annotator’s attentiveness decreases with time.
Ref.: Moritz Helmstaedter, Kevin L Briggman, and Winfried Denk, High-accuracy neurite reconstruction for high-throughput neuroanatomy, Nature Neuroscience, 2011; 14 (8): 1081 [DOI: 10.1038/nn.2868]Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to Officer Daniel Harmon-Wright as a former officer. Harmon-Wright remains on the force but has been suspended without pay. This version has been corrected.
A Culpeper, Va., police officer charged with killing a Sunday school teacher was hired despite the objections of superiors who said his excessive drinking and attitude made him a poor choice, prosecution filings show.
Daniel Harmon-Wright, 32, had also been disciplined as an officer, including once for forcing his way into a home and brandishing his weapon without probable cause or a warrant, according to a prosecution motion in opposition to his request for bond.
The details emerged Friday as the Gainesville resident was granted a $100,000 bond by a Culpeper judge. Harmon-Wright, who has been suspended without pay, is facing a murder charge and three other charges in the shooting of Patricia Cook, 54, of Culpeper while responding to a suspicious-person call in February.
“Two officials after a full background [check] recommended that Mr. Harmon-Wright not be hired as a police officer,” special prosecutor James Fisher told reporters after the hearing. “That was, of course, overturned.”
Harmon-Wright says he shot the woman in self-defense, opening fire after she trapped his fingers in the window of her Jeep Wrangler and began driving erratically across the parking lot of a Catholic school in Culpeper, according to his motion for bond.
A Culpeper Police photo shows bullet holes in the driver's seat of Patricia Cook's Jeep Wrangler. (Courtesy of prosecutor's court filings)
Harmon-Wright claims he fired more shots into the back of the Wrangler after it made a left turn because a sunscreen blocked Cook’s front windshield and she posed a danger to pedestrians.
“She couldn’t see where she was going, and she was accelerating on a residential street,” said Daniel L. Hawes, Harmon-Wright’s attorney.
A photograph included in the prosecution’s motion shows three bullet holes in the driver’s seat of Cook’s Wrangler, including one in the headrest.
Harmon-Wright, a five-year veteran of the force, was hired in 2006. During a background check, Harmon-Wright told police officials that he had been disciplined for excessive drinking in the Marine Crops and had driven under the influence of alcohol three months before his interview, according to prosecution filings. It’s not clear why Harmon-Wright was hired despite the objections of two police officials.
Bethany Sullivan, Harmon-Wright’s mother and an administrative assistant to the former Culpeper police chief, has been charged with forging Harmon-Wright’s entrance exam for the Town of Culpeper and one of his annual reviews.
Harmon-Wright was disciplined in connection with a 2011 incident in which he chased a 15-year-old boy after a suspicious-person report, prosecution filings show. The officer started banging on the door of a home after receiving a tip that the boy lived there.
When a woman answered, Harmon-Wright demanded that she leave, prosecutors said in the filing. Harmon-Wright entered the house and brandished his gun in the face of the woman’s 18-year-old son, according to the filing.
It turned out that the boy he was chasing was not in the home and had not committed a crime, but was on his way to school, according to the filings.
Staff writer Tom Jackman contributed to this report.This article is over 4 years old
Wigan midfielder set for move to south LondonPalace also in talks to sign Tottenham’s Zeki Fryers
Crystal Palace are set to break their club record fee to sign the Wigan midfielder James McArthur for £7m.
McArthur’s transfer would surpass the former club record fee paid to Peterborough last summer for Dwight Gayle, and would cost Palace the same figure Wigan agreed with Leicester City before they opted instead to secure Esteban Cambiasso on a 12-month deal.
There had been suggestions over the weekend that Palace might send Adlène Guedioura the other way, with the finer details of the deal still to be finalised.
Talks continue with Tottenham Hotspur over Zeki Fryers, whom Palace had initially hoped to secure on loan but may now have to sign permanently. The young left-back is apparently already at the training ground in Beckenham in anticipation of the completion of that move to south London.
Glenn Murray could also leave Selhurst Park but only if the new manager Neil Warnock can secure another striker as a replacement.
Nottingham Forest, Reading and Ipswich are all thought to be interested in signing the player who scored 30 Championship goals in Palace |
career would be a huge understatement; the ad changed everything. We caught up with the onetime Miss USA, who has since become a successful businesswoman, to talk about her memories of that famous ad, the scar it left behind, as well as what she's up to now.
The Doritos commercial is one of the iconic ads in Super Bowl history. How did it happen?
I hadn't had many auditions. I'm from a small town in Louisiana. Los Angeles was very overwhelming. I remember walking into this room with wall-to-wall gorgeous girls. And I remember thinking, "I'm not up for this today." I looked at the storyboards. They said, "You sort of have to dance around and do these tricks to James Bond music and pretend you're catching something with your mouth."
[ More on Yahoo!: Full coverage of the biggest Super Bowl parties ]
I was into dancing and gymnastics my entire life. And I think this is where my experience played a big part. And I got the job. I couldn't believe it. It was my very first commercial. They told me it was going to be on during the Super Bowl. I don't think I'd ever watched the Super Bowl before. My father's a big football fan, but I didn't know the commercials during the Super Bowl were a big deal.
Story continues
So, we shot the commercial, and it was great and really fun, and I just thought it was really cool that I got a job. And then literally the next day, I had people calling me to see if I could sing, because they wanted to offer me a record deal. It was that crazy.
So there was a series of commercials.
Right. The first one was in a laundromat, and the next was on a tennis court. When we shot the one on the tennis court, they had to glue, with surgical glue, a chip to my forehead, and then they pulled it off with fishing wire. And then, for the commercial, they ran the footage in reverse. Well, I still have that scar from the chip. So, I always say, "I will be forever scarred by Doritos."
So you knew the commercial, the first one, was going to air during the Super Bowl?
I had heard that, but it didn't really faze me because I didn't know the significance of it. I didn't know that these were coveted roles. I didn't know people waited every single year to see what commercials were great. I had no idea.
I remember being at a Super Bowl party, and I didn't tell anyone that the commercial was going to be on. I just really didn't think it was such a big deal. So when it came on and I'm sitting with people who didn't know I was going to be on a commercial during the Super Bowl, and I saw everyone's reaction, it was a bit shocking for me.
Is there anything you regret about those commercials?
No, no, I loved it. It's fun when you're involved with something that people really respond to. Even four or five years after the commercials, people would still say, "Doritos girl." And I didn't mind, because I really had such an incredible experience. People look back on that commercial with really fond memories. For me to be a part of that, it's a good thing. And I've done so many things since then, I'm grateful.
So, you went to L.A. to become an actress. The Doritos commercials must have sped up the process quite a bit.
Actually, I never had aspirations to be an actress. I was in college in Louisiana. I was determined to not have my job be one where I bring somebody coffee. That was really important to me. I was not cut out for that.
I wanted to compete in Miss USA because I figured I could meet some great people and get a good job. After Miss USA, that brought me out to L.A. I wasn't even really interested in signing with an agency, but a friend of mine from Louisiana worked at William Morris. I met the agent, and I remembered I totally botched up the interview, because I said I wanted to be a businesswoman.
Then, after the Doritos commercial aired and I started getting all these calls, it forced me to re-evaulate my goals and look at the opportunities that were in front of me at the time. That's when I decided to get into acting. Even as a child, I've been involved with everything. I performed, and I danced, so it was definitely something I always enjoyed, but it wasn't my goal.
[OMG: Apple's 1984 ad was the first epic Super Bowl commercial]
And what are you up to now? You now have a children's clothing line, correct?
I do have a children's clothing line. I just sold my very first television show. That's going to be on the TV Guide Network. I have a product review website I'm about to launch, called "Spokesmoms." I feel like, over the past two years, I've come into my own. I have a family now. I feel like I'm doing exactly what I was meant to do.
It sounds like you were right when you said you wanted to be a businesswoman. Because that's what you are today.
Yes. I do love that. But I also love creating things. It's very exciting to me to go out and sell a project, pitch a project.
It's fair to say your life has changed dramatically since the Doritos days.
Yes, dramatically. But I would have to say Doritos really opened the door for me.
Would you ever consider doing another commercial for Doritos, a sequel?
If they would have me, I would absolutely do it.
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• Freakish Jason Pierre-Paul overwhelms New York Giants' foesReview of Storm Nightshade by Lauren Johnson
Storm is a fairly well known brand with a reputation for high quality gis. The Nightshade is one of three women’s cut gis by Storm, all of which have been designed with input from Angelica Galvao. It features many of the key design aspects that make all of Storm’s gis so well known, in a well cut women’s gi with feminine style and a moderate amount of ‘bling’.
The other women’s gis are a white version with magenta flowers called the Sakura, and as a black gi version of the Sakura, called the Flor which is a new addition to the Storm women’s collection. The sizing chart(s) are honestly the most helpful ones I have ever used especially in combination with the ‘highly pre-shrunk’ component of the design.
Check out the gi collection by Storm Kimonos at Amazon
Here are the specifics from Storm:
Jacket is made of Ultra Comfortable 550 gsm Golden Jacquard Weave Fabric 100% Cotton
Pant is made of exclusive 220 gsm STORM Breathe Tech/Military Triple Weave CVC Ripstop Fabric
Zero Warp collar – Zero Hold Technology inside Sleeves
High Definition Embroidered Detailing
Hidden mouth guard pocket
Anti-Microbial Treatment Steamed
Highly Pre Shrunk
Anti-Odor
There were a couple of things that first caught my eye about this gi, and to be honest I had my doubts. Half of the description seemed as though they were trying to make the gi sound a lot better and fancier than it actually would be and I didn’t think any of the details would hold up even though I knew Storm has a reputation for high quality. I also had significant doubts about the ‘bling’, as I had a ridiculous number of requirements for a women’s gi and “no overly feminine bling” was definitely one of them. Even more concerning was that the decoration on the pants is directly over the knee: one of the most susceptible areas to wear and tear.
To Purchase
UPDATE (Jan 11, 2017): This gi is no longer available.
Check out these women’s gis from Storm Kimonos
The fit
The sizing chart really helped convince me that this was the gi for me. The sizing chart gives you a slew of measurements that are actually useful in sizing yourself in addition to a regular height-weight chart. As I’m just shy of 5’5” and about 155lbs with a ridiculously long torso, hilariously petite legs and stupidly large boobs, so obviously I was very nervous about sizing.
I measured myself with an alterations tape measure and compared it to the measurements given. I realized I would fit perfectly into an F3 without question (even if it shrunk an inch in every direction). Needless to say when I saw a ridiculously good sale on this gi on mmawarehouse.com, I snatched up an F3.
It fit perfectly straight out of the box, and wore it once without washing it, as it was pretty comfy. The sleeves were about a half-inch longer than I really liked and decided that I would take a small risk and shrink the top just a little. I washed the gi in hot water and dried it on medium/cool. The sleeves shrunk to hit me exactly at the wrist (about the half-inch I was hoping for) and the rest of the top was unchanged. I guess they were pretty spot on with “Highly Pre-shrunk”!
Design
Like all Storm gis, the Nightshade has sleeves at 45 degrees from the shoulders instead of 90 degrees. I think this is a big factor in how well the top fits as the shoulders are a much better fit than other women’s gis I’ve tried. Like most women’s cuts its narrower at the shoulders and wider at the hips to accommodate a range of curvier shapes.
I had originally thought the amount of ‘bling’ on this gi was too much compared to my thought that Storm Gis usually only have a logo on the back of one calf and one sleeve, with a patch along the collar. The embroidered flowers on the right shoulder and left knee, as well as Storm Kimonos in script lettering on the back of the skirt, is in addition what is normally there. Comparatively, it’s moderately ‘blingy’ for a women’s gi.
Jacket
The dimensions of the jacket haven’t changed from the sizing chart, except the sleeves shrunk about a half inch in length after I purposefully I shrunk them. The sleeves are a nice fit, they are tapered just enough to have a l well fitting opening at the wrist that’s not exceptionally wide.
The length of the skirt on the jacket is perfect, it hits right at the thigh like it’s supposed to. The collar really hasn’t warped at all (just like the claim), and it doesn’t open up and pull itself out of your belt. As for the rest of the claims about the top I’m honestly impressed they were all completely true! It really is ultra comfy even for someone with sensitive skin like me!
The coolest claim to hold up was that it’s anti-odor; I’ve worn it rolling with some sweaty dudes who make my gi/gear smell like death and this is the only thing I own that hasn’t come away from a roll with them smelling like serious funk. Even after a few days of festering in the laundry basket before I throw it in the wash it still never smells as terrible like my other gis and gear especially after working with the worst offenders.
You can’t choke your self on your own collar and its softer and flexible than you’d expect for the thickness however it’s still stiff enough to make it reasonably difficult to grip.
Trousers
I usually don’t like ripstop pants but these are nice. They are a little short for the other ladies I’ve met with this gi, but I have petite legs for my height and they fit perfectly. They aren’t huge in the crotch either; they fit more like low-rise jeans and sit near your hips. The most impressive thing I have noticed about the pants is that when you start to move and flex the pants slide up your thighs instead of pulling down off your butt like most pants.
Shop for awesome deals on ripstop gis at Amazon
The drawstring is flat and cotton, which keeps the pants tied and in place. The embroidery on the knee isn’t stiff and I don’t even notice it while I’m rolling. The embroidery on the knee also isn’t showing any signs of wear or tear. The width is accommodating for thunder thighs and big calves without being to wide or loose.
Rolling performance
I’ve had this gi for about 5 months now, and after 40 something wash and dry cycles (on cold and low) absolutely nothing has faded- the gi is still blacker than night, the purple is still intense and the patch hasn’t bleed or faded at all. I was a little worried about the embroidery on the knee of rip stop pants, as it weakens an area that’s already highly susceptible to wear and tear however, its held up exceptionally well. None of the embroidery (including the knee) has had stray threads or become loose and misshapen.
Purchase the IBJJF-approved Storm Women’s Eden gi at MMA Warehouse
Conclusion
Overall this is hands down the best women’s gi I have ever experienced. It’s a high quality gi, that’s cut to fit real women. I am honestly impressed with this gi, and the more I wear it the more impressive it is to me. Absolutely nothing on the gi has shown any wear or tear, and all of the claims have continued to ring true under pretty hard scrutiny. I would honestly recommend this gi to any woman looking for a high quality gi for a reasonable price (most places online you can find it for $179).With less than two years to go for the next general election, the government’s report card has become too unpleasant with failures at multiple levels. The economic situation is so bad that State Bank of India in a recent report pointed out that slowdown that is now experienced is real and not technical. Many economists have called for more public spending to arrest the slide.
Clearly, the biggest blot on the government as of now is the miserable failure in keeping the promise to create millions of jobs. According to Mahesh Vyas of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, about 1.5 million jobs were lost during January-April 2017.
The estimated total employment during the period was 405 million compared to 406.5 million during the preceding four months, September-December 2017.
You need not look elsewhere for the reasons for this grim situation. It is the government’s own policies – especially the demonetisation and a hasty rollout of goods and services tax. Both have broken the back of the small and medium enterprises, which form the biggest employers in the country.
This shoddy record on jobs is likely to come back to haunt Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he returns to the people seeking votes in 2019. And the fear of a backlash is palpable in the party. That is precisely the reason why the government is now planning a stimulus package for the economy.
When the government announces the stimulus, one sector that is looking up for a handholding is the startup sector, which has been facing a lot of pain-points despite the government’s Startup India, Digital India programmes. Analysts feel this sector, which has potential to create jobs, needs to get more than a mere dekko from the package, said analyst.
Startups solve many problems that the big companies are loathe to and are also job creators. The environment has not been ‘friendly’ despite the claims to the contrary, observed industry experts.
Startups deserve a lot more than what has been given so far, said Devanghsu Dutta, chief executive of Third Eyesight, a consulting firm focused on retail and consumer products sectors. He says the best stimulus package the government could offer is to create an environment in which it is easy to do business. The number of compliances required to run a business is humongous.
“How do you expect a startup that is running with minimal staff to find the time and resource to finish this lengthy process? A disproportionate time, money and resources are spent to get all the compliances. This only affect companies that want to remain compliant though,” he remarks.
A recent NITI Aayog report said the average time taken to incorporate a company in the country is 118 days. This is against the claims that this has now been reduced to less than a week.
Another issue is not only starting up but also about shutting down. Startups find that even after they have shut shop, there are detailed processes that takes a couple of years before they can shut down.
Harish HV, Partner, India Leadership Team, Grant Thornton India LLP, wants the government’s package to make it easier for startups to shut down so that they can work on a new idea and startup again. “Do you know how difficult it is to shut down a business and start up again? Many big businesses did that before becoming the huge companies that they are now,” he said, adding that bankruptcy is not the best way to do it.
Many experts say that by giving the startup sector the required boost and making the entrepreneurs’ life easier, Modi will be able to meet his election promise.
The country is not short of labour, says Ashish Kohli, CEO, SME Finance at Anand Rathi Global Finance Ltd. “The government should come with reforms that give work if only as volunteers in government NGOs so that people can contribute,” he said. He says reforms package announcements and what happens on the ground are two different things.
“The government should take away the unnecessary laws that make it difficult for startups and SMEs to function. You have the bankruptcy law, the debt tribunals and NCLT. But who will educate small entrepreneurs about them? This is a country where the Mallyas will run away taking huge loans from banks while the small entrepreneurs find it difficult to get loans.”
The government’s ease of doing business has been anything but that for entrepreneurs. A few of them even told Firstpost on condition of anonymity about the difficulties they face when they try to log in online or talk about the various compliances that take away their time and energy. All these when they have left their comfortable jobs only to pursue their business ideas. Though taxation has been simplified, there are a few states in the country where warehouses and logistics are still taxed separately, they said.
The government should consider giving incentives to products that are made in India, said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst, founder and CEO of Greyhound Knowledge Group, a global strategy and transformation research, advisory and consulting group.
“Excise duty makes products expensive. Subsidies around excise duty is crucial,” he said. With manufacturing sluggish, giving subsidies and incentives to products made in India would help manufacturing and startups, he said.
While the government has not yet revealed which all sectors are likely to get the boost from the government, clearly expectations are soaring. Finance minister Arun Jaitley and the prime minister will have to do a fine balancing act to do minimum justice.
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.Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” conservative talk show host Mark Levin, author of the book “Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism,” reacted to the controversy created by two tweets from President Donald Trump attacking MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and its co-host Mika Brzezinski.
I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came.. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017
…to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017
Levin noted the outrage, but said to his detractors if they expected Trump to act “presidential,” then they should have respect for the office of the president.
“[I] get it,” Levin said. “The liberals and morals — they’re all worked up, and they’re very upset about it. The only reason I object to what the president did with this tweet was because he jacked up the ratings for that nonsensical show that I never watched — Scarborough and Scarborough and company. But here’s the bottom line. You attack a man repeatedly who is a proud, accomplished man, a man’s man. You attack him personally for his looks. You attack him for his genitalia. And at some point, a man is going to stand up. You want him to act presidential? Then you have respect for the office of the president. I’m not saying you should have tweeted that. It’s not the end of the world that he did tweet it either.”
Levin went on to add that the media have bigger problems given the public’s disapproval.
“So the bottom line is, MSNBC has a problem,” he continued. “From morning until night, it is the same show with different people, different dresses, different suits. It’s the same thing. Same with CNN. The only reason CNN has ratings is because at every damn airport you go to — I don’t know what’s going on. It’s on at the bars and everything. At the airport, you go, ‘Well where is Fox?’ So I think this is a lot to do about nothing. But I think the media have a big problem. Not because of me and you. The public really hates the media. They hate the media because they are not getting the facts.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poorBrandi Glanville still has an issue with LeAnn Rimes, six years after losing ex-husband Eddie Cibrian following an affair with the country singer.
The 43-year-old reality star made the revelation during a podcast interview with Nik Richie on his NRP show.
'It's been six years, at this point I really am over it,' Glanville said.
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Reality star: Brandi Glanville, shown last month in Hollywood, said she still has an issue with LeAnn Rimes
'We still battle, don't get me wrong. I have an issue with her posting pictures of my children on holidays. It's horrible. If my ex husband, if their dad isn't posting pictures, why is she?' she added.
The former star of The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills said holidays have been hard since her divorce from Cibrian was finalised in September 2010.
Glanville said the holidays get harder when seeing Mason, 12, and eight-year-old Jake in social media photos with Cibrian and Rimes.
Happy couple: Eddie Cibrian and LeAnn, shown in July in Florida, spend some holidays with his sons Mason and Jake
Not a fan: Brandi admitted she gets upset seeing snapshots of LeAnn with her children on social media such as this undated photo the country singer posted on Thanksgiving as part of a photo collage
'Get that vodka out, I'll grab three bottles of chardonnay, cry myself to sleep and look at what they’re doing for Christmas. It's hell,' Glanville said.
Glanville said she believes that Rimes has been posting the photos just to anger her.
'I told her, I said ''It doesn't make me mad, it hurts my feelings.'' I'm missing half of their life as it is,' Glanville said.
Halloween snap: LeAnn posted this photo of herself with Eddie, Mason and Jake on Halloween 2015
She added: 'I tucked my tail and went ''Please, just around the holidays, don't do it.'' And she's like, ''It's my family too and I'm gonna do whatever I want.'"
The former model said she's since become accustomed to it.
'I begged and tried for so many years to get things to change and they haven't, so I have to just f***ing accept it that I'll see pictures of my kids on Thanksgiving in a horse drawn carriage looking perfectly happy and I’ll cry myself to sleep,' she said.2
G o v e r n m e n t O p e r a t i o n s a n d E s t i m a t e s C o m m i t t e e a n d H e r M a j e s t y's L o y a l O p p o s i t i o n'sc r i t i cf o rt h e C a n a d i a n W h e a t B o a r d.. 5. R a c k N i n e o p e r a t e s a f o r - p r o f i t b u s i n e s s a n d i s a s e r v i c e p r o v i d e r o f v a r i o u s i n t e r n e t a n d p h o n e s e r v i c e s. I n p a r t i c u l a r, R a c k N i n e p r o v i d e s a n a u t o m a t e d v o i c e - o v e r I P r e c o r d e d m e s s a g e d i a l i n g s e r v i c e t h a t e n a b l e s r a p i d a n d l a r g e - s c a l e r e m o t e t e l e p h o n e c o n t a c t. R a c k N i n e p r o v i d e s s e r v i c e s t o c u s t o m e r s i n t h e C i t y o f Ed mo nt on, in th e Pr ov in ce of Al be rt a, na ti on al ly ac ro ss Ca na da an d in te rn at io na ll y. A l l o f t h e s e r v i c e s p r o v i d e d b y R a c k N i n e a r e l e g a l i n C a n a d a a n d R a c k N i n e h a s ab id ed by al l pr ov in ci al an d fe de ra l la ws in it s op er at io ns. 6. D u r i n g t h e 2 0 1 1 C a n a d i a n f e d e r a l g e n e r a l e l e c t i o n, R a c k N i n e p r o v i d e d m a r k e t i n g s e r v i c e s t o a n u m b e r o f e l e c t i o n c a n d i d a t e s a c r o s s C a n a d a. R a c k N i n e i s a no n- pa rt is an en ti ty an d ha s no fo rm al po li ti ca l re la ti on sh ip wi th an y re gi st er ed po li ti ca l pa rt y no r di d it ha ve a fo rm al or ga ni za ti on al re la ti on sh ip wi th an y fe de ra l ca nd id at e fo r e l e c t i o n i n t h e 2 0 1 1 C a n a d i a n f e d e r a l g e n e r a l e l e c t i o n. S i n c e 2 0 0 7, R a c k N i n e h a s p r o v i d e d a u t o m a t e d d i a l i n g m a r k e t i n g s e r v i c e s t o v a r i o u s o r g a n i z a t i o n s, b o t h c o r p o r a t e a n d p o l i t i c a l i n c l u d i n g m o r e t h a n t e n ( 1 0 ) p o l i t i c a l p a r t i e s i n s e v e n ( 7 ) pr ov in ce s an d a te rr it or y, as we ll as ca nd id at es fo r ci vi c of fi ce. 7. F o l l o w i n g t h e 2 0 1 1 C a n a d i a n f e d e r a l g e n e r a l e l e c t i o n, R a c k N i n e w a s c o n t a c t e d b y E l e c t i o n s C a n a d a i n r e g a r d s t o a l l e g a t i o n s t h a t a c u s t o m e r o f R a c k N i n e m a y h a v e us ed au to ma te d di al in g se rv ic es pr ov id ed by Ra ck Ni ne in a ma nn er th at co nt ra ve ne d the
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Canada.Android users can get down to business
The OnLive desktop app first launched in January, offering iPad users remote access to a full version of Windows 7, including Microsoft Office.
Android tablet users can now join the Office party, "enjoying" Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, as well as Adobe Reader.
The service also promises cloud-enhanced web speeds of up to a gigabit, producing a cloud-accelerated connection that slashes page-loading and streaming speeds regardless of home Wi-Fi speeds.
Free basic service
The OnLive Desktop app is available now from the US Android Market for free, and there are a number of versions to suit your budget.
Desktop Standard is free, Desktop Plus is $4.99/month and Desktop Pro is coming soon at $9.99 along with 50GB of cloud storage. There will also be an Enterprise version for big businesses.
OnLive hasn't yet released details of when we'll see a UK offering, though we imagine it can't be far off.
You can see what we thought of OnLive Desktop on the iPad when we took it for a spin at CES in January, and check out the hype-tastic promo video for yourself on the OnLive Desktop site.Congressional Republicans had high hopes for making sweeping changes when the party gained control of Washington last month, but the 115th Congress has yet to advance the kind of barnburner legislation that marked the start of the last two administrations.
President George W. Bush proposed No Child Left Behind right after taking office, though it wasn’t signed until a year later. President Barack Obama and the 111th Congress finalized the controversial stimulus package, a children’s health insurance program, and a fair pay act by the end of February 2009.
House Speaker Paul Ryan is now trying to ease concerns within the Republican rank-and-file about the slow pace of activity by comparison. And he’s assuring them that leaders will roll out a plan to achieve their biggest goal – repealing and replacing ObamaCare – after next week’s recess.
“The plan is to repeal and replace … like we said,” Ryan told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday.
As the GOP majority focuses out of the gate on rolling back Obama regulations, Ryan said Congress is precisely on the “timeline” leadership had set.
“The reason we are doing regulatory reform right now is we have a certain window of time where we can go back into the Obama administration and cancel the regulations,” Ryan told "Hannity." “It has a shelf-life of just a couple of months — we have been consuming February and March … then we are doing ObamaCare.”
But leadership is facing pressure from House conservatives, who have grown frustrated with the pace and are getting behind legislation introduced by Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., that would upend the health law.
“Speaker Ryan will roll out ‘ObamaCare light,’ leaving parts of ObamaCare – mine is a complete replacement bill,” Paul told Fox News. “Republicans need to come together and remember they used to be unified for a complete repeal, so let’s come back together, get this done, and move on.”
Amid separate pressure to pursue tax reform, House Republicans have been given talking points on the health law for their time with constituents during the upcoming recess. According to the document obtained by Fox News, the points stress that Republicans will advance repeal legislation “in the weeks ahead” to give “relief” from the law’s “taxes and mandates” and move forward with reforms.
Democrats, meanwhile, are pulling no punches in describing the GOP’s struggle.
“If the majority’s grand plan was to achieve nothing, then they’re on track for that,” said Adam Jentleson, former deputy chief of staff to ex-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and now senior strategist at the Center for American Progress. “Republicans have surfed on this myth that if you take away ObamaCare, things would get better and they would easily pass a replace plan — now they’re held accountable for promoting that lie.”
A source in the Senate GOP leadership noted that Obama had a “rubber-stamp” Democratic Senate, seemingly suggesting that President Trump does not – the GOP has only a slim majority in the Senate. The source pointed to the work the GOP-led Congress and White House have done over the last month to roll back some Obama administration regulations, like nullifying an SEC regulation from the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, and, most recently, overturning a rule on coal mining-debris.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Fox News that Congress has taken “unprecedented action” in targeting and repealing some of the “most harmful” regulations from the Obama administration’s final days.
“The House has voted to change the structure of how regulations are finalized so the people have a voice in the rules of governing our lives,” McCarthy said.
Director of Public Policy at FreedomWorks Jason Pye told Fox News that Congress is taking a “positive step” to cancel Obama administration “midnight rules,” but their slow pace is cause for concern.
“This is taking far too long and the slow pace of work is giving the left the window they need to mobilize,” Pye told Fox News.
A source with the Senate Democratic leadership told Fox News that the GOP simply doesn’t have a legislative agenda “ready-to-go.”
Jentleson, who worked in the 111th Congress, told Fox News that “action from the White House” is supposed to cover up the initial “slow-launch” at the beginning of every Congress.
“The president is the one who is supposed to hit the ground running and direct Congress — especially when he has the majorities of his own party — and hand them framework for bills that everyone is together on so they can get moving quickly,” Jentleson said. “But Trump face-planted out of the gate on that, and exposed the fact that Congress is not working either.”
But Paul says much of the delay stems from the hold-up in confirmation hearings for Trump’s Cabinet picks.
“I don’t know if there’s blame yet,” Paul told Fox News. “Half of our time is spent on nominations -- we need to get his Cabinet in place.”
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Fox News that Trump has been working “nonstop” since being sworn into Office.
“Congress ought to work at the same pace President Trump has,” Meadows said, “and work to keep the promises we made to the American people, including repealing and replacing ObamaCare in its entirety, reforming our tax code, and passing legislation to secure our border.”
Fox News’ Mike Emanuel contributed to this report.Buy Photo Emergency crews work at the scene of a car that crashed into an entrance of Mercy Hospital on Market Street in Iowa City. (Photo: Andy Davis/Iowa City Press-Citizen)Buy Photo
Emergency crews responded to Mercy Hospital after a car crashed into a column near the entrance on Tuesday afternoon.
At around 1 p.m., a Toyota Camry was wedged near the entrance to the cafeteria at the 500 E. Market St. facility. To the east, at the intersection of E. Market Street and North Johnson Street, a Chevrolet Cobalt sat with damage to its front end.
Iowa City Fire Department acting batallion chief Brian Rohr said he did not know what injuries were sustained as a result of the crash, but that the police department is investigating the incident.
Buy Photo A damaged car sits at the intersection of E. Market Street and N. Johnson Street near Mercy Hospital in Iowa |
most dehumanising and crushing words the English language has ever come up with. When I was young, I thought it was just about colour. In reality, the worst forms of prejudice occur when they are invisible, and I’ve seen enough non-Black people being niggerised to understand that it is also a very good word to describe someone who is less than human.
Men are not only niggers within our legal systems, but within feminist-dominated education and media, young impressionable males are given a clear message: “All you boys, you’re all potentially violent and wicked, and you’re all potential rapists. All the good things in the world are about females, and all the bad things are down to you.” As an Indian who grew up in the Britain of the 1960s, I am poignantly aware of the lasting harm that this kind of thing inflicts.
Steve Beko, an anti-apartheid activist, once said, “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” It is as true today as it was then. I believe most people live in a cocktail of delusion for their own comfort so that they don’t have to face reality in full.
I don’t know what it will take for men to see their chains, but I know when my humanity is being denied. I may be damned for my attitude, but I am under no illusion that I am a nigger, and today it has nothing to do with my colour. I also know that it is up to me whether I simply accept my loss of humanity or not. I don’t accept it.
No one should accept it.
There is no word in the English language that comes close to nigger. It needs to be used to self-identify with what we are not willing to accept so that we may begin to cast off our chains. What I would like to propose is a variation of this word for use by all males in connection with misandry—NIGGGER—where the additional middle G represents gender.
All men need to feel able to say, “Don’t nigggerise me!” as a means of retort against misandric bigotry. This is not about colour, but it is about prejudice just the same.
There is no reason not to resist when we have already lost so much by not resisting. The word niggger needs to be promoted and accepted by men in the 21st century as a description of our own human worth, or rather the lack of it.You never forget your first time watching “Don’t Rain On My Parade.”
We’ve already ranked the top Glee performances of all time, which tend to be big group numbers. But any fan of the show also treasures its individual star-making moments — whether they’re quick ditties sung in the choir room, or, inexplicably, full solos sung at a competition.
In honor of the musical dramedy’s 100th episode, which airs tonight, we looked back over Glee‘s first 99 installments to pick out our favorite musical moments for each main character. (And by that, we mean the ones who sing a lot — sorry, Emma and Sue Sylvester.) Watch video of our selections below — and then tell us your personal faves in the comments.
Rachel: “Don’t Rain On My Parade”
The birth of a superstar, and the solo that launched a thousand Funny Girl rumors.
Artie: “Safety Dance”
Kevin McHale’s breakout moment — and the series’ most depressing fantasy to date.
Finn: “I’ll Stand By You”
The moment you took Finn Hudson seriously, and one of the performances you went back to re-watch after Cory Monteith’s passing.
Kurt: “Not The Boy Next Door”
We would have let you into NYADA ASAP, Kurt.
Mercedes: “I Will Always Love You”
It’s no surprise that Mercedes did sweet justice to the greatest diva song of all.
Puck: “Run Joey Run”
Silly, goofy, and so delightfully perfect for the always ridiculous Puck.
Blaine: “Teenage Dream“
Ever heard this one?
Santana: “Girl on Fire”
Santana sometimes gets stuck playing second fiddle, but moments like this show her power in its own right.
Quinn: “Say A Little Prayer For You”
It may be her singing debut, but it showed us a character fully formed.
Brittany: “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”
Nobody can move like Brittany — this number played to her strengths and had us wanting to dance right alongside her.
Tina: “L-O-V-E”
This may be a duet, but we’ll be honest: We forgot how cute these two were together. Make it work, you crazy kids!
Sam: “Lucky”
Another duet, but Sam has never been more charming. Plus: a guitar!
Unique: “If I Were a Boy”
This is why Unique has captured the hearts of so many viewers.
Marley: “New York State of Mind”
She may share the stage with Rachel, but this was the song that proved Marley deserved to be in the game as well.
Kitty: “Holding Out For A Hero”
You don’t want to be on her bad side, but she’s also a lot of fun.
Jake: “My Prerogative”
We didn’t know Jake had it in him!
Ryder: “Jukebox Hero”
With a great assist from Finn, this was Ryder’s welcome to the show — and our hearts.
Will: “Forever Young”
Oh, Mr. Schu, you really do care!
-Written by Marc Snetiker and Erin StreckerEmail Share +1 145 Shares
In the aftermath of the Trump administration revoking Obama-era guidance assuring transgender kids have access to school restrooms consistent with their gender identity, the Log Cabin Republicans met with Education Department officials Tuesday to propose a new plan that would support transgender kids and local authority in schools.
At the meeting, the Log Cabin Republicans presented a white paper by Log Cabin and Liberty Education Forum to make the case for its proposals along with its Transgender Leadership Caucus.
In a statement that called the Obama-era regulations “onerous,” Gregory Angelo, president of Log Cabin, said the white paper “marks the culmination of weeks of work on behalf of transgender students, but it does not mark the end of our efforts.”
“Log Cabin Republicans remains committed to the safety of transgender students and the equality of all students, and we look forward to continued conversations with the Trump administration to achieve that end,” Angelo said.
In February, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Attorney General Jeff Sessions revoked the guidance, which was jointly issued by the Education and Justice Departments in the final year of the Obama administration. The guidance informed schools they could be at risk of losing funds under Title IX if they discriminate against trans students or refuse to allow them bathroom access consistent with their gender identity.
The white paper makes the case for federal guidance that protects transgender students and respects local control as courts across the country are finding Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 requires states to allow transgender students to use the restroom consistent with their gender identity.
“There exists an important need to provide basic liberties to all students while still respecting the diverse municipal landscapes which comprise the thousands of school districts in our nation,” the paper says. “A transgender student’s freedom needs to be handled in the same responsible manner that applies to their non-transgender peers. If consistent accommodations are being made for non-transgender students, those same accommodations must be made for their transgender peers.”
The white paper recommends the renaming of single stall, single-sex restrooms as single stall, gender-inclusive restrooms; inspecting multiple stall restrooms to ensure they possess adequate locks for security; and providing curtains and partitions for locker room changing areas. Each of these changes, the white paper says, would come at infinitesimal costs, citing seven schools throughout the country that made similar changes at minimal expense.
Members of Log Cabin’s Transgender Leadership Caucus who were present at the meeting were Jordan Evans, Regina Roberts, Jennifer Williams and Susan Maddison, according to the organization.
“The promise of the Trump phenomenon was that LGBT people could get our full rights protected under a Republican president, without our having to serve as cannon fodder for the Democrat[ic] Party,” Maddison stated. “That hasn’t happened yet, but today’s meeting is a first step toward realizing that promise. If the meeting leads to solid actions, our community may finally get liberated from the stifling ideological cages, and America will come out much the stronger for it.”
The meeting took place after Log Cabin faced criticism when Angelo reportedly didn’t denounce anti-trans remarks at a recent forum in New York City for gay conservatives. Log Cabin responded on Twitter that Angelo did speak in favor of transgender rights (although those remarks didn’t seem to be in response to the anti-trans comments).
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, expressed an openness to the proposals suggested by Log Cabin, but also caution, when asked for comment on the white paper.
“We are always glad to see anyone advocating for transgender people with policymakers,” Keisling said. “To the extent that we understand what is being proposed in the LCR white paper, it looks very, very similar to the sensible guidance issued in 2016. At the same time, given the very harmful actions the Trump administration has taken toward transgender people, from Title IX to health care nondiscrimination to federal surveys, we would still be concerned about what any new guidance from this administration would look like.”
Angelo declined to comment on which principals attended the meeting, citing the off-the-record nature of the discussion. DeVos’ public schedule had no meeting with Log Cabin scheduled for Tuesday and instead indicated she was in Salt Lake City for a conference.
If DeVos had attended the Log Cabin meeting, it wouldn’t be the first time she met with LGBT advocates as education secretary. In March, representatives from a trio of LGBT advocacy groups — the National Center for Transgender Equality, GLSEN and Equality Michigan — met with DeVos in the aftermath of the rollback of the Obama-era guidance.
The Education Department didn’t respond to multiple requests from the Blade Tuesday to comment on the meeting.Vice President Joe Biden also declined to speculate on whether he could have run a stronger campaign that Hillary Clinton. | Getty Biden refuses to rule out 2020 run
Vice President Joe Biden has once again refused to rule out running for president in 2020.
"Four years is a lifetime in American politics," Biden said in a pretaped interview with host Jake Tapper that aired Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "And I think nominees are determined by their parties based mostly on what skill set is most needed at that time. And who knows where we're going to be two years from now, when people are really starting to look seriously at what they're going to do."
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Biden also declined to speculate on whether he could have run a stronger campaign than Hillary Clinton.
"Oh, I don't know," Biden said. "They probably would have eaten me alive."
But he hinted that Democrats should have done more to reach out to white men.
"There's this sort of sense that's grown up in the Democratic Party that somehow these folks are …," Biden said, trailing off. "These are good people, man! These aren't racists. These aren't sexists."
Asked about President-elect Donald Trump's decision to tap Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as his attorney general, Biden acknowledged his former Senate colleague wouldn't have been his choice for the post. Biden led the fight against Sessions in the Senate when Ronald Reagan tried to appoint him as a federal judge in the 1980s. But Biden suggested he wouldn't be inclined to try to block Sessions this time around if he were still in the Senate.
"People learn," Biden said. "People change. And my general rule is the president gets to choose who he wants or she wants for their Cabinet members," unless there's evidence the nominee doesn't intend to enforce the law.
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Trump's pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, might meet that test, Biden said.
"If he's going not to enforce Clean Air and Clean Water acts in the name of jobs, then that's not a guy you vote for," Biden said.
Despite his criticisms of the party's message in 2016, Biden said he was encouraged about Democrats' prospects in two years in the midterm elections, when voters will be grading Republicans on their performance.
"I think 2018's going to be a very good year for the Democrats," Biden said.
In the short term, Biden said he plans to continue his work on cancer research, perhaps at a university.
"Is there going to be a Biden Center somewhere?" Tapper asked.
"Yeah, I think so," Biden said. "I think I'm going to be able to be in a position — I'm talking to some universities who want me to become engaged."Recruiting Violations – Oregon, Auburn, UConn, LSU College Football, Basketball and Other Programs Go Out of NCAA Bounds Committing Major and Minor Breaches
Foul play does not happen only in the playing field during an actual game. As revealed by Division I Committee on Infractions, over 44 percent of the universities in the top competitive level fall foul of the recruiting rules of the National Collegiate Athletic Association between 2001 to 2011.
Hal Mumme, Rick Neuheisel, Gary Barnett, University of Tennessee’s Bruce Pearl, John Calipari and Dennis Erickson are some of the erring coaches who have gained an unfair advantage by violating NCAA regulations to get ahead of the competition, such as drafting too early than what is allowed or enticing players with money or some other incentives for A1 players to join their team. Of the various conferences, the Southeastern, Big 12 and Big 10 Conferences had the highest number of violators.
Other Coaching Scandals Besides Recruiting Violations
Besides going out of bounds of the NCAA recruiting rules, many coaches were implicated in various coaching scandals most of which were also breaches of NCAA regulations, including George O’Leary’s resume padding, John Mackovic’s brusque manner of coaching, Rick Neuheisel’s gambling case besides recruiting violations, Mark Mangino’s and his team’s academic fraud and lack of institutional control scandal, Mike Price’s alleged sleeping with a stripper, Dennis Franchione’s lucrative secret email newsletter, Pete Carroll’s acceptance of improper gifts from his star player’s family, Jim Leavitt’s violence against a player, Rich Rodriguez’s offensive behavior and lack of family values, Lane Kiffin’s offensive comments and false accusations against other coaches and teams, Mike Leach’s inappropriate treatment of an injured player – Adam James, Jim Tressel’s and his players’ memorabilia-for-tattoo scandal, Billy Stewart’s smear campaign against Dana Holgorsen, Joe Paterno’s inaction of a sexual harassment scandal committed by his assistant coach, Nick Saban’s over-signing controversy, and Butch Davis’ players’ academic misconduct and acceptance of improper benefits from agents. Most of these sports trainers were fouled out in their coaching position for their respective infractions.
Major Recruiting Violations – All-Time Top Violators Among the various erring teams, eleven teams were identified to be the top violators:
9 Violations
Arizona State Sun Devils
8 Violations
Southern Methodist Mustangs
7 Violations
Auburn
California
Florida State
Memphis
Minnesota
Oklahoma
Texas A&M
Wichita State
Wisconsin
Oregon Recruiting Violations The latest of these run of recruiting violations is the inquiry being done on the Oregon Ducks. The team was accused of using three scouting services which did not adhere to the rules of the NCAA. The number of coaches of the Ducks who were recruiting were also more than what is allowed. As it is still in the process of investigation, the NCAA has not yet declared any sanctions.
Auburn Recruiting Violations Another recruiting violation story still hot off the press is the investigation about how Auburn sign up players. Rumor has it, some recruits were given extra benefits for signing up. Fingers are pointing to the Tigers assistant coach Taylor Trooper as the one who primarily made the recruitment of these players. Auburn is one of the programs with the most number of violations.
LSU Recruiting Violations Another pack of Tigers is also fenced in by a recruitment violations scandal. One of Auburn’s toughest rivals, Louisiana State University Tigers had turned itself in to the NCAA for major recruiting violations which included impermissible lodging and transportation for recruits and excessive phone calls. This was committed under the watch of assistant D.J. McCarthy who also made efforts to sweep the recruitment violations under the carpet.
The NCAA Committee on Infractions accepted and commended LSU for self-reporting, nonetheless, the university has been placed on one year probation. Its official recruiting visits during the academic years of 2011-12 and 2012-13 had also been curtailed by 10 percent. LSU also imposed on itself a reduction of two initial scholarships for 2011-12 and a reduction of 2 overall scholarships for 2010-11. Because the university cooperated, it bailed the program out of really major sanctions.
UConn Recruiting Violations Another violator that voluntarily turned itself in is the University of Connecticut which admitted to failing to monitor its men’s basketball program. Its self-imposed sanctions include a two-year probation, a forfeiture of one scholarship for the next two seasons, and a reduction in the number of coaches allowed to make phone calls with recruits.
Besides those that were already mentioned, there could be many more collegiate athletics programs that are going out of NCAA bounds. These dishonest practices must be quashed before it becomes deeply rooted into the system and its prevalence would make our young players think that it is OK to pull a fast one. When their time comes to coach a team, they may also take an unfair advantage when no one is looking.
Cheating is in no way a part of the definition of sportsmanship, yet so many coaches and college sports programs have been caught to have dropped the ball in this field. A decade of coaching scandals and recruitment violations should be a cause for concern for authorities especially the NCAA and should make them rethink about their guidelines and the efficacy of their sanctions.
Click Image to Download Printable FileAfter more than 30 years in which psychedelics were considered dangerous remnants of the 1960s, the drugs have begun to make a comeback, this time as potential remedies for a host of tough-to-treat maladies. Pilot studies and clinical trials of LSD, psilocybin, ketamine and MDMA have shown that the drugs, often in combination with talk therapy, can be given safely under medical supervision and may help people dealing with opiate and tobacco addiction, alcoholism, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
That these investigations have shown potential is not surprising to many researchers. A generation of scientists and practitioners had used psychedelics successfully with thousands of patients until the research was banned in 1970, after the drugs were embraced by an exploding counterculture that seemed to threaten the status quo.
In the panicked reaction, psychedelics were listed along with heroin in the highest rungs of prohibition. Ironically, this failed to stop recreational use but it shut the science down cold. As one researcher put it, “It was as if psychedelic drugs had become undiscovered.”
Seizure of 300 stamps soaked in LSD. (AP/Carabinieri Press Office)
But a small cadre of psychiatrists and researchers, often risking careers and reputations, pushed to bring psychedelics back to the lab and the clinic. Their persistence paid off. Beginning in the 1990s, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first human clinical studies of psychedelic drugs in a quarter of a century. By 2004, the first FDA-approved trial of the medicinal use of a psychedelic drug, in this case a trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD involving 24 subjects, was underway. Now such studies are proliferating.
“For more than 30 years I have been working to make FDA approval of psychedelic psychotherapy more than a dream,” says Rick Doblin, founder and director of the nonprofit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. “Now that castle in the air has a foundation underneath it and is becoming an impending reality.”
How LSD began
The modern investigation of psychedelics began with the accidental discovery of the consciousness-altering properties of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD was its German acronym) by Albert Hofmann, a chemist for a Swiss pharmaceutical firm. Hofmann had been looking for a compound that might stimulate circulation and respiration when he combined derivatives of rye fungus and ammonia. Initial animal testing turned up nothing of note, except a strange restiveness in the animals.
Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered the mind-altering drug LSD, talks during the symposium "LSD: Problem Child and Wonder Drug" in Basel, Switzerland. (Siggi Bucher/Reuters)
But for reasons Hofmann could explain only as an “odd presentiment,” he resynthesized the compound five years later, in 1943, accidentally exposing himself to it and going on history’s first LSD trip. “In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed,” Hofmann wrote, “I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors.” He correctly understood that such a dramatic alteration of consciousness by a chemical would be of great interest to the young science of psychiatry.
By the mid-1950s, researchers had experimented with administering LSD and natural psychedelics such as mescaline (from the Mesoamerican peyote cactus) to facilitate talk therapy for a wide variety of psychic ailments. Trials involving hundreds of patients and thousands of doses of psychedelics were conducted in Europe, Canada and the United States, and most investigators reported positive and in some cases almost miraculous results.
In 1954, psychiatrists at an English hospital set aside an entire ward for conducting LSD therapy with patients who had severe, chronic, treatment-resistant mental illness. They concluded that 61 of 94 patients improved or even completely recovered after six months.
In 1960, a physician named Sydney Cohen surveyed the findings of 44 physicians who had administered 25,000 doses of LSD or mescaline to 5,000 people under widely varying conditions. Cohen found “no instance of serious or prolonged physical side effects” or any evidence of addictive potential either in those trials or in the wider literature on psychedelic drug studies. He did find adverse psychological reactions — including acute anxiety and psychotic breaks — but determined that they were rare and mostly related to preexisting mental illnesses.
“Considering the enormous scope of the psychic responses it induces,” Cohen concluded, “LSD is an astonishingly safe drug.”
Timothy Leary studies a painting done by another LSD user in a studio at a house in Millbrook, N.Y. (Hal Mathewson/New York Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
Leary addresses a crowd of hippies at the “Human Be-In” that he helped organize in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Calif. in Jan. 14, 1967. (Robert W. Klein/AP)
Revolutionizing psychiatry
As LSD and its cousin compounds were revolutionizing psychiatry, they were also igniting a new science. Within just a few years of Hofmann’s discovery, chemists were surprised to learn that a substance in the blood called serotonin, which was known to contract the muscle of the small intestine and constrict blood vessels, was also found in the brain. They had no idea what it did there until, in 1954, a researcher noticed that the chemical structure of serotonin bore a likeness to that of LSD. The similarity of the two molecules, coupled with the known power of LSD to alter how people think and feel, switched on the light that some researchers believe inaugurated the modern science of the brain.
Research made it clear that serotonin affected mood and thoughts, and that LSD and other psychedelic drugs worked by somehow altering the way the brain processes serotonin. Serotonin turned out to be one of many substances that regulate and facilitate brain activity; these substances are called neurotransmitters because they help transfer signals from one brain neuron to the next. Serotonin was far less abundant than other neurotransmitters, but it appeared to have outsize impact, involving itself in the regulation of appetite, sleep, memory and learning, temperature, mood, behavior, muscle contraction and function of the cardiovascular and endocrine systems.
Because psychedelic molecules are physically similar to serotonin, the two fit into the same receptors in the brain, like two keys in a lock. The specifics of how psychedelics interact with serotonin receptors to produce a mind-altering trip remain mysterious and disputed. The most interesting clues have come from studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, a relatively new technology that depends on the magnetic properties of blood flow to create pictures of a brain in operation.
In 2012, researchers at Imperial College London published results of a study in which they injected volunteers with psilocybin and then observed their brains via fMRI. Given the psychedelic experience’s well-known assault on the senses — flashing visual patterns, intense colors, enhanced sounds, overwhelming visions and emotions — the researchers expected to see increased brain activity, which some earlier scans had found.
Brain effects
Instead, their screens registered decreased activity, which seemed like a mistake until it was confirmed by another fMRI scan and correlated with the participants’ reports: The larger the decrease in brain activity, the more intense the psychedelic experience.
The decreased activity was not uniform throughout the brain. Task-oriented areas of the brain, such as those associated with seeing and moving, had only nominal decreases. But areas of greater complexity — those associated with self-image, introspection and imagining past or future events — showed large decreases in activity. This linked nicely with the reports of the subjects, who did not have significant motor impairment but talked about experiencing a loss of ego, an increased sense that objects had unusual significance and dramatic alterations in their experience of time.
A volunteer participates in an LSD research project in Viejas, Calif., in 1966. Such studies were banned in 1970. (AP)
The researchers noted two intriguing connections with other studies: A brain on psilocybin bore a striking resemblance to the brain of an experienced meditator during deep meditation. And the areas of the brain with decreased activity caused by psilocybin were the same regions that showed chronically increased activity in people with clinical depression.
“We’re motivated to think of the potential of this drug more seriously through the brain imaging results,” said Robin Carhart-Harris, lead researcher in the Imperial College study. “Regions which are reliably overactive in depression are deactivated by psilocybin... and that fits with the anecdotal reports of users of psychedelic drugs who feel a renewed ease with life after an experience, less burdened by everyday stresses.”
What Carhart-Harris found even more interesting than the raw activity levels was the relative activity of different brain areas that seemed to be working in concert, rather than in opposition. Research using fMRI scans during normal consciousness reveals that when the introspective part of the brain — the part that organizes thoughts of self — is active, the part that scrutinizes the outside world quiets, and vice versa. But after administration of psilocybin, those areas move up and down together. Could this lock step between the introspective and external focus be related to the feeling of “oneness” with the world that people who have taken psilocybin often use to describe their experience?
Relating specific experiences to general changes in brain activity is a dicey business, made even more so because the basic reliability of fMRI interpretations is controversial. (One researcher famously demonstrated that fMRI data could show brain activity in a dead fish.) Nonetheless, the fMRI results have been useful in explaining why psilocybin, and by extension other psychedelics, might help improve mental health.
Brain scans show why psychedelics might be beneficial. These images appear in “Implications for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy: functional magnetic resonance imaging study with psilocybin,” a 2012 study in the British Journal of Psychiatry. Early phase activations are shown in orange and late phase activations in translucent dark red. The left hemisphere is shown on the right. (Courtesy of Royal College of Psychiatrists)
In 2004, Michael Mithoefer, a psychiatrist in Charleston, S.C., was the first to win FDA approval for clinical studies using MDMA — known informally as ecstasy — to treat PTSD.In the treatment manual he created, Mithoefer urges therapists not to attempt to direct the session, but to concentrate on creating an atmosphere of safety, openness and trust in the patient’s own “inner healing intelligence,” which “the medicine” — the MDMA — somehow activated. It might sound like hocus-pocus, but Mithoefer explained it this way:
“When I worked in the ER, somebody came in with this big gash on their arm full of gravel. I don’t know how to heal that. My job is to create favorable conditions for the inner healing intelligence to be able to do it — so get the gravel out, bring the sides closer together, irrigate it, and then the body always moves towards healing. What can happen is that things get in the way: infection, not enough blood supply, a foreign body left in there. So in a way, our job in the ER is to remove the obstacles [to healing].
“I think it’s very much the same with the psyche. I think there is this movement toward healing, and there’s a lot that can get in the way of that.”
Torsten Passie, a German researcher who is a visiting professor of psychiatry at Harvard, has developed an intriguing link between recent neurobiological research and Mithoefer’s idea that MDMA enables the mind to move naturally toward healing.
Bad memories
Under normal circumstances, research has shown, sights, sounds, scents and sensations from our sensory organs enter a region at the center of the brain called the thalamus. The thalamus distributes that data to the more sophisticated brain regions involved with conscious thought. The processed material — sorted for context and assessed for significance — is returned to the thalamus, which then deposits it into the hippocampus, where it is stored as memory.
In the case of a severely traumatic experience such as rape or combat, the higher brain’s ability to process is overwhelmed, according to Passie, and a more primitive method for storing memory takes over. The sensory memory of the trauma — which is still entangled with the emotion associated with that moment — passes through the thalamus and is stored directly in the hippocampus without processing in the more sophisticated parts of the brain.
These raw memories, still tied to the fear response they provoked, are a constant threat to bolt into awareness as flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance or rage, which can trigger the fight-or-flight reflex centered in the amygdala. The amygdala, Passie says, acts as a guard, attempting to suppress the unprocessed traumatic memory and keep it from barging into consciousness. It’s not a healthy arrangement. The constant tension of having the nasty secret hidden in the brain’s basement poisons the psyche, which flails around in pain, creating PTSD’s self-destructive symptoms.
Brain scan studies support the idea that the repressive amygdala is overactive in people with PTSD, while the rationalizing power of the higher brain is suppressed. Studies also show the opposite is true for someone given MDMA; the drug stimulates the prefrontal cortex and suppresses the amygdala. (These results line up with the reports of people in MDMA clinical trials. One of the drug’s signature effects is a dramatic reduction in fear, a sense of “being protected,” coupled with a rapid-fire run of novel insights.)
Passie theorizes that as the amygdala lets down its guard under the drug’s quieting influence, the traumatic memories can reemerge from the hippocampus to be sent up for the higher processing the brain didn’t do in the immediacy of the trauma. The reprocessing is assisted by the tide of hormones MDMA causes to be released; cortisol, which is associated with emotional learning; and oxytocin and prolactin. These hormones are also released in similarly large quantities immediately preceding and following orgasm — an event known to engender powerful feelings of intense emotion, security, closeness and well-being — exactly the mental states known to promote breakthroughs in psychotherapy. Now, at last, the conditions exist in the brain that allow traumatic memories to be properly contextualized and integrated into the personality in a healthy way.
A crayon drawing
While Passie is encouraged by the advances in understanding made possible by brain scan research, he cautions that the science is still in its infancy. There’s no guarantee that these theories will hold when more, larger studies are conducted. “This is more like a crayon drawing of brain function than an oil painting,” he says.
Meanwhile, the accumulating clinical experiences in trials of psychedelic therapies point to a broader understanding of why they might be effective. In a recent study in which psilocybin was given to 15 recidivist smokers, 80 percent managed to remain smoke-free six months after the 15-week treatment. The study’s lead author, Matthew W. Johnson, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, was quoted as saying that “quitting smoking isn’t a simple biological reaction to psilocybin, as with other medications that directly affect nicotine receptors.” Instead, Johnson said, what changed the smokers’ behavior was the subjective experience they had when taking the psilocybin: “When administered after careful preparation and in a therapeutic context, psilocybin can lead to deep reflection about one’s life and spark motivation to change.”
This observation is similar to what psychiatrists Humphry Osmond and Abram Hoffer concluded in the 1950s when they had great success using LSD therapy to help alcoholics stop drinking. Hoffer and Osmond’s treatments proved successful enough that the Canadian government at one point in the early 1960s briefly determined that LSD was no longer an experimental treatment for alcoholism but one that had proved effective.
“As a general rule,” Hoffer wrote, “those who have not had the transcendental experience are not changed; they continue to drink. However, the large proportion of those who have had it are changed.”
Shroder is the author of “Acid Test: LSD, Ecstasy, and the Power to Heal” (Blue Rider Press), from which this article is adapted.Black Waltz No.3 from Final Fantasy IX~ Black Waltz No.3, FFIXDrawn for the collaboration project between Game-Art-HQ and OverClockedRemix at Well, with some luck my piece just might get in... or no, it's not about luck, either my skill was sufficent for my piece to be part of it or it plainly wasn't enough, there is no luck factor here...And whichever the case may be, I am personally very pleased with this piece ^^Black Waltz No.3 was a secondary villain in FFIX and only lasted through the first disc, a shame really, since he had so much potential to be more than just yet another boss that you beat and move on. His design was awesome, his cutscenes were awesome, his music theme was awesome (such a dark and ominous track), and basically everything about this guy was aweosme... well, except for how he ended after his defeat... a mere shadow of his former self serving pretty much as a practise boss for your new, limited team, damn you Square, why do you have to trash the coolest villains like that!!So yeha, it was a bit of a challenge to draw this guy, with his inhuman "anatomy" lotsa cloth layers (was tricky not to get 'em too messy) and those badass wings which I just had to include >D but still, I really love how it came out, and I hope you guys will like it as well ^^Black Waltz No.3 (c) SquareEnixSeptember 26, 2014: A shooting took place in North Miami Beach. Police said an innocent bystander was killed. (Source: CBS4)
NORTH MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) — Police are searching for the people responsible for killing an innocent bystander in North Miami Beach during a drive-by shooting.
Investigators said two people were shot around 2 p.m.
Police believe the person who died was an innocent bystander who was in an adjacent yard, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Kyron Richmond Elderly, 49, was found laying in a lawn when police arrived. Police say he was likely hit when the shooters sprayed NE 173rd Street with bullets. He died after he was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital.
“I’ve got the picture in my mind of him in the front yard, tinkering around and planting stuff,” said neighbor Debra O’Brien. “I can’t imagine he’s gone. I feel horrible for him and his family.”
CLICK HERE To Watch MaryAnn Martinez’s Report
Police said a gray or silver car pulled up, several gunmen fired several weapons. Then, they got back inside a silver or gray Chevy Cruze at them and drove off. Police said one man was found shot inside of a white Mercedes.
“Obviously, there was some beef or argument between the parties, for this car to come by and fire shots and so many shots,” said Major Kathy Katerman of the North Miami Police Department. “We have multiple cars that were hit.”
O’Brien said she suspected something like this could happen.
“I did know that there was some type of peculiar activity going on three doors down from me,” said O’Brien. “People were driving various cars, and people going on and exchanging money, exchanging packets and things. I would go to the crime watch meetings, and I did mention (to police) that there was some kind of suspicious activity down there. They seem to know about it and nothing happened.”
The man found inside the white Mercedes is still at the hospital and has not been identifed.
Police are asking anyone with for information on the gray or silver Chevy Cruze to contact them.
RELATED CONTENT:The word cruisin' doesn't appear in the dictionary, but it's a familiar word to millions of people who did it. CRUISIN' THE FIFTIES AND SIXTIES, is a year-by-year recreation of pop music radio during the years 1955 through 1970.
Each album is not just a collection of the top pop music of a particular year, but a total recreation by a top disk jockey (of that year) doing his original program over a major pop music station. That means actual commercials, promotional jingles, sound effects, newscast simulations and even record hop announcements in addition to the original records themselves.
The disk jockeys who appear on the series were picked after a month of carefully researching a decade's issues of BILLBOARD, including tabulating all disk jockey mentions. The names were then cross checked with audience rating services and longtime radio expert Bill Gavin--all this just to determine with jocks on which stations represented each year most accurately.
CRUISIN' producer Ron Jacobs monitored thousands of feet of tape, travelled over 10,000 miles and rooted through forgotten files and cluttered basements for old commercials, station prom |
, Ryan’s budget is little different from his last few. Didn’t the election teach Republicans anything? (Heidi Moore at the Guardian is particularly good on this point, noting how the budget is “like some sad fiscal remake of the movie Groundhog Day.”)
It’s also fair to note that House Republicans are now farther to the right than at any point in American history. Notwithstanding Obama’s mistakes in dealing with Congress—and there have been plenty—since January, 2011, when Republicans took over the House, the asymmetric polarization of Congress is at the heart of why John Boehner and Obama have failed to consummate a far-reaching fiscal agreement.
And yet, House Republicans do deserve some credit. Given the constraints put on Boehner and his deputy, Eric Cantor, by the most conservative members of the G.O.P. conference, they have navigated the last few months of fiscal politics more responsibly than many would have believed.
Recall that, after Election Day, things looked dire. Washington faced, in quick succession, automatic tax hikes, automatic spending cuts, a debt-ceiling vote, and a potential government shutdown. Some House conservatives were pressuring their leadership to take advantage of each of these fiscal-crisis choke points to gain concessions from Obama. Many were keenly interested in refusing to raise the debt ceiling, which would have risked a U.S. government default and perhaps precipitated an international economic crisis. Instead, we have arrived at mid-March without any of the worst consequences we feared in late 2012.
The tax-cuts portion of the fiscal cliff was dealt with in a bipartisan fashion on New Year’s Day, after Boehner, at some personal cost, allowed a bill negotiated by the White House and the Senate to clear the House of Representatives with mostly Democratic votes. Next, and most importantly, House Republicans agreed to raise the debt ceiling, extending the government’s borrowing authority until mid-May. The spending cuts of sequestration have been triggered without any catastrophic impact yet, and there is some hope that future legislation will soften the blow they deliver to the economy and key government services. And last week, House Republicans passed a so-called Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded through September, thus removing any threat of a government shutdown.
None of this has looked pretty. And from a policy perspective, both the G.O.P.’s insistence on the sequester cuts and the bipartisan, White House-approved deal to increase the payroll tax seem especially boneheaded given the tentative state of the economic recovery. But overall, instead of massive tax increases or a government shutdown or a government default, what we have, after several months of uncertainty, is a return to the crisis-free budgeting process that resembles the Schoolhouse Rock version of how legislation gets made.
Again, we can thank the House G.O.P. Republicans forced the Senate to return to the formal budget process, which the upper chamber has ignored for the last several years. (As part of the debt-ceiling agreement, Republicans cleverly wrote into law a “no budget, no pay” provision for legislators.) The Ryan budget, as flawed as it may be to liberals, was the first step in this process of normalization, and soon the House will pass his plan. Next, the White House will release its own fiscal blueprint, and some close approximation of it will make its way through the Democratic-controlled Senate. In Congress, this is known as regular order, and the process might be the vehicle for a new round of serious negotiations that could lead to, yes, a Grand Bargain. No, we’re not totally free of crisis budgeting: hovering over all of this will be that May debt-ceiling deadline.
But whatever you think of the details of the Ryan budget released today, it’s worth pausing and giving House Republicans two cheers for returning us to relative normalcy. It could’ve been a lot worse.
Photograph by Win McNamee/GettyAt Least 11 Alabama Counties Refuse to Comply With Marriage Equality
At least 11 and possibly 15 counties in Alabama are refusing to accept June's Supreme Court ruling on the Obergefell case.
Kentucky clerk Kim Davis may still represent Southern resistance to marriage equality, but it's actually Alabama where same-sex couples are seeing the most aggression from public officials.
Eleven counties in Alabama have shut down all their marriage license offices so they can avoid issuing licenses to same-sex couples, reports LGBT advocacy group Campaign for Southern Equality. Officials in four additional counties — Coosa, Chambers, Crenshaw, and Lamar — have refused to tell the group if they are issuing licenses to same-sex couples.
"Campaign for Southern Equality has repeatedly called Probate Court offices in each of these counties to ask a simple question: do you issue marriage licenses to gay couples," the organization said in a statement. "But answers have been elusive, as staff say they are unable to answer the question and cannot say when an answer will be available."
Alabama has had a year to get comfortable with the idea of marriage equality — U.S. District Court Judge Callie Granade ruled January 23, 2015, that the state's refusal to recognize same-sex marriages was unconstitutional. Six months later, the Supreme Court struck down all bans on marriage equality in the nation.
Same-sex couples though have been severly hindered by Roy Moore, the state's virulently antigay state Supreme Court chief justice. He has repeatedly stood in the way of marriage equality, including this month, when he ordered state probate judges to refuse licenses to same-sex couples. Moore claimed the U.S. Supreme Court ruling did not apply to Alabama. His order was ignored by many counties, though clearly not all.
The 11 counties that have closed their marriage license offices are Autauga, Bibb, Choctaw, Clarke, Cleburne, Covington, Elmore, Geneva, Marengo, Pike, and Washington.Religious strife happens all too often. Whether we read history books or current headlines, there are far too many stories of people hating others and even resorting to persecution and violence because of religious differences. This seems to be especially true among the three major Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The bitterness between these three religions can seem so deeply entrenched that you could wonder if they ever have, or ever will, manage to peacefully coexist.
Fortunately, though the problems are real and very serious, they do not tell the full story. There are numerous instances of mutual respect and peace between these faiths. More than that, there are many stories of the people of one of these religions risking everything to defend members of a different faith. These stories are also real, and retelling them shows us what the world could be like if every person of every faith lived out the love of neighbor that all religions claim as a central tenet.
10 Syrian Muslims
Photo via Wikipedia
In 1915, the leaders of the declining Ottoman Empire decided they wanted a “Turkey for Turks” and began their own program of what is now called “ethnic cleansing.” They targeted the region of Armenia, where approximately 2.5 million Armenian Christians lived. The systematic massacres, seizures of property, and deportations, which claimed more than a million lives, have become known as the Armenian Genocide.
There was very little international outcry about the atrocities, and no nation intervened on behalf of the Armenians. However, there was sanctuary given to them in Syria, and especially the city of Aleppo. Syria’s population consisted mainly of Arab Muslims, but Syria was a region where Muslims, Christians, and Jews had a long history of peaceful coexistence. They welcomed the Armenians and offered the refugees a safe haven.
It is a terrible irony that, starting in late 2012, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have become refugees, escaping the violence of the terrorist group ISIL. The international community is still struggling with the best way to deal with this crisis, but Armenian communities in Europe, Canada, and the United States have become advocates for the descendants of the Muslims who rescued them a century ago.
9 Refik And Xhemal Veseli
Albania is another European nation where Christians, Muslims, and Jews have lived together in peace for a very long time. A good example of this can be found in the story of a 17-year-old Muslim youth, named Refik Veseli, who worked as an apprentice to Jewish photographer Moshe Mandil in Tirana. When the Nazis occupied the country in April 1941, Refik realized that Moshe was in danger. Refik took Moshe, his wife Ela, and their two children with him to his parents’ home in the remote mountain village of Kruja.
Refik’s brother Xhemal had also befriended a Jewish family, the ben Yousefs, in Tirana, and also brought them to Kruja for safety. The two families remained safely with the Veselis through many dangerous situations until after the war.
The courage and kindness of the Veselis is only one of many stories of Albanian Muslims sheltering Jews according to their honor code of besa, which literally means, “to keep the promise.” Among other things, this code requires Albanian Muslims to offer sanctuary to all refugees and is the subject of the 2012 documentary Besa: The Promise.
8 The Greek Bishops
Greece is a place where Orthodox Christians and Jews had lived together in peace for centuries. This was shown in the official letter of protest that Archbishop Damaskinos and 27 prominent Greek leaders signed after the Nazis deported many Jews from Greece. The letter said, in part:
In our national consciousness, all the children of Mother Greece are an inseparable unity: they are equal members of the national body irrespective of religion. [... ] Our holy religion does not recognize superior or inferior qualities based on race or religion, as it is stated: “There is neither Jew nor Greek” and thus condemns any attempt to discriminate or create racial or religious differences. Our common fate both in days of glory and in periods of national misfortune forged inseparable bonds between all Greek citizens, without exemption, irrespective of race.
The archbishop published the letter and quietly instructed his churches to issue false baptism certificates to Jews to hide their identities. When threatened with a firing squad by the SS commander for Greece, Damaskinos said, “According to the traditions of the Greek Orthodox Church, our prelates are hanged, not shot. Please respect our traditions!”
Just as inspiring is the example of Bishop Chrystomos and Mayor Lucas Karrer of the island of Zakynthos, where 275 Jews lived. When the Nazis demanded a list of the names of all the Jews on the island, the bishop responded with a letter that had only two names: his and the mayor’s. The Nazis searched the island, but the population had successfully hidden all of the Jews.
When the island was struck by a devastating earthquake in 1953, Israel was the first nation to send relief. Along with the help came a letter reading, “The Jews of Zakynthos have never forgotten their Mayor or their beloved Bishop and what they did for us.”
7 The Denmark Rescue
There is a commonly told story about the Danish Jews and the things their countryfolk did to protect them. The Nazis occupied Denmark in April 1940. Sometime after that, the story goes, the SS regional commandant went to King Christian X and demanded that all Danish Jews be required to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothes so they could be easily identified. The Nazis were shocked when the king appeared in public a few days later wearing a yellow star on his clothes. He encouraged all Danes to follow his example so there would be no way to distinguish Jew from Gentile in Denmark.
Sadly, this beautiful story is an urban legend, but it does accurately reflect the feelings of the people of Denmark. The Nordic nation was predominantly Lutheran Christian, but there was a long-standing tradition of good relations between Christians and Jews. In fact, the bonds between Jews and Christians were so strong that the Nazis initially decided not to press the issue of what they called the “Jewish question.”
There was also a mutual resistance to the Nazis and their occupation, and Danes of all religions participated in acts of resistance and sabotage. In September 1943, faced with the Allied advance, the Nazis decided to deport all Danish Jews to concentration camps. Learning of this, the Danish Resistance, aided by much of the population, moved quickly to organize an evacuation. Jewish families were hidden in private homes, churches, and even the properties of the Danish royal family while Danish officials used all manner of delaying tactics to prevent searches. Through the month of October, boats, mainly fishing vessels, were used to ferry 7,200 Jews and 700 Gentile family members to safety in neutral Sweden, making this the largest rescue of Jews from occupied Europe in World War II.
6 The Paris Grand Mosque
There are many stories of heroic groups and individuals who risked themselves to shelter Jews from the Nazis. One of the most unexpected is that of Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the founder and rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris and his community.
The mosque was built in 1922 to honor the Muslim nations of North Africa who had helped France in World War I. The Nazis occupied Paris in June 1940. In July 1942, they arrested 12,884 Jews, including 4,115 children, with the plan to send them all to the Auschwitz death camp. However, the mosque provided a natural safe haven. The Sephardic Jews from North Africa spoke Arabic and shared many of the cultural habits of their Muslim neighbors. With a little acting, they could easily pass as Muslim Arabs. The mosque was a place where Jews, and resistance fighters could rest, bathe, eat, and find a temporary sanctuary from the Nazis.
The historical records are sketchy, but one unconfirmed account suggests the mosque may have sheltered as many as 1,700 people, mostly Jews, from arrest during the war years. Most historians believe the mosque may have helped a total of around 100 Jews.
The story is the subject of the children’s book The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust by Karen Gray Ruelle and Deborah Durland DeSaix and the 2011 French film Les Hommes Libres (“Free Men”).
5 Corrie Ten Boom
Corrine “Corrie” ten Boom was a Dutch woman who is honored by the Yad Vashem Remembrance Authority as one of the Righteous Among the Nations for her work in rescuing Jews from the Nazis during World War II.
Corrie and her family were members of the Dutch Reformed Church, which taught that the extermination of the Jews was an injustice to their fellow human beings and an affront to God. She took this to heart and worked to help and protect her Jewish neighbors any way she could. She worked out of her family home in Haarlem, the Netherlands, converting it to a safe house where Jewish refugees could hide until they could be smuggled out of the country to safety. She gives a riveting account of this in her book, The Hiding Place. She rescued nearly 800 from the Holocaust.
On February 28, 1944, the Gestapo raided the ten Boom house. They didn’t find any of the six refugees then hiding there, but they arrested Corrie, her father, brother, both sisters, and other family members anyway. She and her sister Betsy were transferred to Ravensbrueck concentration camp, where Betsy died. Her father also died in a different prison.
Corrie ten Boom was released as the war came to an end. She returned to her home and worked for causes of reconciliation and peace until her death in 1983.
4 Tahrir Square
In late January 2011, Tahrir Square in Cairo became an area of intense protest during the Egyptian Uprising. The revolution, which ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak from power, was remarkable for its lack of violence. It also produced striking images of Egypt’s Muslims and Coptic Christians working together to create a better future for their country.
The Copts are a Christian sect which has been in Egypt since ancient times. For most of their history, the relationship has been fairly good, but there have been tensions in modern times. Both the Mubarak government and the Muslim Brotherhood have been accused of stoking anti-Coptic sentiment in Egypt for their own ends.
But in the demonstrations in Tahrir Square, there was a remarkable degree of cooperation and goodwill between the two faiths as Muslims and Christians stood together to demand a better Egypt. The most dramatic evidence of this came on Friday, February 4, which protesters referred to as the Day of Departure. When Muslims spread their mats for midday prayer, Christian protesters joined hands to form a protective circle around them. Christians and Muslims came together to protest the government, with the crescent embracing the cross becoming a popular symbol in Tahrir Square.
Events since the uprising have shown that Egyptian Muslims and Christians have a long way to go to reach peaceful coexistence, but Tahrir Square is a reminder that there are many people of both faiths who long for that day.
3 The Shomrim
Photo via Wikipedia
Since 2008, the Orthodox Jewish community in Stamford Hill, London (some of whose members are pictured above), had been protected by the Shomrim, a Jewish citizen’s patrol that works with police to report and prevent crimes. In 2013, the group came to international prominence when they expanded their patrols to protect Muslim neighborhoods as well.
The change came after a spike in anti-Muslim violence following the 2013 murder of soldier Lee Rigby by Muslim extremists. The violence included the fire-bombing of several mosques. Concerned about the ability of police to safeguard Muslims, local councillors from Hackney, North London, approached the Shomrim, who were well-organized and located close to the Muslim areas.
They were happy to help. As Shomrim member Shulem Stern told the AFP, “The local Muslims and local Jewish people do so much business together. In religious aspects as well there are loads of similarities. Also, because we’re visible and suffered a long history of hate crime, we’re very alert to anything unusual.”
When the Shomrim—who take their name from a Yiddish word for “guardians”—first organized, there was a fear of vigilantism, but they have proven to be valuable allies to the police, acting as their eyes and ears. Wearing stab-proof vests with the word SHOMRIM emblazoned on them over their traditional Orthodox clothing, they have become a welcome presence and a symbol of hope to Londoners of all faiths.
2 The Oslo Synagogue
In February 2015, over 1,000 Norwegian Muslims assembled at the only functioning Oslo synagogue, shown above. They held hands to form a protective line around the building and chanted, “No to anti-Semitism. No to Islamophobia.”
The demonstration was a symbolic show of support and peaceful coexistence. It came one week after a shooting at an event promoting free speech in a Copenhagen synagogue. Danish-born Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, the son of Palestinian immigrants, killed two people, apparently as a hate crime, but Oslo Muslims wanted the nation to know the troubled young man was not reflective of their community.
“Humanity is one and we are here to demonstrate that,” organizer Zeeshan Abdullah said at the event. “There are many more peacemongers than warmongers. There’s still hope for humanity, for peace and love, across religious differences and backgrounds.”
1 Christians And Muslims In Cameroon
Cameroon is a central African nation where Christianity and Islam have lived side by side in relative harmony for generations. Now, members of both faiths are joining forces against the radical group Boko Haram, which wants to establish an extremist Islamic state in the region.
Since Boko Haram has attacked both churches and mosques, the people of Cameroon have come up with a unique strategy. When Christians are at worship, Muslims stand guard over their churches. When Muslims are at prayer, Christians protect their mosques, like the Lamido Grand Mosque pictured above.
It’s a new tactic, but the good relationship between the faiths goes back a long way in the country. Joseph Klofou of the Protestant Church of Cameroon put it this way: “I feel frustrated seeing my brothers and sisters dying. I must act while praying to God to send his angels and warriors to fight Boko Haram because he is the merciful God of armies.”
Djafarou Alamine of the central mosques expressed a similar sentiment: “I am out to fight because Boko Haram is a group of bad people. Islam condemns all that they have been doing to both Christians and Muslims who are all God’s creatures even though they have religious differences.”
These religious leaders and the people they serve have chosen to take a brave stand for each other and against violent extremism.
Matthew Baugh is the author of more than 40 published short stories and three novels: The Vampire Count of Monte Cristo, A Girl and Her C.A.T. (with Win Scott Eckert), and The Avenger: The Sun King. He is a longtime comic book and pop culture nerd as well as an ordained pastor.EDIT (2:00 ET, Sunday): Kipnis is out of the starting lineup today, and now Francona says Kipnis "could be" headed to the DL. He had an MRI this morning. A very disappointing development in the story.
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Jason Kipnis has been dealing with a sore right shoulder recently, which explains why he's been at DH in three games this week, including Friday and Saturday's games. Manager Terry Francona says he does not think the injury is serious, and expects Kipnis to be back at second base for Sunday afternoon's game.
"His throwing shoulder is just a little bit sore. I don't think it's anything we need to worry about, but I just would rather stay out ahead of it. It doesn't hurt him one lick hitting..."
Kipnis has been one of the very best players in baseball this season. FanGraphs has him with 5.1 WAR already, putting him in a tie with Clayton Kershaw and Manny Machado for the 5th highest total in baseball. In the American League, only Mike Trout has clearly been better. He had a bad week and a half leading into the All-Star break, but has rebounded to hit.345/.400/.414 so far in the second half. For the season, he leads all of MLB with 132 hits and 31 doubles. His.326 batting average has him in contention for the batting crown, and his.401 OBP has him in contention for the "doesn't have a name, but is more important than the batting crown."
If the injury proves to be at all serious, the Indians should put Kipnis on the DL, because his longterm health is more important to the team than his next two months, but obviously we'll hope it doesn't come to that, because Kipnis' tremendous play has been one of the bright spots in this frustrating season.Palo Alto Medical Foundation San Carlos Center
A glass-walled corridor with a perforated aluminum canopy, cleft-cut sandstone walls that extend from indoors out, and end-grain wood flooring connects the main lobby with a waiting area for individual clinics. Photography by Bruce Damonte
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“Bringing the outside in” is not typically a concept associated with healthcare design. That may change with the arrival of more medical facilities such as the Sutter Health/Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) clinic in the San Francisco Bay Area. Designed by global firm NBBJ, the 198,000-square-foot San Carlos Center emphasizes the beauty of the natural world, providing a sense of well-being right from the entrance. It’s likely the only medical center in the world to have a 45-foot-long, live-edge bench—a single continuous slice from the trunk of a native Claro walnut tree.
“We were trying to create an environment that exudes healing for people,” says Josie Briggs, a senior associate at NBBJ. “The design celebrates natural light and honest materials.”
PAMF needed a new facility to serve a rapidly growing population along the San Francisco Peninsula, and it commissioned NBBJ to design a medical complex that would accommodate 100 physicians. The facility occupies a prominent 18-acre property that separates downtown San Carlos from the area’s main freeway. PAMF asked the designers to find an architectural style for the four-level clinic that would speak to the local community. The result is contemporary yet warm and non-institutional, thanks to influences that include California Mission style, evident in the center’s tan Santa Barbara stucco finish, and mountain lodges, recalled by the redwood-lined overhangs and cleft-cut sandstone walls.
“First and foremost, we wanted to give patients the feeling that they’d come to the right place. We wanted to make it comfortable and not threatening,” says David Jury, PAMF’s vice president of support services and facilities development.
Transparency and natural touches
The building emphasizes transparency throughout, with significant natural light that also aids in wayfinding. The parking garage has a lofty, glassed-in staircase that encourages patients to use the stairs and allows them to easily determine where they need to go. The expansive 3,570-square-foot reception area and adjoining 1,130-car garage were designed to also serve a hospital building, postponed to a later phase of construction. The lobby’s back wall is covered in massive, end-block reclaimed Douglas fir, allowing the space to feel more like a hospitality interior. Around the corner, the wood paneling changes to the timbers’ long sides, creating the illusion of a giant stack of lumber. Here, as well as in the waiting areas for each clinic, cozy Martin Brattrud Reveal banquettes—customized with a slightly higher seat and back to make it easier to get in and out of them—provide a comforting sense of privacy for patients.
To get to the individual clinics, which range from allergy to urology, patients pass through a glass-walled corridor with gardens on either side. This showpiece architectural element creates the illusion of being outdoors. An aluminum canopy, CNC-turret-punched with an abstract pattern of leaves, filters dappled light into the space. Briggs points out that implementing Integrated Project Delivery (IDP), which brings all the subcontractors together at the start, allowed these details to be designed collaboratively. The live-edge bench, a custom piece designed in-house, runs along one side of the corridor.
The clinic waiting areas, plentiful with natural light, are far cries from the fluorescent-lit rooms of yesteryear. On the interior walls, photography of the nearby rolling hills and oak woodlands, printed on plywood panels, runs along a horizontal niche. “We really wanted to avoid having art that had nothing to do with anything around it,” Jury says. Translucent dividers, printed with botanical illustrations of the native plants in the gardens outside, serve as gentle markers for different waiting areas.
It’s not just the patients that are enjoying a new environment. Unusual for healthcare, the physicians and medical assistants have transitioned to an open-plan office. Pods of four people facilitate the workflow of team-based care, a collaborative approach designed to improve patient outcomes while reducing healthcare costs.
“We get compliments from patients daily about our new facility and how pleasant it is to get medical care here,” says Dr. Alireza Shafaie, who practices internal medicine at the center and was the project’s medical sponsor. “Physicians and staff have also responded very positively to the new design and have found that it works well in improving communication among the teams.”
Palo Alto Medical Foundation San Carlos Center
Architect: NBBJ
Client: Sutter Health & Palo Alto Medical Foundation
Where: San Carlos, California
What: 192,000 total square feet on four floors
Cost/sf: Withheld at client’s requestNot even Steven Spielberg can withstand the force of “Star Wars.”
“Ready Player One,” the director’s adaptation of Ernest Cline’s best-selling fantasy novel, will move to March 30, 2018, which allows the film to steer clear of “Star Wars: Episode VIII.” Last month, Disney announced it was shifting the “Star Wars” sequel from May 2017 to Dec. 15, the date where “Ready Player One” was situated.
Warner Bros. may have blinked, but insiders insist it’s not running scared. The new date coincides with Easter, and there are no major movies scheduled to open in April 2018, save for an animated film from Laika, giving “Ready Player One” a wide berth. It also comes between the conclusion of the Winter Olympics and the start of the World Cup, two events that can erode the moviegoing audience.
It’s a sign of just how monumental a phenomenon “Star Wars” has become. Spielberg’s name above the title virtually guarantees a film will find an audience, but “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was a box office success with few equals. The seventh film in the series is now the third highest grossing movie in history, behind only “Titanic” and “Avatar.”
“Ready Player One” unfolds in a virtual reality universe called the Oasis — a fake utopia that human beings come to prefer to the real world. Ben Mendelsohn and Olivia Cooke head the cast, and Zak Penn (“The Avengers”) wrote the screenplay.
In addition, Warner Bros. moved an untitled DC Comics film, rumored to be a big-screen version of the Flash, from March 23, 2018, to March 16, 2018. That gives it a week before Fox releases an untitled animated movie and Sony debuts a film version of “Peter Rabbit.”
The studio has dated an untitled event film from Warner Bros. on March 2, 2018, and an untitled New Line tentpole release (possibly a “San Andreas” sequel) on April 20, 2018. It’s part of a major move by studios to lock up prime release dates years in advance — and one that, in the case of “Ready Player One” and “Star Wars: Episode VIII,” can inspire a high-stakes game of chicken.An Alberta MLA has drawn parallels between the legalization of marijuana in Canada and the communist revolution in China.
In the Alberta legislature on Wednesday, United Conservative Party (UCP) culture and tourism critic Ron Orr suggested marijuana legalization could lead to human tragedy similar to the one suffered in China during the communist revolution.
READ MORE: Justin Trudeau surprises premiers, outlines proposed excise tax on legalized marijuana
“It wasn’t until the 1950s that China began to seriously eradicate the opium trade, the opium business, the opium tax revenue and all of these wonderful things that are supposed to be generated from recreational use of drugs,” Orr said.
“They actually got so serious about it, their whole society was so broken down and debilitated by it, that it contributed to the Chinese cultural revolution under the communists, the execution of thousands of people, dealers were executed, fields were plowed under and planted with real food, and I, for one, am not really willing to go down this road.
“The human tragedy of what’s going to happen with this has yet to be revealed.”
Alberta Party interim leader Greg Clark said he found the comments “odd” and they took away from what should be legitimate discussion around an important issue.
“The rhetoric in that assembly, it baffles me on many days,” he said.
“There are certainly things that the NDP does that concern me, there’s no question. But to equate cannabis with communism, or whatever the heck he did, it defies belief.”
READ MORE: Alberta government details pot plan, proposes 18 as minimum age
Alberta NDP MLA and Minister of Children’s Services Danielle Larivee called the comments “really ridiculous” and “inappropriate,” adding they do not contribute positively to the conversation.
“We all know that’s totally ridiculous and that’s not contributing in any positive way to the conversation we’re having. Albertans want us to focus on the practical things and their everyday life,” she said Thursday.
“I think there’s some real issues to talk about here and we need to stay focused on what Albertans want.”
READ MORE: When it comes to the pot tax, Alberta asks Ottawa, ‘What are you smoking?’
Opposition House Leader Jason Nixon urged people to look at Orr’s comments in the full context of the speech.
“I would have used a different language around his argument and I think Mr. Orr now would like to use different language around it. But at its core, what he was talking about was the compassion side of that, and that’s what he was going for. It’s important you look at it in the whole context,” the UCP MLA said.
“When you’re in the legislature and you’re working, sometimes you might use a context that you would choose to use differently at a different time.”
Orr did not stop to speak with reporters on his way into the house on Thursday.
UCP MLA Ron Orr just suggested that there will be a communist revolution in Canada because of the legalization of cannabis. Some days… #ableg #cdnpoli — Michael Connolly (@NDPMikeC) November 29, 2017
On Twitter, NDP MLA Michael Connolly questioned Orr’s argument and his “grasp on reality.”
I doubt he has the grasp on reality that most people have. — Michael Connolly (@NDPMikeC) November 29, 2017
READ MORE: Alberta introducing rules to align with federal cannabis legalization plan
The Alberta government is introducing rules to align with the federal cannabis legalization plan, including changes to align its rules with pending Criminal Code amendments.
Marijuana is to be legal across Canada as of July 1, 2018.
LISTEN: Newstalk 770’s Rob Breakenridge shakes his head at the UCP MLA suggesting a revolution is in the works.A large red cayenne
Thai peppers, a cayenne-type pepper
Capsicum frutescens
The cayenne pepper is a type of Capsicum annuum. It is usually a moderately hot chili pepper used to flavor dishes. Cayenne peppers are a group of tapering, 10 to 25 cm long, generally skinny, mostly red-colored peppers, often with a curved tip and somewhat rippled skin, which hang from the bush as opposed to growing upright. Most varieties are generally rated at 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville units.[1]
The fruits are generally dried and ground to make the powdered spice of the same name, although cayenne powder may be a blend of different types of peppers, quite often not containing cayenne peppers, and may or may not contain the seeds.[2]
Cayenne is used in cooking spicy dishes either as a powder or in its whole form. It is also used as a herbal supplement.
Etymology [ edit ]
The word 'cayenne' is thought to be a corruption of the word quiínia[3][4] (also sometimes spelled kyynha[5] or kynnha[3]) of the Old Tupi language once spoken in Brazil, which means pepper (thus 'cayenne pepper' means 'pepper pepper'). It is probable that the place Cayenne in French Guiana was named after the peppers, not vice versa,[6] although it is commonly claimed that the pepper was named after the city. Culpeper, for example, uses the word 'cayenne pepper' in 1652,[7] and the city was only renamed as such in 1777.[8] It also is possibly named for the Cayenne River.[1]
Nicholas Culpeper in his Complete Herbal, 1653, mentions cayenne pepper as a synonym for what he calls "pepper (guinea)"[note 1][7][9] By the end of the 19th century 'Guinea pepper' had come to mean bird's eye chili or piri-piri[10], although he refers to Capsicum peppers in general in his entry.[7]
Taxonomy [ edit ]
The cayenne pepper is a type of Capsicum annuum, as are bell peppers, jalapeños, pimientos, and many others. The genus Capsicum is in the nightshade family, (Solanaceae). Cayenne peppers are often said to belong to the frutescens variety, but frutescens peppers are now defined as peppers which have fruit which grow upright on the bush (such as tabasco peppers), thus what is known in English as cayenne peppers are by definition not frutescens.[note 2]
In the 19th century, modern cayenne peppers were classified as C. longum, this name was later synonymised with C. frutescens. Cayenne powder, however, has generally been made from the bird's eye peppers, in the 19th century classified as C. minimum.[10]
Varieties [ edit ]
Cayenne peppers are long, tapering, 10 to 25 cm long, generally skinny, mostly red colored peppers, often with a curved tip and somewhat rippled skin, which hang from the bush as opposed to growing upright. There are many specific cultivars, such as 'Cow-horn',[11] 'Cayenne Sweet', 'Cayenne Buist's Yellow', 'Golden Cayenne', 'Cayenne Carolina', 'Cayenne Indonesian', 'Joe's Long', 'Cayenne Large Red Thick', 'Cayenne Long Thick Red', 'Ring of Fire', 'Cayenne Passion', 'Cayenne Thomas Jefferson', 'Cayenne Iberian', 'Cayenne Turkish', 'Egyptian Cayenne', 'Cayenne Violet' or 'Numex Las Cruces Cayenne'.[1] Although most modern cayenne peppers are colored red, yellow and purple varieties exist, and in the 19th century yellow varieties were common.[1][12] Most types are moderately hot, although a number of mild variants exist.[1] Most varieties are generally rated at 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville units, although some are rated at 20,000 or less.[1]
In cuisine [ edit ]
Cayenne powder may be a blend of different types of peppers.[2] Cayenne powder is distinguished from 'chili powder' as it is made from cayenne peppers only, whereas chili powder is generally a spice mixture. It is used in its fresh form, or as dried powder on seafood, all types of egg dishes (devilled eggs, omelettes, soufflés), meats and stews, casseroles, cheese dishes, hot sauces, and curries.[2]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ Aframomum melegueta or Piper guineense at present, but in Britain in the 16th and 17th century 'Guinea pepper' or 'ginny pepper' was the common name for Capsicum peppers in general. The name Guinea pepper often meansorat present, but in Britain in the 16th and 17th century 'Guinea pepper' or 'ginny pepper' was the common name forpeppers in general. ^ piment de Cayenne may refer to all types of C. frutescens and other types of C. annuum including tabasco, [10] However, in French, for example, the |
a pertinent million-row test table. As Sergiy, an old friend from SSC would say “A developer must not guess. A developer must know” and I want people that use my code to have the opportunity to know about my code before they use it. There’s another reason why I post test data development code. It gives other people the easy opportunity to test their own solutions and some of them come up with better solutions than I do! That has happened on multiple articles I’ve written of which the “Tally Ho!” article (about a new type of splitter) is probably the most famous. Without such an article, suggested solution to a problem, and the test code provided, the Tally Table splitter might still have a performance problem. I came up with a solution and someone took my solution and tweaked it to make yet another 20% performance gain in the solution. You’ve just got to love this community. That brings us back to answer of one of your previous questions. People are the most important resource in this. Enable them with a bit a voluminous test data and an idea, then stand back and watch the innovation happen. Heh… and based on your previous question about “trying to be an exceptional DBA”, that’s one of those things I never really consciously thought about, either. We’re all in this together and I try to enable other people to succeed, sometimes even at my own expense. What do I get in return? The sheer pleasure of watching someone’s light come on.
RM:
With SQL Server, there comes a time when you think “This would be a really useful feature, if only they had bothered to finish it.” What are the features you think could be improved upon?
JM:
They actually fixed one of my pet peeves in SQL Server 2012. They’ve finally made it so that you can do a “running total” and some other “previous row” calculations using aggregates like SUM(). Previously, one had to resort to some fairly serious SQL prestidigitation such as the “Quirky Update”. Some other things on my “wish list” are… Rewrite PIVOT and UNPIVOT to be at least as good as PIVOT found in MS Access. Someone spent a lot of time writing the HierarchyID data-type and the code to support it. Couldn’t they have taken it to the next step and have built something similar for “Nested Sets?” Rewrite Bulk Insert to work better and create a Bulk Export. Rework PATINDEX so that it has the same 3rd operand as CHARINDEX so that you can tell it which character to start searching on. Build in a one, two, and three dimensional “splitter” function especially one that will handle the MAX datatypes without the use of XML. Build in a “data generator” function to replace the Tally CTE which many of us use and also make it capable of generating date/time ranges. Create a decent “Dir” function to be executed from T-SQL along with some file handling. Bring back sp_MakeWebTask and direct its output to a MAX datatype. Fix the RAND function so it varies when used on more than one row in a SELECT. There are, of course, more things I’d like to see in T-SQL, but those things are on the top of my list.
RM:
So, which aspects of working with SQL get you really excited?
JM:
Teaching it to someone who wants to learn it. You can’t imagine the thrill I had just a couple of weeks ago when a developer came to me with code that took more than 3 days to execute. In just an hour of teaching her some ideas and techniques, she was able to rewrite the code so that it ran successfully in only 30 minutes! I’ll never forget the look of accomplishment and pride on her face. It was a truly amazing experience.
RM:
Is there any feature with SQL Server that you would like to take a hammer to?
JM:
More than you can imagine. I’ll just leave it at that for now.
RM:
Do you think people recognize the role of a development DBA?
JM:
Yes and No. Yes… because my last four jobs have revolved around that particular role. Some folks are finally beginning to realize that SQL Server isn’t just a place to store data. That intelligent design and planning for scalability are important. That not everyone has the skills to do either even if they have had the proverbial “8 years’ experience with SQL Server”. I say ‘no’ because, as I previously stated and more often than not, C-Level managers just don’t understand what such a hybrid (combination of system, design, and T-SQL knowledge) can actually do for the company, the data that drives it, or the people that drive the data.
RM:
Do you think the kind of people who can be successful DBAs has changed, and is becoming a DBA more of a career choice than an accident?
JM:
On the first question, no. I don’t think the kind of people who can be successful DBAs has changed at all. I think all good DBAs have to be absolute guardians of the data, diplomats, dedicated professional students, master designers, incredible trouble-shooters, teachers, interested in doing the job very well, and have the patience of Job. On the second question and with the understanding that I’m speaking only about the U.S.A., again, no. The reason why is for the very reason I stated before. Not enough C-Level managers understand the value of such a person in such a role. Most IT job descriptions still give a laundry list of required skills followed with ‘and a least 1 year of experience with SQL.’ They still don’t understand the need for System or Development DBAs and so they don’t have such a person. There are comparatively few such jobs on the market. When the inevitable “feathers hit the fan” at such a company, some person with the right stuff stands up to help and becomes an accidental DBA.
RM:
How would you make money from your skills if you weren’t in the job that you are in now?
JM:
I had no idea that there were actually other jobs.
RM:
Who would you say has taught you most about SQL? Your Zen master, if you will?
JM:
I have no one. No personal “Zen master” for SQL. Rich Bay probably comes the closest because he enabled me to learn about SQL Server and T-SQL, but he actually taught me very little about both. No, it’s more like a force made up of the worldwide community of DBAs, developers, and users. If you participate, you learn. I do, however, have a kind of “Zen Master of Enablement” Thank you Mr. Steve Jones for sticking with the SQL Server community all of these years. More than anyone, you have realized that people are the most important resource and you continue to invest in them. Without you, your editorials, and your gentle yet firm guiding hand on SQLServerCentral.com, it wouldn’t be the exceptional forum that it currently is and there would be fewer chances for many of us to truly excel in our professions. You are the consummate Exceptional DBA.
RM:
Do you have anything else to add?
JM:Hurrah! The cameras are returning to New Broadcasting House once again for a second series of BBC2’s mockumentary W1A.
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Ian Fletcher (played by Hugh Bonneville) returns as the BBC’s Head of Values at a time when the 2016 Charter Renewal is inching ever closer. The pressure’s on and with Ian’s job as Chair of The Way Ahead Task Force more important than ever, he can once again rely on PR agency Perfect Curve – run by Siobhan Sharpe (Jessica Hynes) – for their “high standards of clarity and presentational skills when it comes to the key issues facing the Coproation.”
“I am very happy to have the cameras back,” says Fletcher. “Being Head of Values is all about re-setting the dial for the BBC and perhaps about shining a new light on that dial, or at least shining the old light but with a new bulb, so none of us can be in any doubt where the dial is or can have any excuse for not being able to read what it says.”
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The new series will, once again, be four parts with an hour-long opening episode and three half-hour follow ups. Written and directed by John Morton, series two is expected to see the return of cast members including Sarah Parish and begins filming in January.Ask anyone who has played in a Ryder Cup, and to a man, they will tell you the most terrifying moment of all is that first drive on the first hole of the first day.
Spectators are crammed into bleacher seats that seem situated just a little too close to the players themselves. The atmosphere is part rock concert, part pro wrestling match. It’s loud, and it’s proud. It’s “U.S.A! U.S.A.!” this week at Hazeltine National Golf Club. It will be “Ole, ole, ole, ole” in 2018 in Versailles, France.
It is everything golf isn’t. And everybody — players and fans — loves it.
Matt Kuchar remembers walking up to the No. 1 tee with American partner Stewart Cink for his first Ryder Cup in 2010 in Wales.
“It was a sloppy, rainy day, (and) the grandstands (were) the aluminum bleacher-style seating, and fans were stomping (their feet) on the stadium, and it felt like the whole place was going to collapse,” he said.
Here are some other players’ memories of their first Ryder Cup tee shots:
LEE WESTWOOD >
Europe, 11th Ryder Cup
“I first teed it up in ’97 (at Valderrrama in Spain) with (Nick) Faldo, so that made things a lot easier, knowing that I’ve got a multiple Ryder Cup partner and multiple major winner. We were playing Freddie (Couples) and Brad Faxon, and they obviously were the away team and they teed it up first. And I watched them put the tee in the ground and try and get their ball on the tee, and they were shaking like a leaf. So, I thought, wow, if they are nervous, then it’s perfectly natural that I’m going to be nervous, as well. You try to soak it all up and enjoy it, and tee it up and smack it down the middle. And once that’s done, then off you go.”
RORY MCILROY >
Europe, fourth Ryder Cup
“It’s an experience we don’t get any other time of the golfing year. We sort of wait once every two years for a moment like this, (when) you get on the first tee. For me, being over that first tee shot on Friday morning, even (with) everything that goes on around you, when you’re over that ball, everything becomes so quiet, and you can hear a pin drop.”
HENRIK STENSON >
Europe, fourth Ryder Cup
“It’s a lot of tension, and something you look forward to, but you’re still not sure how you’re going to react every time, I think, and we’ve seen some bad tee balls being hit, and surely pressure is why that could be.”
JORDAN SPIETH >
U.S., second Ryder Cup
“You asked me to paint a picture of what it’s like; I actually (have) a painted picture of that. It’s the main piece of artwork in my house. It’s right after I struck my first tee shot at the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles (in 2014). You put the tee in the ground, your hand is shaking, you’re trying to get the ball onto the tee. But I hit a great shot, which was what makes me so excited about that painting — because it’s as nervous as I’ve ever been, and probably the best 3-wood I’ve ever hit. I take confidence every time I see that. I try and look at it every day.”Source
Like my dad, I make it a point when I speak to groups to talk about priorities, and when it’s schoolkids, I rank those priorities as: faith, family, and education, then football. For me generally it had always been the big four: faith, family, friends, and football. And I tell all of them that as important as football is to me, it can never be higher than fourth.My faith has been number one since I was thirteen years old and heard from the pulpit on a Sunday morning in New Orleans a simple question: “If you died today, are you one hundred percent sure you’d go to heaven?” Cooper was there and Eli [Peyton’s two brothers] but it didn’t hit them at the time the way it did me. It was a big church, and I felt very small, but my heart was pounding. The minister invited those who would like that assurance through Jesus Christ to raise their hands, and I did. Then he invited us to come forward, to take a stand, and my heart really started pounding. And from where we sat, it looked like a mile to the front.Samos is the island airport with the most notorious landing approaches in Greece. It involves pure "stick n’ rudder" demanding hand-type of flying in between mountains, without navigation instruments guidance, moderate or higher turbulence due to terrain, the FIR border just on the airport’s pattern and tight turns short before lining up for last stage of final approach to land.
“I have operated for years into some really demanding airports such as Gibraltar, Innsbruck, Madeira, La Palma. But Samos approaches are still at the top of my list as the most challenging and exciting!" - Giorgio La Pira, A380 Pilot (formerly A320 Examiner)
These are only a few of the reasons why 29Palms Scenery Design have decided that this challenging and interesting airport would be the perfect addition to our Greek island series following Mykonos and Skiathos.This scenery depicts every aspect of its real counterpart in great detail using the latest techniques of flight simulation development. Are you ready to test your piloting skills? Let the journey begin!
Features:So the $18 million arch is a triumph for Mr. Cook, not just because, as he asserts, “no one has built anything like this since the Jefferson Memorial,” but because he realized the project in Atlanta.
The critical response was predictable. Architects claimed it was ersatz, Disneyfied classicism, or that classicism itself was insensitive to the setting. One local architect, Michael Gamble, questioned the appropriateness of using a classical form to welcome the 21st century, and compared the arch unfavorably to the mercury-tone “Cloud Gate” sculpture by Anish Kapoor in Millennium Park in Chicago. Because the arch was near a large blue and yellow furniture store, some people nicknamed it the Arc d’Ikea.
But others were impressed. One of Mr. Cook’s former critics, Elizabeth Dowling, an architect and historian who had once scoffed that “the Greeks would have spit on us” if the Beaux-Arts plaza had been built, conceded that Mr. Cook had “matured.”
The arch was not originally intended for Atlanta, but for a place where it might have seemed far less extraterrestrial: the nation’s capital.
Photo
Mr. Cook conceived of it in 1999 as a way to celebrate peace, rather than the military victories triumphal arches habitually note, and he planned to put it in Barney Circle, a neglected node of Pierre L’Enfant’s master plan for Washington. The neighborhood welcomed it as a tool for beautification and revitalization, but official support flagged, in part, Mr. Cook said, because of the terrorist attacks of 2001.
So the arch, downsized, has quietly settled into the fabric of Atlanta. It is on the cover of this year’s visitors guide to downtown and midtown. Some 50,000 people have visited the Atlanta history museum in the arch’s base, Mr. Cook said, exceeding his expectations. And rentals of the space for events have been booked through 2010, he said.
Though the arch is new, it has already attained a milestone that other monuments take decades to achieve: no one is quite sure what it is about.
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“It’s supposed to commemorate something,” said Kim Baskerville, 35, who lives nearby.
“Probably dead Confederates,” said Don Robinson, 64, a retired air traffic control assistant, who was recently waiting at a bus stop near the arch.
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Mr. Robinson studied the inscription — “This American monument was built to commemorate all peaceful monuments since the birth of Jesus Christ,” it reads, in Latin — for a minute or two.
“It’s a monument celebrating I think the birth of Christ,” Mr. Robinson said.
Mr. Cook said the inscription’s Christian bent was patterned after the wording on European monuments.
Even some of the protesters who were present when the arch opened on July 4, 2008, said the building was beautiful, objecting instead to the history exhibits, which honored some Atlanta families, including that of Mr. Cook’s wife, without mentioning that their fortunes had been made thanks to slave labor.
Mr. Cook responded that what he originally envisioned as a boosterish exhibition had been amended to include unsavory chapters of Atlanta’s history like the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish industrialist, and the race riots in 1906, but that he was not required to include every fact in the limited space of the museum.
At any rate, Mr. Cook said the assertion that Atlanta was not the place for a Roman arch stemmed from ignorance of the city’s rich heritage of traditional buildings.
“Our Flatiron Building predates the New York Flatiron Building by about six years,” he said. “The Hurt Building has one of the finest rotundas in the country.”
He gave several more examples, then added, “We just have so much big, newer stuff, you don’t notice it as much.”For two decades, some Israeli officials and Israel partisans have worked to embed a new, Israel-focused definition of antisemitism in institutions around the world, from international bodies and national governments to small college campuses in heartland America. This effort is now snowballing rapidly. As a result, advocacy for Palestinian rights is well on the way to being curtailed and even criminalized as “hate.”
As the world has witnessed the oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, many people have risen in protest. In response, the Israeli government and certain of its advocates have conducted a campaign to crack down on this activism, running roughshod over civil liberties (and the English language) in the process.
The mechanism of this crackdown is the redefinition of “antisemitism” to include criticism of Israel, and the insertion of this definition into the bodies of law of various countries.
Where most people would consider “antisemitism” to mean bigotry against Jewish people (and rightly consider it abhorrent), for two decades a campaign has been underway to replace that definition with an Israel-centric definition. That definition can then be used to block speech and activism in support of Palestinian human rights as “hate.” Various groups are applying this definition in law enforcement evaluations of possible crimes.
Proponents of this Israel-centric definition have promoted it step by step in various arenas, from the U.S. State Department and European governments to local governments around the U.S. and universities.
While this effort has taken place over the last two decades, it is snowballing rapidly at this time. The definition is increasingly being used to curtail free speech and academic freedom, as well as political activism.
Furthermore, such politicizing of an important word may reduce its effectiveness when real antisemitism occurs, doing a disservice to victims of true bigotry.
As of this writing, the U.S. Congress has endorsed the distorted definition, the governments of the UK and Austria have officially adopted it (in December and April, respectively), various U.S. State legislatures are considering it, and numerous universities are using it to delineate permissible discourse. Many representatives and heads of other states around the world have embraced the new meaning, even if they have yet to officially implement it.
This article will examine the often interconnected, incremental actions that got us where we are, the current state of affairs, and the public relations and lobbying efforts that are promoting this twisting of the definition of “antisemitism” — often under cover of misleadingly named “anti-racism” movements.
Claims of “Antisemitism” Used to Silence Support for Palestinians
For many years, numerous respected organizations have documented Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights, including killing of Palestinian civilians, abuse of Palestinian children, torture of Palestinian prisoners, confiscation of Palestinian land, and other cases of systematic violence and oppression. Detailed reports have been compiled by Defense for Children International, the International Red Cross, Amnesty International, Foreign Service Journal, Physicians for Human rights, Christian Aid, Human Rights Watch, the National Lawyers Guild, Israel’s Public Committee Against Torture, Israel’s B’Tselem and others.
Israel long claimed that its 1948 creation was on “a land without a people for a people without a land,” and many people may still believe this founding myth. The fact is, however, that the land was originally inhabited by an indigenous population that was approximately 80 percent Muslim, 15 percent Christian, and a little under 5 percent Jewish. The Jewish State of Israel was created through the ejection of approximately three-quarters of a million people.
Over the decades since Israel’s founding in 1948, accusations of antisemitism have been leveled against many people who criticized Israeli actions. Indeed, the accusation was used effectively to silence very prominent critics.
However, for most of that time, the meaning of the term itself was not in question. The standard definition was, in Google’s terms, “hostility to or prejudice against Jews.” Around the turn of this century, though, certain advocates began promoting official and even legal definitions of antisemitism that included various kinds of criticism of Israel.
Conflating Criticism of Israel with Antisemitism
Natan Sharansky, Israeli minister, in 2003: “The State of Israel has decided to take the gloves off and implement a coordinated counteroffensive against anti-Semitism.” Sharansky’s formulation formed the basis for the new Israel-centric definitions adopted around the world.
Unsurprisingly, the new definitions appear to have originated from within the Israeli government, or at least with an Israeli government official.
The definitions adhere to a pattern set by a man named Natan Sharansky, who was Israel’s Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs and chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel. Sharansky founded a Global Forum against Anti-Semitism in 2003, stating: “The State of Israel has decided to take the gloves off and implement a coordinated counteroffensive against anti-Semitism.”
But Sharansky apparently didn’t mean a counteroffensive against just anti-Jewish bigotry, but an offensive against criticism of Israel. The following year he wrote a position paper that declared: “Whereas classical anti-Semitism is aimed at the Jewish people or the Jewish religion, ‘new anti-Semitism’ is aimed at the Jewish state.”
Sharansky’s paper laid out what he called the “3-D Test of Anti-Semitism.” Sharansky applied the term “antisemitic” to criticism of Israel in three cases. First, he argued that statements that “demonize” Israel are antisemitic — by being, in his mind, unfairly harsh. (Some of those allegedly guilty of “demonizing” Israel are Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Alice Walker, Human Rights Watch, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, French President François Mitterrand, and others.)
Second, Sharansky declared that it’s antisemitic to apply a “double standard” to Israel — in other words, to criticize Israel for actions that other states may also take. However, if one could never criticize, protest or boycott abuses without calling out every single other similar abuse, no one would ever be able to exercise political dissent at all.
Finally, Sharansky said it’s antisemitic to “delegitimize” Israel, or dispute its “right to exist” (a standard Israeli talking point for many years). In fact, insisting Israel has the “right” to exist amounts to saying it had the right to expel Muslim and Christian Palestinians in order to found a religiously exclusive state. (See “What ‘Israel’s right to exist’ means to Palestinians,” by John Whitbeck, published in the Christian Science Monitor.)
Sharansky’s outline provided the pattern for a European agency to create a new definition of antisemitism the next year, 2005 — a definition that would then be adopted by a succession of organizations and governments, including the U.S. State Department.
Jean Kahn (R) with French President Francois Mitterand. Kahn initiated the creation of the European Monitoring Centre, which released an Israel-centric “working” definition of antisemitism.
There is a back story to how this all came about.
This European agency itself was founded and run by a man with important connections to Israel. It was called “The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia,” under the Council of the European Union. A Frenchman named Jean Kahn had convinced European heads of state to create it in 1997.
Kahn had been a President of the European Jewish Congress, elected in a plenary session in Israel, and said the Congress “would demonstrate its solidarity with Israel” and that he hoped European countries would “coordinate their legislation outlawing racism, anti-Semitism or any form of exclusion.”
Kahn was chairman of the Monitoring Centre’s management board and called the “personification” of the agency. Within three years, the Centre issued a position paper calling for the definition of anti-Semitic offenses to be “improved.”
A few years later, Israeli professor Dina Porat took up the effort to create a new definition. Working with her were Kenneth Stern and Rabbi Andrew “Andy” Baker of the American Jewish Committee. Stern reports that when the Monitoring Centre’s then head, Beate Winkler, had failed to deliver the desired definition, Andy Baker “smartly developed a working relationship with her.” Stern and others then created a draft for the Monitoring Centre to use.
In 2005 the agency issued its “Working Definition of Anti-Semitism, ” largely based on that draft. It included an array of negative statements about Israel as examples of antisemitic offenses. While standard dictionary definitions of antisemitism didn’t even mention Israel, fully half of the newly devised Monitoring Centre definition referred to Israel.
Once the Monitoring Centre had created its expanded definition, certain Israel partisans used it to promote similar definitions elsewhere. And while the Monitoring Centre itself continued to term it only a “working” definition and its replacement organization eventually withdrew the definition, in other countries and agencies the expanded definition became official.
In addition, quite frighteningly, proponents pushed successfully to begin applying the Israel-centric definition to law enforcement.
In the United States
The same year Sharansky created his “3-D” antisemitism test — a year after he founded the Global Forum against Anti-Semitism — the U.S. Congress passed a law establishing exceptional government monitoring of antisemitism. The law created a special State Department envoy and office for this monitoring, over objections of the State Department itself.
The law, called the “Global Anti-Semitism Review Act,” included a line that subverted its meaning by enshrining a new definition of antisemitism aligned with Sharansky’s: “Anti-Semitism has at times taken the form of vilification of Zionism, the Jewish national movement, and incitement against Israel.”
The bill was introduced in April 2004. That June, a Congressional hearing was conducted about how to combat antisemitism. A major witness was Israeli minister Sharansky. In his testimony Sharansky proposed his “3-D” Israel-connected definition for anti-Semitism.
State Department officials objected to the proposed legislation, saying the new office was unnecessary and would be a “bureaucratic nuisance” that would actually hinder the Department’s ongoing work. A State Department press release opposing the new office described the many actions that State was already taking against antisemitism.
Despite this opposition, the Senate bill acquired 24 cosponsors representing both parties, including Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Sam Brownback, Saxby Chambliss and Ted Stevens. Similar bills (here and here) were introduced in the House of Representatives, acquiring 35 cosponsors, again including both Republican and Democratic leaders. The legislation passed easily and quickly became law.
The first Special Envoy, Gregg Rickman, endorsed the European Monitoring Centre’s Working Definition in 2008. Rickman’s report called it a “useful framework” for identifying and understanding antisemitism. After Rickman left the State Department, he went to work for the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the major Israel advocacy organization that lobbies Congress.
The next Special Envoy, Hannah Rosenthal, took this campaign a major step forward: In 2010 the office officially adopted the European Monitoring Centre’s definition.
Rosenthal was extremely proud of having achieved this “breakthrough” definition. She began making use of it quickly, establishing a 90-minute course on the new antisemitism at the Foreign Service Institute, the training school for diplomats.
“We have now a definition we can train people on,” she told the Times of Israel, “and we’ve been very aggressive in training foreign service officers.”
Rosenthal announced that with the new definition including criticism of Israel, their reporting on antisemitism improved “300 percent,” even though, she said, that didn’t mean that antisemitism had actually increased in all the countries monitored.
Hannah Rosenthal adopted the “breakthrough” Israel related definition and promptly used it in training U.S. diplomats.
The gloves were off. Now fully half of the official U.S. State Department definition of antisemitism had gone beyond the normal meaning of the world to focus on Israel.
Applying the New Definition to U.S. Citizens
The State Department uses the new definition to monitor activities overseas. But once the State Department definition was in place, efforts began to use it to crack down on political and academic discourse and activism within the U.S.
This past December (2016) the U.S. Senate passed a law to apply the State Department’s definition (i.e. the Sharansky-Stern-Rosenthal definition) of antisemitism to the Education Department, for use in investigating reports of religiously motivated campus crimes.
A companion bill for the House is supported by AIPAC, the ADL, the Jewish Federations of North America and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
South Carolina’s House of Representatives recently passed legislation under which the State Department’s definition “would be used in probes of possible anti-Semitism at state colleges and universities.” The state senate will consider this in 2018. If passed, it will mean that the state will now probe criticism of Israel on state campuses.
Similar bills are being considered in Virginia and Tennessee.
Such efforts are also ongoing in California. In December Democrat Brad Sherman called on the California Secretary of Education to “expand its definition to include certain forms of anti-Israel behavior.” Pro-Israel organizations such as the Amcha Initiative have also been pushing the state legislature for several years to officially adopt the State Department definition. So far these have been defeated but continue to be promoted.
U.S. Campuses
A parallel effort has been occurring on U.S. campuses. In 2003 Sharansky said that college campuses were “one of the most important battlefields” for Israel.
In 2015 University of California President Janet Napolitano (head of 10 campuses) publicly supported adopting the state department definition, after 57 rabbis sent a letter to her and the University Board of Regents promoting the definition.
Student councils or other groups at various universities have passed resolutions adopting the State Department definition, which can then be used to block campus events about Palestine.
An ongoing campaign to ensure Israel partisans become influential in student government has supported these efforts. This campaign was announced by an AIPAC leader in 2010: “We’re going to make certain that pro-Israel students take over the student government,” he said. “That is how AIPAC operates in our nation’s capitol. This is how AIPAC must operate on our nation’s campuses.” (Video here.)
Resolutions referencing the Israel-centric definitions have now been passed by student governments at UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, East Carolina University, Indiana University, Ohio’s Capital University, Ohio’s Kent State, Orange County’s Chapman University, San Diego State University, and other campuses around the country.
An example of these resolutions is the 2015 bill at Indiana University. The resolution denounced anti-Semitism “as defined by the United States State Department” and stated that the student government would not fund antisemitic activities or activities that “undermine the right of the Jewish people to self-determination.” It also said that IUSA executives and Congress members would undergo diversity training on anti-Semitism.
According to the student newspaper, the bill was written by Rebekah Molasky, a fellow with the international pro-Israel organization Stand With Us. After the resolution was passed, “the bill’s sponsors and outside supporters hugged and high-fived before gathering in the hallway to take a picture to commemorate the moment.”
As evidenced above, such resolutions can now be used to censor student events. The UC San Diego resolution largely replicated the Indiana format, announcing that the student government will not support activities that “promote anti-Semitism” under the new definition, including “denying Israel the right to exist.” Stand With Us applauded the resolution.
In 2012, an organization called the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under the Law was founded and immediately began promoting the new definition. Within a year it launched an initiative to establish student chapters at law schools throughout the U.S. to advance “the organization’s mandate to combat campus anti-Semitism through legal means.” The Center helped push the South Carolina legislation. It is one of numerous organizations promoting the new definition.
(Incidentally, former Supreme Court Justice Brandeis was a leader in the world Zionist movement and worked in public and covert ways to promote it — see here.)
“Thought Policing”
A number of analysts have pointed out some of the many significant flaws with such legislation.
Anthony L. Fisher at Reason.com writes of Congress’s December law applying the State Department definition to the Education Department: “It gives the federal government the authority to investigate ideas, thoughts, and political positions as violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
Fisher continues: “By specifically using the broad language of a 2010 State Department memo attempting to define anti-Semitism, the Senate bill wades into thought policing.”
Attorney Liz Jackson wrote in an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times: “Anyone who values the constitutional right to express political dissent should worry about this development.”
NY Times columnist Bret Stephens says Jewish Americans should “do all we can to assure the survival of the Jewish State.”
On the other side of the debate is New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, formerly Wall Street Journal deputy editorial page editor and before that editor of an Israeli newspaper. Stephens, extremely hawkish on Israel, writes and speaks fervently against the movement to boycott Israel (BDS) and what he says is antisemitism on US campuses and elsewhere. In a Wall Street Journal editorial, he claimed that “anti-Semitism is the disease of the Arab world.”
In 2014 Stephens spoke at the Tikvah Fund, a philanthropic foundation committed to supporting the “Jewish people and the Jewish State,” opining that it would be a scandal if Jewish people failed “to do all we can to assure the survival of the Jewish State.”
U.S. and European Lawmakers Pressure Governments to Ban Criticism of Israel
During all this time, parallel efforts to promote the new definition continued in Europe.
In 2009 an organization called the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism (ICCA) took up the effort to spread the expanded definition. The group says it brings together parliamentarians from “around the world” to fight antisemitism and lists a steering committee of six European and U.S. legislators.
UK politician (and later Prime Minister) David Cameron signed the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition statement calling on governments to outlaw certain forms of criticism of Israel, including calls to boycott Israel; to regulate criticism of Israel in the media; to monitor criticism of Israel online and elsewhere; and to prosecute critics of Israel under “hate crimes” legislation.
The group held a conference in London in 2009 at which it issued a “London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism,” which was signed by then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other heads of state and legislators. This declaration called on governments to use the European Monitoring Centre’s definition and to outlaw and prosecute such “antisemitism.”
It was couched in “anti-racism” terms, but when we look at the declaration’s recommendations combined with its definition of antisemitism, one thing becomes clear: In the declaration, numerous lawmakers of the Western world called on world governments to restrict political dissent.
Specifically, they called on governments to outlaw certain forms of criticism of Israel, including calls to boycott Israel; to regulate criticism of Israel in the media; to monitor criticism of Israel online and elsewhere; and to prosecute critics of Israel under “hate crimes” legislation.
Among numerous other demands, the lawmakers declared that governments:
“must expand the use of the EUMC [Monitoring Centre] ‘Working Definition of antisemitism’” including “as a basis for training material for use by Criminal Justice Agencies;”
should “isolate political actors” who “target the State of Israel;”
“should legislate ‘incitement to hatred’ offences and empower law enforcement agencies to convict;”
“should … establish inquiry scrutiny panels;”
“should utilise the EUMC [Monitoring Centre] ‘Working Definition of antisemitism’ to inform media standards;”
“should take appropriate and necessary action to prevent the broadcast of antisemitic programmes on satellite television channels, and to apply pressure on the host broadcast nation to take action to prevent the transmission of antisemitic programmes” (keeping in mind here that the declaration’s definition of “antisemitic” includes various criticism of Israel);
“should use domestic ‘hate crime’, ‘incitement to hatred’ and other legislation … to prosecute ‘Hate on the Internet’ where racist and antisemitic content is hosted, published and written” (again keeping in mind what is defined as “antisemitic”);
and that “education |
time," Archdiocesan Federation of Teachers President Lisa Dole, a social studies teacher at Marin Catholic, said. "To say that they are concerned would be an understatement. They are understandably worried about the legal ramifications of the term'minister,' and they are hoping to have their questions answered by the archbishop."
The four schools — Archbishop Riordan and Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep in San Francisco, Marin Catholic in Kentfield, and Junipero Serra in San Mateo County — enroll about 3,600 students and are among a handful of Catholic schools nationwide with teachers represented by a labor union.Mill Street Announces Details of 2015 Summer Seasonal Sampler Pack
TORONTO, ON – Mill Street Brewery has revealed the contents of its Summer Seasonal Sampler pack for 2015, which combines three core brands and a returning summer seasonal with two new limited edition beers.
Joining the trio of flagship beers – Organic Lager, Tankhouse Ale and 100th Meridian Amber Lager – and summer seasonal Lemon Tea are the following new offerings, with tasting notes provided by Mill Street brewmaster Joel Manning:
Ginger Cat (5% abv)
This is a Mill Street twist on an old Belgian-style witbier or “white beer” made with raw and malted wheat along with orange peel and candied stem ginger added in the brewing process. The ginger adds a bright heat to the palate and complements the fruity yeasty tones perfectly. This beer is made with a small amount of light caramel malt to give it a bit of a candy tone as well as New Zealand Pacific Gem and German Hersbrucker hop varieties in order to give it a very drinkable balance. This beer is served unfiltered and so it will have a light haziness to it from the yeast in suspension.
Stargazer Summer Ale (4.1% abv)
This is a classic summer ale typical of the light ales made in England for the short summer months. Low in alcohol, this “session” bitter is a very drinkable hoppy ale designed to be very full flavoured without the high alcohol of a lot of the modern IPAs. Made with a blend of Canadian, English and German hops this is a very uniquely refreshing beer. Designed for very high level of dry-hop flavour and moderate bitterness, this ale is the perfect accompaniment to sitting on a patio with friends.
The new Mill Street Summer Seasonal Sampler six pack will be available starting next week at select LCBO locations throughout Ontario.Zuck shocked everyone by appearing on stage for the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event for MWC 2016. He wasn’t there to push Samsung’s new phones or talk about Messenger, his time onstage was all about virtual reality.
Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook (which, in case if you’ve forgotten, is the parent company of Oculus) will be bringing its dynamic streaming technology for 360 video to Gear VR (which, in case if you’ve forgotten, is powered by Oculus).
This technology allows significant performance upgrades to streaming content by only playing back what’s in view of the headset at any given time rather than processing the entire 360 sphere of video at once. All of this is done by seamlessly switching between dozens of variants of each 360 video taken from multiple angles. Facebook revealed more about the technology at its Video @Scale event last month.
The results speak for themselves, Facebook says their efforts have “quadrupled the resolution quality of 360 streaming video in VR by reducing the amount of required network bandwidth by 4x.”
Another interesting tidbit comes from a Facebook blog post today—they’re building a social VR team to focus “entirely on exploring the future of social interaction in VR.”
This team will explore how people can connect and share using today’s VR technology, as well as long-term possibilities as VR evolves into an increasingly important computing platform. They’ll will work closely with Oculus and other teams at Facebook to build the foundation for tomorrow’s social VR experiences on all platforms.
Facebook and Samsung partnering closer together can only mean good things for both companies right now. Samsung has offered Facebook and Oculus a connection point to more causal VR consumers through their widespread mobile ecosystem. With Oculus’s Rift hitting shelves at $599 and requiring a hefty gaming PC to boot, chances are limited that many will have immediate access to that brand of virtual reality. The $99 Gear VR, on the other hand, is bound to be the first step in getting consumers intrigued and comfortable with the technology.The Rays are having a fire...sale. Maybe. Despite their recent success, the Rays are still staring at a near impossible deficit in the AL East, which means they're getting a ton of calls about every asset they have. We've known for a while that the Mariners and Rays have been playing phone tag over the past month, but most of the rumors have been associated with David Price, who the Mariners also coveted over the winter.
According to Marc Tompkin, the Mariners are in on the Ben Zobrist sweepstakes, which is welcome news to our own Michael Barr, who fawned over acquiring Zobrist back in June. Five days ago, Logan wrote about all of the Rays rumors himself, and while the source of that particular rumor focused on Price, he discussed what it would take to acquire Zobrist -- starting with Nick Franklin and going from there.
If you haven't read the two aforementioned articles, now's the time to do it. Zobrist doesn't fit the stereotypical need of the Mariners, that being a power-hitting right-handed outfielder, but he is a fantastic player controlled through 2015 at a very reasonable cost, $7.5 million. Zobrist makes the Mariners better, possibly significantly better, immediately. It doesn't matter where he plays. The M's have too many offensive holes to only focus on acquiring one type of player. Anybody that claims going after Zobrist is a waste of time and resources is, for lack of a better word, wrong. His flexibility would be tremendously valuable to a team with at least four or five major holes in the lineup.
Zobrist might not even be available. The Rays can easily choose to hold onto their core, considering they're all controlled, although Price will be crazy expensive, through next season. They'll have to be blown away by an offer, and given what the Rays have done to other teams in the past when trading away their soon-to-be expiring contracts, that's semi-terrifying. But it's at least encouraging to hear that the Mariners are going after good players instead of bad ones.
Oh.Current position of the SSV Corwith Cramer. Click on the vessel to view position history. Use the tools, top right, to change the map style or view data layers.
SEA Currents: SSV Corwith Cramer
Mark Sheehan, Bonefish Watch, Oberlin College
We departed Samana early this afternoon after our longest port stop thus far. Due to a departure delay, bonefish watch didn’t have a whole lot to do for the 0700-1300 watch so we hung out on the quarterdeck and drew things like the elegant pedestrian bridge that in its beauty and openness provided, perhaps, a metaphor for the warm welcome we received in Samana. Read More
Emily Scott, Best Watch, Boston University
Today was our last day in port in the Dominican Republic before we set sail to Silver Bank National Marine Mammal Sanctuary tomorrow (yay, whales!). It also happens to be my 21st birthday, which I got to ring in at midnight after my watch with my friends and the quietly peaceful Cramer under the stars. Read More
Mariana Dominguez Moran, Brave Watch, Universidad de los Andes
Today began with Lucas and me finishing B watch’s activities from 05:00 to 07:00 a.m. We then completed our daily chores to keep Mama Cramer tidy. Laurie and Victoria headed back to the US, taking a huge chunk of our family with them. Read More
Jeff Schell, Chief Scientist
Welcome to one of the most unique ecosystems on planet Earth - Los Haitises National Park; a region of Samana Bay, Dominican Republic where geologic processes, biological diversity, and human history coalesce into a truly unique environment. Read More
Victoria Smith, SEA Alumni Relations Coordinator and Illustration Instructor
What seems like 100 years ago when I was in college, I took a scientific illustration course that blew my world wide open. As a science major, I was pleasantly surprised how the act of drawing enhanced my observation skills and forced me to slow down, make notes, jot down comments, ideas, and truly focus on what I was doing. Read More
Delphine Griffith, C Watch, Sarah Lawrence College
C watch has the pleasure of being awake from 2200 to 0300 for watch. Though this may seem like a rough time to be sailing a tall ship through 12 foot waves, the sheer beauty of the full moon reflected on the water, the wind rushing past you, and most importantly the midnight dolphins and Sargassum, makes it all worthwhile. Read More
Courcelle Stark, 3rd scientist
It’s hard to believe that we set sail just yesterday from our anchorage at Francis Bay, St. John. So much science has happened since! When we were leaving St. John, we took three surface samples to get an idea of how nutrients and chlorophyll change from inshore to offshore, stay tuned for those exciting discoveries. Read More
Lucas Stevens, Berklee College of Music
Aside from those of us who had anchor watch this morning, our day began at 0630. After breakfast, chores, and some packing, we launched our two inflatable boats and shuttled everyone to the nearby beach. From there, we walked across the island to Waterlemon Bay where we spotted a reef shark in the shallow water and surveyed a lively reef. Read More
Emma Saas, C Watch, Whitman College
We left St. Croix yesterday and bounced over some waves to St. John, arriving at about 10:00 this morning! Today C watch was on from 7:00 am until 1:00 pm, during which we gybed 4 times, struck and furled all the sails, took water samples (for SCIENCE!), and anchored in St. John. Read More
Craig Marin, Maritime Studies
We are Underway! Saying “goodbye” to Historic Christiansted and ready to say “hello” to the National Park of St. John! Read More
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1 2 3 > Last ›[cross-posted and slightly adapted from Overlawyered]
Why armored vehicles in a Midwestern inner suburb? Why would cops wear camouflage gear against a terrain patterned by convenience stores and beauty parlors? Why are the authorities in Ferguson, Mo. so given to quasi-martial crowd control methods (such as bans on walking on the street) and, per the reporting of Riverfront Times, the firing of tear gas at people in their own yards? (“ ‘This my property!’ he shouted, prompting police to fire a tear gas canister directly at his face.”) Why would someone identifying himself as an 82nd Airborne Army veteran, observing the Ferguson police scene, comment that “We rolled lighter than that in an actual warzone”?
As most readers have reason to know by now, the town of Ferguson, Mo. outside St. Louis, numbering around 21,000 residents, is the scene of an unfolding drama that will be cited for years to come as a what-not-to-do manual for police forces. After police shot and killed an unarmed black teenager on the street, then left his body on the pavement for four hours, rioters destroyed many local stores. Since then, police have refused to disclose either the name of the cop involved or the autopsy results on young Michael Brown; have not managed to interview a key eyewitness even as he has told his story repeatedly on camera to the national press; have revealed that dashcams for police cars were in the city’s possession but never installed; have obtained restrictions on journalists, including on news-gathering overflights of the area; and more.
The dominant visual aspect of the story, however, has been the sight of overpowering police forces confronting unarmed protesters who are seen waving signs or just their hands.
If you’re new to the issue of police militarization, which Overlawyered has covered occasionally over the past few years, the key book is Radley Balko’s, discussed at this Cato forum:
Federal grants drive police militarization. In 2012, as I was able to establish in moments through an online search, St. Louis County (of which Ferguson is a part) got a Bearcat armored vehicle and other goodies this way. The practice can serve to dispose of military surplus (though I’m told the Bearcat is not military surplus, but typically purchased new) and it sometimes wins the gratitude of local governments, even if they are too strapped for cash to afford more ordinary civic supplies (and even if they are soon destined to be surprised by the high cost of maintaining gear intended for armed combat).
As to the costs, some of those are visible in Ferguson, Mo. this week.Seventeen people suffered drug or alcohol overdoses at a Calgary outdoor music festival and were rushed to hospital on the weekend.
The patients were taken on Friday and Saturday from the two-day Chasing Summer Festival, which was held at Fort Calgary and advertised as Western Canada’s largest electronic music event.
EMS transported 10 women and seven men, ranging in age from 18 to mid 30s, in a range of conditions. One woman in her early 30s was in potentially life-threatening condition, five people were listed in serious but stable condition, and 11 patients were in stable condition.
Many of the patients in stable condition were unco-operative and aggressive to first responders and required physical or chemical restraint, and assistance from Calgary Police, to ensure their safety, according to EMS.
“We need people to understand the risk that they’re undertaking if they ingest these substance under any circumstance, regardless of if it’s in the context of a rave or festival,” said EMS spokesman Stuart Brideaux. “In one instance, we saw someone in hospital in potentially life-threatening condition simply from making this choice at this festival.”
It’s not clear how many of the 17 patients remained in hospital Sunday.
In most instances, the patients had ingested large amounts of alcohol and at least one other illicit substance, Brideaux said.
The illicit substance was frequently MDMA, popularly known as ecstasy, or marijuana, and in some cases patients had also ingested cocaine, GHB or Ketamine.
“It’s particularly dangerous when people are mixing drugs with alcohol or other drugs,” Brideaux said. “They may have no idea what effect it might have.”
Brideaux said most of the patients in serious condition had trouble breathing and some were unresponsive.
“Without medical intervention, these medical complications carried an extremely high risk of worsening, posing potentially life-threatening situations,” EMS said in a news release.
Dave Johnston, creative director of Union Events, which puts on Chasing Summer, said in an email that the organization is awaiting further information about these incidents “and will have further comment at that time.”
The patients were divided among four area hospitals so as not to overburden one hospital.
Brideaux said most of the patients taken to hospital seemed to understand what substances they had taken and how much, and there were no instances of a patient being suspicious they had been given a substance unknowingly.
Brideaux said that in many instances, patients told medical officials they had taken the same illicit substances in the past without any medical complications.
In the wake of the 17 overdoses, EMS is reminding the public there are no safe or prescribed doses for recreational street drugs and that illicit street drugs are unpredictable.
“Different substances will have different effects on the body at different times, even if ingested by the user on prior occasions,” EMS stated in a news release.
At least Seventeen people were taken to four area hospitals from an electronic music festival in Calgary because of drug and alcohol abuse. The patients were transported on Friday and Saturday from the two-day Chasing Summer Festival, which was held at Fort Calgary and advertised as Western Canada’s largest electronic music festival. EMS transported 10 women and seven men, ranging in age from 18 to mid 30s, from the event to hospital in a range of conditions. One woman in her early 30s was taken to hospital in potentially life-threatening condition, five people were listed in serious, but stable condition, and 11 patients were taken to hospital in stable condition. Many of the patients transported in stable condition were uncooperative and aggressive to first responders and required physical or chemical restraint, and assistance from Calgary Police, in order to ensure their safety, according to EMS. “We need people to understand the risk that they’re undertaking if they ingest these substance under any circumstance, regardless of if it’s in the context of a rave or festival,” said EMS spokesman Stuart Brideaux. “In one instance we saw someone in hospital in potentially life-threatening condition simply from making this choice at this festival.” It’s not clear how many of the 17 patients remain in hospital. In most instances, the sick patients had ingested large amounts of alcohol and at least one other illicit substance, said Brideaux. The illicit substance was frequently MDMA, popularly known as ecstasy, or marijuana and in some cases patients had also ingest cocaine, GHB or Ketamine. “It’s particularly dangerous when people are mixing drugs with alcohol or other drugs,” Brideaux said. “They may have no idea what affect it might have." Brideaux said most of the patients in serious condition had trouble breathing and some were unresponsive. “Without medical intervention, these medical complications carried an extremely high risk of worsening, posing potentially life threatening situations,” EMS said in a news release. The patients were divided among four different area hospitals so as not to overburden one hospital. Brideaux said most of the patients transported to hospital seemed to understand what substances they had taken and how much, and there were no instances of a patient being suspicious they had been given a substance unknowingly. Brideaux said in many instances, patients told medical officials they had taken the same illicit substances in the past without any medical complications. In the wake of the 17 overdoses, EMS is reminding the public there are no safe or prescribed doses for recreational street drugs and that illicit street drugs are unpredictable. “Different substances will have different effects on the body at different times, even if ingested by the user on prior occasions,” EMS stated in a news release. At least six people were transported to hospital from the same festival last summer for possible overdoses.” target=”_blank”>six people were transported to hospital from the same festival last summer for possible overdoses.
In 2014, Chasing Summer was among a string of music festivals across Canada in which multiple patients were hospitalized with illnesses following drug overdoses. Last summer, there were five deaths at music festivals across the country.
In June, the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse released a report highlighting its recommendations to prevent further alcohol and drug-related harm during these events. The centre recommended campaigns to educate the public and other music festivals about ongoing and new drug risks, among other proposals.
Johnston told the Herald in June that many recommendations included in the report are already the practises of Chasing Summer. He said Chasing Summer has “a zero-tolerance policy” when it comes to alcohol and drug abuse.
“Personal responsibility would be a really good start on behalf of patrons. One of our big messages that we have for people is to look after yourself and look out for each other,” Johnston said at the time. “Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t do anything that you’d be embarrassed or ashamed of. We can’t hold the hands of 15,000 people.”
AKlingbeil@calgaryherald.com
SHudes@calgaryherald.comAlways a stickler on preventing leaks, Kanye West and his careful camp appeared to have changed their tune for the rapper's sixth studio album Yeezus, which leaked online Friday ahead of its June 18 release.
The leak wasn't surprising. Let's take West's impromptu Yeezus listening party in New York City this week, for example, which Mashable attended. As the album blared from the speakers and his light gray T-shirt progressively turned darker as sweat secreted off his body, the 100 or so attendees inside Milk Studios freely used their phones to record their surroundings — most importantly, the sounds.
SEE ALSO: Kanye West's 'Yeezus' Available on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, His Site
When asked whether attendees could record audio and video, someone at West's label said they didn't have any qualms with the music leaking. West continued this nonchalant mentality when he grabbed the mic at several occasions to talk about Yeezus.
"I have this new strategy. It's called no strategy," West said. "This album is all about giving. This whole process is all about giving no f*cks at all."
In the past, this entire process was infused with precautionary measures to prevent online pirates from releasing his upcoming music. His team limited the number of people who worked on the album to avoiding transferring files via email, stored files on secure external hard drives and skipped the digital pre-order process.
Those layers of security seemingly slipped up — or simply weren't employed this time.
I'm at @kanyewest's private listening session for his album #Yeezus. We can record videos 'cause he doesn't care if it leaks before June 18. — Brian A. Hernandez (@BAHjournalist) June 11, 2013
"The whole way this whole album was put together, the amount of producers that came together for it, and the way we worked on this shit really collectively, collaboratively, we really didn't give a f*ck what nobody else said — outside looking in or anything. We just wanted to make the best product possible," West said.
Mashable reached out to Island Def Jam Music Group and the label's parent company, Universal Music Group, for comment about Friday's Yeezus leak and whether distribution plans will shift because of the leak. We will update this post accordingly when we receive a response.
Daft Punk's Random Access Memories leaked in May, more than a week before its release, prompting Columbia Records to make the album available to stream on iTunes.
At Monday's event, West said that Daft Punk produced four of Yeezus's tracks.
West also slammed the music industry's marketing tactics in response to complaints he hasn't really promoted Yeezus in traditional ways for a major artist. There's no single for the radio or music video, and the album isn't available for pre-order (although it was listed on iTunes before being quickly taken down).
"I've got an idea on how to sell more music, it's called make better music," West said, inciting loud cheers.
"What I said last night is we drop this sh*t June 18," he added. "This ain't about waiting 'til August and having a big this and that. It's about delivering this shit for y'all now to go to work to, ride to, listen to and working out and sh*t or whatever ya'll doing."
The listening party included the four songs already available online ("New Slaves," "Black Skinhead," "I Am God" and "Can't Handle My Liquor") — via Saturday Night Live clips and footage captured at last weekend's Governor's Ball — as well as the rest of the album.
West's boldest statement at the event, which could reflect his changing attitude toward the distribution and security of his music, played off the "I Am God" track.
"West was my slave name and #Yeezus is my god name." ~ @KanyeWest — Brian A. Hernandez (@BAHjournalist) June 11, 2013
BONUS: Kanye West Debuts 'New Slaves' in Videos Projected on 66 Buildings
Disclaimer: The video contains explicit language.
Image via Pascal Le Segretain/Getty ImagesAs bitcoin continues to grow in popularity, small businesses around the world have begun accepting the digital currency as a method of payment.
Many of these businesses have seen only a very small portion of their customers pay with bitcoin, but that doesn’t necessarily make the venture into cryptocurrencies a failure.
Dr J Anthony Allen, CEO of the Minneapolis-based music production school Slam Academy, said bitcoin payments at his business have been “very successful,” yet Slam Academy has seen just one customer pay with the digital currency since Allen began accepting it in November of 2013.
With only one total sale it may be hard to see why Allen considers his foray into bitcoin a success, but the answer doesn’t actually lie in the money. Allen said:
“So only one sale, but the more important thing is the press we’ve received from [accepting bitcoin]. I hate to say that we started accepting it just to get press, but it’s turned out to be a great side effect of accepting bitcoin.”
Allen first began accepting the digital currency when he made a post on reddit in hopes of finding new ways to promote his business. A user suggested he accept bitcoin and another joked that he should accept McDonalds gift cards as well.
“It really got me thinking,” Allen said. “I thought, ‘They are both right, actually. I would totally accept McDonalds gift cards if I could pay my rent with them. I would accept just about anything if I can pay my rent with it. Who am I to turn a customer away no matter what they want to pay with?’ So I looked into bitcoin, and when I realized it wouldn’t be very hard at all to actually pay my rent with it, we implemented it into the site.”
New clientele
Other business owners have had experiences similar to Allen’s. Robert Hohne, owner of New Orleans general store Homestead, mentioned that accepting bitcoin has brought in customers who otherwise might not have shopped at his store.
“We’ve been fortunate to have met some great customers who only found us because we accept bitcoin, and have also sparked the interest of customers who come in and ask us what this bitcoin phenomenon is all about,” Hohne said.
Other than simply being a tool to bring in publicity, bitcoin provides other advantages for both businesses and their customers.
Nick Pappas, owner of the Flamestone American Grill in Oldsmar, Florida, began following bitcoin when it was valued at about $30. As he watched the value rise over time, he began to see how it could be incorporated into his restaurant. Pappas said:
“After doing some more research, I realized bitcoin was another option I could give my customers to be able to purchase gift cards from our website using it.”
“From a business standpoint, it cuts out the middle man and eliminates any transaction or credit card fees. Also, by accepting bitcoin we are the ones accepting the volatility and the risk, not my customers. That was important to me.”
Like Allen, both Pappas and Hohne have only had a handful of customers pay with bitcoin, but each mentioned that they think bitcoin payments will become more popular and widespread in the future as the general public becomes more educated about cryptocurrencies and their benefits.
“I think once people understand bitcoin better they will embrace it more,” Pappas said. “Let’s face it, this is something that has never been done before and it is difficult to comprehend how it works. Once people do start understanding, I think the popularity of it will boom.”
Mobile payment image via ShutterstockAn important belated update from the world of ridesharing – Uber is now testing a feature they are calling "Suggested Pickup Points", which directs customers to walk to nearby locations that are easier for their drivers to reach, saving time for both the driver and (in the case of UberPool) for other passengers on board. Lyft takes this even further, offering discounted rides on its Lyft Line service for people who come to meet it.
You may be familiar with an identical concept in the public transit industry, called a "stop" or "station" — a location near to destinations, but maybe not at their front door, that is cost-effective for a transit vehicle to reach. This saves the driver the time it takes to drive to the precise preferred location of each passenger, which is especially crucial if there are other passengers on board whose travel time is also valuable. (It also encourages a bit of walking where that's easy to do, which is good for you!)
This new feature illustrates how a demand-responsive service like UberPool can evolve to resemble the very fixed route bus that it often pretends to be supplanting, particularly when serving high-volume markets. Discounts for walking to a pickup point make perfect sense, for the same reason that fixed route transit should be even cheaper; the customer is taking on inconvenience in return for a more efficient transit service.
These moves show these companies recognizing the geometric logic of rigid, fixed transit: that when you connect places where many people want to go together, along a fast, direct path, the resulting service is both efficient to provide and useful to vast numbers of people.
Flexible transit sounds like it's more responsive to our needs as customers, but if you want it to be affordable it has to be efficient. The vehicle that comes to your door is intrinsically a low-efficiency concept when efficiency means "passengers/driver hour", as it will so long as the cost of service is mostly labor cost.
That's why, for decades, transit agencies have sometimes deployed flexible services in low-demand but growing markets but then replaced them with fixed routes as demand grew beyond what the low capacity of flexible services could handle. Transit agencies also know about "fixed stop Dial-a-Ride", which is the specific phase of this inevitable evolution that Uber and Lyft are exploring now.
The cool kids at Uber and Lyft are showing that for all their pretense of having invented something new, they live in the same geometric and economic space as their ancestors, and will evolve the same solutions that worked in the past. Data is cool, and technology is cool, and enraptured high-paying customers are very cool, but none of that changes the facts of space, biology and economics, ever.
Will driverless cars change all this? Not if we also have driverless buses. In that case, the math and geometry, and the nature of efficiency, will be largely the same.Bangkok: The Philippine military has discovered Islamic State sent more than $US1.5 million ($1.9 million) to finance the siege of the southern Philippine town of Marawi which experts say was a propaganda windfall for the Middle East-based terror group.
Early in the 154-day blocade there were reports bundles of money had been found in buildings around town, but Philippine military chief Eduardo Ano on Tuesday did not elaborate.
Philippine troops return to their deployment after attending the ceremony where President Rodrigo Duterte declared the liberation of Marawi complete. Credit:Bullit Marquez
In an interview he said as well as receiving money from IS, the Marawi militant local leaders used the 2014 seizure of the Iraqi city of Mosul as a blueprint for takeover.
"Every day they watched videos of IS in Mosul," said General Ano of the siege leaders, including Isnilon Hapilon, one of the US's most-wanted terrorists who was killed last week.UFC stripped light heavyweight champion Jon Jones of his title Tuesday, one day after he turned himself in to police custody on a felony charge in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Jones, 27, is the first champion in UFC history to be stripped of a title due to disciplinary reasons. UFC officials also announced Tuesday that the promotion has indefinitely suspended Jones and pulled him from a scheduled title defense against Anthony Johnson at UFC 187 on May 23 in Las Vegas.
Editor's Picks Johnson disappointed but staying focused
More from ESPN.com Anthony Johnson has a new opponent at UFC 187 -- Daniel Cormier. Here's a look at the new odds and betting line on the light heavyweight title fight. 1 Related
In addition, Reebok terminated Jones' endorsement contract, effective immediately, Wednesday morning. Jones had lost his deal with Nike after a mutual split in September 2014.
Former title contender Daniel Cormier will replace Jones in the pay-per-view event at the MGM Grand Garden Arena to fight for the now-vacant light heavyweight title.
"He's very disappointed. He's upset. He wanted to go down as one of the greats or the greatest," UFC president Dana White said on "Fox Sports Live" of Jones. "He's disappointed, but it is what it is. It is the decision we had to make.
"For us to go in and have to strip him of his title and suspend him is not fun, but you know what they say: The show must go on."
Jon Jones had been the light heavyweight champion since March 2011, defending the title eight times. Brandon Magnus/Getty Images
Johnson echoed those sentiments to ESPN.com on Wednesday.
"I can say that I'm kind of disappointed with the mistake Jon made, but he is human," Johnson said. "I definitely wanted to fight him for the title. He's the best. Everybody wants to fight the best, if you're in this sport for the right reasons."
Jones appeared in Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court on Tuesday for a felony first appearance. Judge Maria Dominguez granted a request made by Jones' attorney, Vincent Ward, to remove any travel restrictions on the fighter, which kept alive the possibility of Jones fighting next month in Las Vegas.
UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, UFC chief operating officer Lawrence Epstein and White flew to Albuquerque to meet with Jones and his representatives Tuesday afternoon. UFC announced Jones had been stripped of the title hours later.
"UFC feels strongly that its athletes must uphold certain standards both in and out of the Octagon," UFC said in a statement. "While there is disappointment in the recent changes, the organization remains supportive of Jones as he works through the legal process."
Widely considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, Jones allegedly was involved in a three-car accident Sunday morning. Witnesses said a man fitting Jones' description ran a red light, collided with another vehicle and fled on foot. According to police reports, the man apparently returned to the vehicle to grab a "large handful of cash" before fleeing a second time.
The driver of the car that was struck, a 25-year-old pregnant woman, was taken to the hospital. Police confirmed she suffered a fractured arm and wrist.
Jones did not enter a plea during his court appearance Tuesday. The district attorney has 60 days to determine whether to move forward with the case, according to court spokeswoman Camille Cordova.
After the court hearing, Jones tweeted for the first time since the accident.
Got a lot of soul searching to do. Sorry to everyone I've let down. — Jon Bones Jones (@JonnyBones) April 29, 2015
In May 2012, Jones was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence after he crashed his Bentley into a telephone pole in Binghamton, New York. Jones pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor DWI charge and avoided jail time.
In early December, Jones tested positive for metabolites of cocaine while training for his bout against Cormier. Jones was allowed to compete because the test was conducted out of competition and beat Cormier via unanimous decision.
When the failed drug test became public after the fight, Jones publicly apologized for a "mistake." He admitted himself to a drug treatment center for one day and underwent outpatient therapy.
Jones had defended the 205-pound title a record eight times since becoming the youngest champion in UFC history in March 2011. He was two defenses away from tying former middleweight champion Anderson Silva's record of 10 consecutive title defenses at any weight division.
Cormier (15-1) will fight for the light heavyweight championship despite coming off a loss in his previous bout. The former U.S. Olympic wrestler challenged Jones for the title at UFC 182 on Jan. 3 in Las Vegas and lost via unanimous decision. Cormier is 4-1 overall in the UFC with two finishes.
"I can't be too disappointed. I have a title fight and a worthy opponent in Daniel Cormier," Johnson told ESPN.com. "I'm happy I get to fight someone like him."
Johnson (19-4) is 3-0 in the UFC light heavyweight division. He fought for the promotion from 2007 to 2012, primarily as a welterweight. The UFC released Johnson in early 2012 for repeatedly missing weight. Fighting out of Boca Raton, Florida, Johnson is on a nine-fight win streak.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.This article is over 1 year old
Human rights commission says one-third of all complaints now concern racial discrimination
New Zealand has hauled in its biggest stars in an effort to crack down on rising levels of racism in the famously peaceful South Pacific nation.
The country’s human rights commission reports a third of all complaints now concern racist discrimination, though the vast majority of racial abuse still goes unreported.
Race relations commissioner Dame Susan Devoy said New Zealanders were being influenced by increasing levels of xenophobia and racism overseas, and she personally wrote to New Zealand’s most recognisable faces asking them to help put a stop to it.
“Hatred and extremism is becoming normal in some places and we want to avoid that future for Aotearoa,” said Devoy.
Helen Clark: I hit my first glass ceiling at the UN Read more
“Racial prejudice and intolerance starts small, in quiet places, in our everyday lives. When it becomes normalised it turns into overt racism and extremism.”
Hollywood director and New Zealander of the year Taika Waititi, who is of Maori descent, fronts the campaign, and took a day off from shooting blockbuster Thor to appear in the video, which uses his affable blend of Kiwi irony to get the point across.
“Racism needs your help to survive,” he says.
“You may not be in a position to give much to racism, but whatever you feel comfortable giving will make a huge difference.
“You don’t have to be a full-on racist, just being a tiny racist is enough. A smile, a cheeky giggle, even a simple nod and agreement, it all adds up, and it gives others the message its OK.”
Other famous faces appealing to Kiwis to “give nothing to racism” include the All Blacks’ Sonny Bill Williams and Kieran Read, singer Tiki Taane, and actor Sam Neill.
“We live in one of the most ethnically diverse nations on the planet,” says Devoy.
“As well as one of the most peaceful. Whether it stays that way will depend on us.”
The campaign comes fewer than 100 days before the national election, where tightening New Zealand’s borders to immigration is set to be a major issue.
Both major political parties are rolling out policies aimed at controlling record high levels of migration amid growing concern about housing shortages, road congestion and overcrowding in Auckland and other major New Zealand cities.
In 2016 more than 70,000 people migrated to New Zealand, according to Statistics New Zealand, the majority of them choosing to settle in Auckland, now home to nearly 1.5 million people.
This year the government announced it would tighten access to skilled work visas to help get Kiwis into jobs ahead of migrants. This week the Labour party announced if it is voted into power it would cut immigration to New Zealand by 20,000-30,000 |
SRBs and VCR 12002 (cargo) and VCR 14002 (crewed) for the ones with liquid-fueled boosters.
Block 2 will be the same as Block 1A but with a second stage with one to three J2-X engines and possibly five RS-25E Engines on the first stage. It will put 130 mt in orbit. Model numbers are VCR 21002 (cargo) and VCR 23002 (crewed) for the ones with SRBs and VCR 22002 (cargo) and VCR 24002 (crewed) for the ones with liquid-fueled boosters.
Block 1 rocket, called Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) is still scheduled for 2017 and will send an unmanned Orion MPCV capsule around the moon and back. The second flight, EM-2 will also be a Block 1 and this time it will send a crew of 4 astronauts around the moon (but no landing). EM-2 is scheduled around 2019. The Block 1A should come in service between 2019 and 2021, and Block 2 sometime after 2021.
Planning is also well underway for a
The SLS rockets are not designed to send astronauts to the International Space Station, as this would be overkill for such a big rocket. Accessing the ISS is a task that should be accomplished in the near future by private space companies like SpaceX and their Falcon rocket and Dragon capsule. Nevertheless, if those private companies were to fail to deliver on their promises, a SLS Block 1 could easily (but expensively) do the job. The first flight of the SLSrocket, called) is still scheduled for 2017 and will send an unmanned Orion MPCV capsule around the moon and back. The second flight,will also be aand this time it will send a crew of 4 astronauts around the moon (but no landing). EM-2 is scheduled around 2019. Theshould come in service between 2019 and 2021, andsometime after 2021.Planning is also well underway for a 6-month long mission to send astronauts to an Asteroid more than 12 millions miles away in the 2020's. Such a mission would be a stepping stone towards the ultimate objective of sending humans to Mars.Therockets are not designed to send astronauts to the International Space Station, as this would be overkill for such a big rocket. Accessing theis a task that should be accomplished in the near future by private space companies likeand theirrocket andcapsule. Nevertheless, if those private companies were to fail to deliver on their promises, acould easily (but expensively) do the job.
SLS Block 2 Dimensions
Here is a cool video from NASA that shows a CGI animation of an SLS launch:
The Block 2 SLS will be the biggest rocket ever made:
will have two 5-segment Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB) and one core stage with four RS-25D engines burning liquid Oxygen and Hydrogen. It will be able to putin Low Earth Orbit. The vehicle model number isVia [nasa]Share This Video Facebook Twitter EMAIL
The long-awaited Blade Runner sequel Blade Runner 2049 is one of the most anticipated movies of the year, and before it rolls into theaters on October 6th, Warner Bros. has treated fans to several amazing trailers. As great as the trailers have been, the apparently could have been better because if things fell into place one of the trailers could have been scored by Run The Jewels’ own El-P.
Yes, according to P, he was commissioned to score a trailer and his submission was either rejected or just plain ignored but he did a favor for his fans and posted a video of his score on Instagram for everybody to enjoy.
“Here is a snippet of my rejected (or ignored) blade runner 2049 trailer score,” he said in the video’s caption. “Honestly even being asked to demo it up was an honor. all synths done on the yamaha cs80, which as you may know is the same synth vangelis used for the original.”
It’s a sign of what could have been, and it seems that the score was just the work of El-P, but you could easily see Killer Mike joining in on the fray and adding some bars to the track for the trailer. Who knows though, because now that it’s been rejected maybe the score will end up as a Run The Jewels track anyway.Rinaldi proposes that we reframe motherhood as a privilege. In doing so, she wrote, “we redirect agency back to the mother, empowering her, celebrating her autonomy instead of her sacrifice. … [B]y owning our roles as mothers and refusing the false accolades of martyrdom, we do more to empower all women.” This might not be the ideal ideal, since “privilege” is an awfully charged term at the moment. (And for the record, whatever it means to be a parent, I’m not one.) But by calling attention to the importance of parenting without succumbing to the ideals of hypercompetitive work culture, Rinaldi is pushing us in the right direction.
If everything is work, then talk of “work-life balance” is a sham.
A big reason we call motherhood a job is to impress upon our patriarchal, work-obsessed society the value, importance, and difficulty of women’s unpaid domestic labor. But in adopting the vocabulary of an oppressive system in order to improve women’s prospects within it, we concede the nature the system itself. If everything is work, then talk of “work-life balance” is a sham. If the only way to carve out respect and real benefits for new parents is to acknowledge that they have other work to do, outside of their day jobs, then those gains come at the cost of strengthening work’s ideological hold on us.
From the earliest English settlements forward, a person’s place in America has been contingent on their work. White settlers justified their claim to the land by toiling on it; in their eyes, the Natives had no property rights, because they didn’t seem to work. Soon after, millions of Africans would be brought here as slave labor. When Emancipation finally came, African Americans were still told they must work.
Even now, our political debates are shaped by the belief that only workers have value. One version of congressional Republicans’ failed health-care bill included a work requirement for people on Medicaid. Our leaders question the merits of admitting refugees on human-rights grounds, and demand guarantees that immigrants will work productively. Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate has been in decline since the beginning of the century, meaning there are more and more Americans every day whose value we will struggle to describe.
There are other paradigms available. The lower-key approaches to parenting in France and Holland seem appealing; less supervision, less homework, and more sleep supposedly mean fewer tantrums and happier kids. But those practices are of a piece with shorter European workweeks, mandated vacations, and generous support for new parents. Americans work 25 percent more than Europeans, according to some studies, and take far fewer vacations.
Policies don’t exist in a vacuum; they need cultural support. We can start by changing our metaphors for meritorious human activities like parenting, education, and marriage. A single word—whether it’s “sacrifice,” “privilege” or anything else—isn’t enough to capture something as complex as motherhood. But at least we can introduce a few alternatives: vocation and avocation, role and duty, service and contribution.
But we need to do more than expand our vocabulary; we need to reconsider our values and priorities as a society. We should support generous social policies for parents and children not because what they do is work, but because health, education, and time for caretaking—even time for sunbathing at the beach—helps them, and ultimately the rest of us, to flourish. That’s what our society should truly be working toward.A vellum deed dated 1638, with pendent seal attached
Vellum is prepared animal skin or "membrane" used as a material for writing on. The term is derived from the Latin word vitulinum meaning "made from calf", leading to Old French velin for "calfskin".[1] Parchment is another term for this material category. If vellum is distinguished, it is by vellum being made from calf skin, as opposed to that from other animals,[2] or otherwise being of higher quality.[3] Vellum is prepared as a surface for writing (or printing) to produce scrolls, single pages, codices or books.
Modern scholars and custodians increasingly use only the safe, if confusing, term "membrane".[3][4] Depending on factors such as the method of preparation it may be very hard to determine the animal species involved (let alone its age) without using a laboratory,[5] and the term avoids the need to distinguish between vellum and parchment.[3][4]
Vellum is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation and the quality of the skin. The manufacture involves the cleaning, bleaching, stretching on a frame (a "herse"), and scraping of the skin with a crescent-shaped knife (a "lunarium" or "lunellum"). To create tension, scraping is alternated with wetting and drying. A final finish may be achieved by abrading the surface with pumice, and treating with a preparation of lime or chalk to make it accept writing or printing ink.[2]
Modern "paper vellum" is a made of synthetic plant material, and is called such for its usage and quality similarities. Paper vellum is used for a variety of purposes including tracing, technical drawings, plans and blueprints.[6][7][8]
Terminology [ edit ]
In Europe, from Roman times, the term "vellum" was used for the best quality of prepared skin, regardless of the animal from which the hide was obtained, calf, sheep, and goat all being commonly used (other animals, including pig, deer, donkey, horse, or camel have been used). Although the term derives from the French for "calf", animal vellum can include hide from virtually any other mammal. The best quality, "uterine vellum",[9] was said to be made from the skins of stillborn or unborn animals, although the term was also applied to fine quality skins made from young animals.[3] There has long been, however, much blurring of the boundaries between these terms. In 1519, William Horman could write in his Vulgaria: "That stouffe that we wrytte upon, and is made of beestis skynnes, is somtyme called parchement, somtyme velem, somtyme abortyve, somtyme membraan."[10] Writing in 1936, Lee Ustick explained that:
To-day the distinction, among collectors of manuscripts, is that vellum is a highly refined form of skin, parchment a cruder form, usually thick, harsh, less highly polished than vellum, but with no distinction between skin of calf, or sheep, or of goat.[11]
French sources, closer to the original etymology, tend to define velin as from calf only, while the British Standards Institution defines parchment as made from the split skin of several species, and vellum from the unsplit skin.[12] In the usage of modern practitioners of the artistic crafts of writing, illuminating, lettering, and bookbinding, "vellum" is normally reserved for calfskin, while any other skin is called "parchment".[13]
Manufacture [ edit ]
Vellum is a translucent material produced from the skin, often split, of a young animal. The skin is washed with water and lime (Calcium hydroxide), but not together. It is then soaked in lime for several days to soften and remove the hair.[14] Once clear, the two sides of the skin are distinct: the side facing inside the animal and the hair side. The "inside body side" of the skin is usually the lighter and more refined of the two. The hair follicles may be visible on the outer side, together with any scarring made while the animal was alive. The membrane can also show the pattern of the animal's vein network called the "veining" of the sheet.[15]
Any remaining hair is removed ("scudding") and the skin is dried by attaching it to a frame (a "herse").[16] The skin is attached at points around the circumference with cords; to prevent tearing, the maker wraps the area of the skin to which the cord is to be attached around a pebble (a "pippin").[16] The maker then uses a crescent shaped knife, (a "lunarium" or "lunellum"), to clean off any remaining hairs.
Once the skin is completely dry, it is thoroughly cleaned and processed into sheets. The number of sheets extracted from the piece of skin depends on the size of the skin and the given dimensions requested by the order. For example, the average calfskin can provide three and half medium sheets of writing material. This can be doubled when it is folded into two conjoint leaves, also known as a bifolium. Historians have found evidence of manuscripts where the scribe wrote down the medieval instructions now followed by modern membrane makers.[17] The membrane is then rubbed with a round, flat object ("pouncing") to ensure that the ink would adhere well.[15]
Manuscripts [ edit ]
A Volume Of Treatises On Natural Science, Philosophy, And Mathematics (1300) Ink on vellum. (1300) Ink on vellum.
Preparing manuscripts [ edit ]
Once the vellum is prepared, traditionally a quire is formed of a group of several sheets. Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham point out, in their Introduction to Manuscript Studies, that "the quire was the scribe's basic writing unit throughout the Middle Ages".[18] Guidelines are then made on the membrane. They note "'pricking' is the process of making holes in a sheet of parchment (or membrane) in preparation of its ruling. The lines were then made by ruling between the prick marks...The process of entering ruled lines on the page to serve as a guide for entering text. Most manuscripts were ruled with horizontal lines that served as the baselines on which the text was entered and with vertical bounding lines that marked the boundaries of the columns".[19]
Usage [ edit ]
Most of the finer sort of medieval manuscripts, whether illuminated or not, were written on vellum. Some Gandharan Buddhist texts were written on vellum, and all Sifrei Torah (Hebrew: ספר תורה Sefer Torah; plural: ספרי תורה, Sifrei Torah) are written on kosher klaf or vellum.
A quarter of the 180 copy edition of Johannes Gutenberg's first Bible printed in 1455 with movable type was also printed on vellum, presumably because his market expected this for a high-quality book. Paper was used for most book-printing, as it was cheaper and easier to process through a printing press and bind.
In art, vellum was used for paintings, especially if they needed to be sent long distances, before canvas became widely used in about 1500, and continued to be used for drawings, and watercolours. Old master prints were sometimes printed on vellum, especially for presentation copies, until at least the seventeenth century.
Limp vellum or limp-parchment bindings were used frequently in the 16th and 17th centuries, and were sometimes gilt but were also often not embellished. In later centuries vellum has been more commonly used like leather, that is, as the covering for stiff board bindings. Vellum can be stained virtually any color but seldom is, as a great part of its beauty and appeal rests in its faint grain and hair markings, as well as its warmth and simplicity.
Lasting in excess of 1,000 years—Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care (Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 504), for example dates from about 600 and is in excellent condition—animal vellum can be far more durable than paper. For this reason, many important documents are written on animal vellum, such as diplomas. Referring to a diploma as a "sheepskin" alludes to the time when diplomas were written on vellum made from animal hides.
Modern usage [ edit ]
British Acts of Parliament are still printed on vellum for archival purposes,[20] as are those of the Republic of Ireland.[21] In February 2016, the UK House of Lords announced that legislation would be printed on archive paper instead of the traditional vellum from April 2016.[22] However, Cabinet Office Minister Matthew Hancock intervened by agreeing to fund the continued use of vellum from the Cabinet Office budget.[23]
Today, because of low demand and complicated manufacturing process, animal vellum is expensive and hard to find. The only UK company still producing traditional parchment and vellum is William Cowley (established 1870), which is based in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire. A modern imitation is made of cotton. Known as paper vellum, this material is considerably cheaper than animal vellum and can be found in most art and drafting supply stores. Some brands of writing paper and other sorts of paper use the term "vellum" to suggest quality.
Vellum is still used for Jewish scrolls, of the Torah in particular, for luxury book-binding, memorial books, and for various documents in calligraphy. It is also used on instruments such as the banjo and the bodhran, although synthetic skins are also available for these instruments.
Paper vellum [ edit ]
Modern imitation vellum is made from plasticized rag cotton or fibers from interior tree bark. Terms include: paper vellum, Japanese vellum, and vegetable vellum.[8][7] Paper vellum is usually translucent and its various sizes are often used in applications where tracing is required, such as architectural plans. It is more dimensionally stable than a linen or paper sheet, which is frequently critical in the development of large scaled drawings such as blueprints. Paper vellum had also become extremely important in hand or chemical reproduction technology for dissemination of plan copies. Like a high-quality traditional vellum, paper vellum could be produced thin enough to be virtually transparent to strong light, enabling a source drawing to be used directly in the reproduction of field-used drawings.[24]
Preservation [ edit ]
Vellum is ideally stored in a stable environment with constant temperature and 30% (± 5%) relative humidity. If vellum is stored in an environment with less than 11% relative humidity, it becomes fragile, brittle, and susceptible to mechanical stresses; if it is stored in an environment with greater than 40% relative humidity, it becomes vulnerable to gelation and to mold or fungus growth.[25] The optimal temperature for the preservation of vellum is 20 ± 1.5 °C (68 ± 2.7 °F).[citation needed]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Clemens, Raymond; Graham, Timothy (2007). Introduction to Manuscript Studies. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-3863-9.
"Drafting": Dana J. Hepler, Paul Ross Wallach, Donald Hepler, Drafting and Design for Architecture & Construction, 9th edition, 2012, Cengage Learning, ISBN 1111128138, 9781111128135, google books
, 9th edition, 2012, Cengage Learning, ISBN 1111128138, 9781111128135, google books Stokes, Roy Bishop, Almagno, Romano Stephen, Esdaile's Manual of Bibliography, 6th edition, 2001, Scarecrow Press, ISBN 0810839229, 9780810839229, google books
, 6th edition, 2001, Scarecrow Press, ISBN 0810839229, 9780810839229, google books Ustick, W. Lee (1936). "'Parchment' and'vellum'". The Library. 4th ser. 16 (4): 439–43.poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201704/2784/1155968404_5402494568001_5402487885001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true White House: Trump’s call to Erdogan wasn’t an endorsement of referendum results
President Donald Trump’s call congratulating Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the referendum vote consolidating his power was not necessarily an endorsement or acceptance of the results, the White House said Tuesday.
The outcome of the vote, which would amend Turkey’s constitution to grant the country’s autocratic president significantly more power, is being contested, and Trump surprised some in Washington on Monday when the White House said he had called Erdogan to congratulate him. Experts and other American leaders, including some Republicans, have responded to the vote by framing it as hugely damaging to democracy in Turkey.
Story Continued Below
Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Wisconsin on Tuesday, principal deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders seemed to try to reframe the call, saying that Trump’s “bigger point and priority” with the call was to “talk about shared interests as a NATO ally and a partner there.”
“We want to encourage democracy,” Sanders said, according to a transcript released by the White House press office. “And again, the purpose of the president's call yesterday was not to discourage that but simply to talk about some of the things, like Syria, where they can work together.”
Asked whether the call signaled Trump’s support for Erdogan acquiring more power, Sanders said no.
“That wasn’t the purpose of the call,” she said. “And that's certainly not the position of the pPresident, and of course [he[ supports democracy and would hope for that. But at the same time, the president's No. 1 priority is protecting Americans, keeping Americans safe, and sometimes we're going to have to work with other countries and some of our NATO partners in order to do that.”
She also denied that the call means that Trump accepts the vote’s results. The commission that reviews them, she said, should do so.
“We want the commission that looks at those to do their job and to do a report on the election results,” Sanders said. “But the purpose of the call was to congratulate him but also primarily to talk about some of their shared interests, like Syria, primarily.”Is Sarah Palin’s self-confidence a good example to other women?
Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
So Sarah Palin’s not running. She broke the news on her own inimitable terms, not with a press conference but through a written statement and a radio appearance, near the end of the day’s news cycle. “Not being a candidate, really, you’re unshackled and you’re allowed to be even more active,” she told radio host Mark Levin. Still, despite her promises to remain unshackled and influential, this is surely the end of the Palin reign; without the possibility of a presidential run in her near future, she won’t be commanding nearly as much media attention.
But even if you’re one of the many who feel grateful at the prospect of hearing less from a certain woman from Wasilla, it’s worth considering what we might owe Palin. Politics aside (a big aside, but let’s shelve them for the moment), Palin has excelled spectacularly at one thing that American women should feel grateful for: She is an exceedingly talented self-promoter. This is a big deal, because self-promotion is something that American women have historically been bad at, and they pay for that shortcoming in everything from mediocre salaries to thwarted ambitions.
Ever since the newly anointed vice-presidential candidate introduced herself to the nation three years ago by mocking Barack Obama’s lack of experience–“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities”–a question has lingered in Sarah Palin’s wake. Who does she think she is? Never mind that Palin’s own lack of political experience was a liability for John McCain. She has rarely underestimated her own potential. Last month, the former Alaska governor corrected Sean Hannity for leaving her off the list of most viable GOP candidates, saying some polls showed her in the top three. She told another interviewer that although she could win the presidency, it might be too limiting. In her statement Wednesday, Palin suggested she could have just as much power without a “title,” effectively arguing for herself as a kind of national organizer, albeit without actual responsibilities.
Even when her logic is frustrating, even when she contradicts herself, Palin’s unselfconscious brashness is a good thing for women because it is so needed and so exceptional. There are simply not enough women willing to tout their own greatness, to correct hosts who underestimate their popularity, to predict that, yes indeed, they could be elected president. This is in great part because women expect to be punished for anything that smacks of self-promotion. In Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women’s Changing Lives, psychiatrist Anna Fels compiles a disheartening litany of quotes from successful women undervaluing their own achievements. Prominent architect Laurinda Spear describes herself as a “totally bumbling person.” Maya Lin says she’s lucky she’s so small because it means people don’t see her. Women interviewing for professorships at Harvard Law School routinely couch their responses in apologies.
“Conveying their strengths and attainments to others is so far from the expected female style of self-effacement that women experience it as ‘bragging,’ ” Fels writes. She points out that females are denied recognition starting as early as preschool, when studies show that boys get more attention, more direction, and more “physical and verbal rewards.” Science journalist Shankar Vedantam describes this extra credit given to men as the “invisible current” pushing boys toward the shore, persuading them that they are faster, stronger. Is it any wonder, then, that so many women internalize the notion that recognition does not rightly belong to them, that it their destiny to listen and nod and admire? Is it any wonder that they don’t ask for raises while their male counterparts do? A few years ago, Nicholas Kristof summed up the research on how people view ambitious women, pointing out that identical speeches are rated higher when they are believed to come from men: “A woman can be perceived as competent or as likable, but not both.”
There will always be notable exceptions to the unspoken rules that discourage female self-promotion, particularly in the field of entertainment. But in politics, which combines a conservative atmosphere with the job requirement of an inflated ego, the challenge for women is particularly acute. Earlier this year, a University of Chicago political scientist found that female members of Congress sponsor more legislation and bring home more federal projects than do their male counterparts. Why? Christopher Berry speculated that only an elite group possessed of uncommon talent and ambition are able to push through the biases against women running for office.
And even those select women who do run are not immune to limiting expectations. Pat Schroeder has said her entry into politics started as a joke, until “we realized it wasn’t so absurd.” Barbara Boxer was described as arrogant last year by her female opponent, Carly Fiorina, for asking to be called “senator” instead of “ma’am.” And it’s no coincidence that Hillary Clinton, whose ambition is routinely lampooned, has garnered the most sympathy during moments of vulnerability—those slight tears in New Hampshire during 2008; the marital humiliations care of Bill; the pushy tactics of her Senate race opponent, Rick Lazio, during a 2000 debate—not during moments of brazenness.
In the face of all this, Palin’s public proclamations of self-confidence have been pretty remarkable. “You know, I do go rogue and I call it like I see it,” she told Greta Van Susteren last month. “I don’t mind stirring it up in order to get people to think and debate aggressively, and to find solutions to the problems that our country is facing.” Whether or not she has the goods to back any of this up is in some sense beyond the point. Palin may not realize it, but her real legacy lies elsewhere: She has expanded the palette of permissible behavior for political women, hopefully for good.When the kilogram, the world’s basic unit of mass, gets a new definition in 2018, it will be based not on a physical artifact but a constant of nature. However, researchers will still need to “realize” the new definition, or translate it into a physical object, to make it possible to distribute the new standard to the laboratories and industries that need it. Of the two methods that are major contenders for this realization process – watt balances and silicon spheres – both require delicate measurements in vacuum.
But most day-to-day mass measurements take place in regular air. This means that in order to disseminate the new kilogram, researchers must find reliable ways to compare a mass measured in vacuum to one measured in air.
The world’s national metrology institutes (NMIs) are each developing protocols to use in their own countries. But someone needs to check to make sure that their various methods are working well and getting comparable results.
VIDEO: Transferring a mass from the watt balance to the MTV. Eventually, standards whose mass is realized in the NIST-4 watt balance will be kept permanently in vacuum, to avoid the instabilities in mass that can occur when a standard is exposed to air. Here, NIST researchers demonstrate how a sample kilogram mass is transferred from the watt balance to the small vehicle that will carry that standard, still safely in vacuum, to the Magnetic Suspension Mass Comparator. Note: Vacuum cap removed from watt balance to make process visible. Most clips sped up 5x normal speed. All sound effects added; the actual process is extremely quiet.
So the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), an intergovernmental organization that has custody over the current official kilogram standard, asked a few NMIs to perform a dry run of their proposed methods of dissemination, as part of a pilot study to ensure that the plans for distributing the new definition are feasible. NIST just completed its dry run this month.
“For this pilot study, each NMI has done a primary realization of a kilogram using either a watt balance or silicon sphere,” says Patrick Abbott of the Mass and Force Group in NIST’s Physical Measurement Laboratory. “The idea was: How well can we take that primary realization and pass it on?”
Presently, the U.S. standard for mass is a plum-sized cylinder of platinum-iridium called K20, which is regularly calibrated against the world’s current definition for the kilogram – the International Prototype Kilogram (IPK), housed at BIPM headquarters in Paris. After redefinition, K20 will be replaced by a new U.S. standard: the NIST-4 watt balance.
NIST’s Patrick Abbott with one of the two smaller balances, used for the vacuum-to-air studies.
NIST staff began the pilot study by calibrating a sample mass, made of platinum-iridium, in their watt balance. But the next step – transferring the calibration to masses in air – was a bit tricky. Air contains water and other impurities that are adsorbed by the surfaces of the masses used in the calibration process. So a mass measured in air will be slightly heavier than that same mass measured in vacuum. The nagging question for metrologists is, by how much?
NIST researchers have prepared a couple of ways to overcome this problem. The first involves a room-sized double-decker instrument that uses magnetic levitation to float a mass in the air, to balance it against a mass in vacuum, and do a direct comparison of the two. Eventually, this instrument – called the Magnetic Suspension Mass Comparator – will be the preferred method of disseminating the kilogram. But it is still being constructed and tested, so it was not used in the dry run.
A close-up of the inside of the small apparatus used for the vacuum-to-air studies. A kilogram standard (left) is ready to be compared to a stack of discs (right). The two objects have the same nominal mass, are composed of the same material, and have roughly the same shape – but the right-hand object has a greater total surface area. By measuring how the standards’ masses change relative to each other in both air and in vacuum, researchers can calculate how an object’s mass changes with exposure to air.
The second method involves using a set of smaller instruments at NIST. These balances are able to compare the masses of two objects at a time in either regular air or in vacuum. Prior to the dry run, NIST staff used one of these apparatus to conduct a study gauging exactly how much mass is added to an object when it goes from vacuum to air, based on its material and the smoothness of its surface.
With this information, the NIST researchers took the mass that had been calibrated using the watt balance, removed it from vacuum, and compared it – in air – to a pair of stainless steel working standards, of the type that might be used to calibrate customers’ weights. The team applied the corrections that it gathered from its adsorption studies to make the jump from vacuum to air.
To connect these findings to the current definition for mass, the team also measured all of these test masses against one of the official U.S. mass standards, whose definition is tied to the IPK.
Abbott says he expects the BIPM will be ready to share results from the pilot study by early next year. Other participating NMIs include the National Research Council of Canada (NRC Canada) and France’s Laboratoire National de Métrologie et d’Essais (LNE), each of which has its own watt balance, as well as the National Metrology Institute of Germany (PTB) and the National Metrology Institute of Japan (NMIJ), which use silicon spheres.
-- Reported and written by Jennifer Lauren Lee
** Update 03/15/18: Final Report has been released. Read the newest article >>The year was 2016. I was at one of those kitschy Brooklyn hole-in-the-walls-turned-hipster-haven when a bartender, apparently unhinged, turned to my white male friend with whom I was sitting and said, “You know you can’t trust her. She has slanty eyes.”
I could see in the bartender’s non-slanty eyes that perfectly align with Western beauty standards that he realized he had done something wrong. He knew he had said something racist. (It was also sexist if we’re being real ― but that’s a whole other issue.) He had really poured me a double with that one.
The bartender assured me he was “kidding,” and that he meant no offense. But that’s not really how delivery and receipt of jokes works. You can’t say something offensive about attributes someone can’t change ― attributes as inherent as ethnicity ― and call that a joke. Plus, he didn’t even apologize.
A similar, though much more extreme, scenario played out on a national scale this week. And like that friendly bartender, Fox News’ Jesse Watters made no apologies after his racist Chinatown segment aired ― and received a barrage of criticism. For anyone who hasn’t watched the viral-for-all-the-wrong-reasons segment, Watters went to New York City’s Chinatown and asked its residents questions such as, “Am I supposed to bow to say hello?” and “Do you know karate?”
It was a 5-minute segment with no purpose other than overt racism for “entertainment.” But the reality is that Watters, as well as the bartender, probably didn’t apologize because racist Asian jokes have always been seen as acceptable.
Watters tweeted, “I regret if anyone found offense,” but he explained away his segment as simply being the tenor of his political humor.
Political humor typically uses hyperbole or parody to show how outlandish something is. If there’s no greater purpose, like exposing an injustice, you run the risk of simply insulting the subjects. And that’s exactly what Fox News did. It painted Chinatown residents into caricatures who are politically uninformed, lacking opinions and basically bumbling fools.
Great political humor lampoons unjust policies and election-season gaffes from candidates.
You don’t go to Chinatown and lampoon non-native English speaking elderly people – a group of people Asian culture holds in the highest regard. You don’t lampoon Asian kids as being human trafficking victims when they’re on stage at the Oscars. And you don’t lampoon Asian mail-order brides.
Somehow Asians often seem to fall victim to this type of humor, and nearly always it’s laughed off as a joke by the larger culture.
Or when the bartender’s comment on my untrustworthy slanty eyes referenced the oppression and exoticization of Asian women as untrustworthy dragon ladies. Lolz?
Basically, if you’re part of the culture in power (i.e. white people), it’s best not to joke about things that make minorities feel even further “othered.”
So why do we allow Asians to continue to be the butt of the joke?
Asian culture is both derided and praised for valuing deference, humility and forbearance. We typically don’t speak out, and we know our place. We’ve even been deemed as a model minority ― for all the other minorities to follow!
But much of that image of Asians was actually manipulated by U.S. stakeholders, Ellen D. Wu, a history professor at Indiana University Bloomington, points out.
Wu, author of The Color Of Success: Asian Americans And The Origins Of The Model Minority, described in the LA Times a period during World War II when Americans became worried that the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first law to prevent one specified ethnic group from immigrating to the U.S., could negatively affect U.S. ties with China against Japan. So U.S. groups worked to repeal the law, which lasted from 1882 to 1943, by coming up with a new campaign:
“The Citizens Committee to Repeal Chinese Exclusion recognized that it would have to neutralize deep-seated fear of ‘yellow peril’ coolie hordes,” Wu wrote. “So it strategically recast the Chinese in its promotional materials as law-abiding, peace-loving, courteous people living quietly among us.”
And that stereotype of obedience stuck ― and remains harmful, The New Republic pointed out earlier this year. Karin Wang, the Vice President of Programs and Communications of nonprofit advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice, told the site: “It’s easier to target Asians because it seems safer. It’s a community that’s viewed as less likely to rise up en masse and speak out.”
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15, 2014 ( ) 1.85[15]
Mr. Crocker tries to get magic with Sparky's treats.
131a 16a "Turning Into Turner" Kevin Petrilak Joanna Lewis, Alec Schwimmer, and Kristine Songco Jim Mortensen and Butch Hartman July 16, 2014 ( ) 1.91[16]
Mr. Crocker tries to transform into Timmy with his DNA replicator, the "Turner-Me-Into-Turner-Ator", but due to his mom spitting her DNA on a gum with Timmy's DNA due to one of her allergies, he transforms into a fusion of Timmy Turner and Mrs. Crocker. When he arrives at Timmy's house, Cosmo immediately mistakes him for Timmy from the "future", and Mr. Crocker pretends to be so, leaving Timmy to prevent himself from becoming a monster in a week.
131b 16b "The Wand That Got Away" Michelle Bryan Sindy Spackman Mike Milo and Butch Hartman July 16, 2014 ( ) 1.91[16]
After a trip to the 70's with Timmy, Wanda and Poof, Cosmo loses his wand. In an homage to Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Timmy and his fairies try to find it or else he can no longer be a fairy godparent.
132 17 "Dimmsdale Tales" Ken Bruce and Gary Conrad Joanna Lewis, Alec Schwimmer,
Kristine Songco, and Sindy Spackman Brandon Kruse and Miguel Puga July 18, 2014 ( ) N/A
After Mr. Turner forgets the camping supplies for his scouts trip, Timmy tells scary stories to past the time.
133a 18a "Love at First Bark" Gary Conrad Ray DeLaurentis, Will Schifrin, and Kevin Sullivan Mike Milo and Butch Hartman July 21, 2014 ( ) N/A
Sparky falls in love with Dinkleberg's dog, but Timmy's Dad forbids him from seeing her.
133b 18b "Desperate Without
Housewives" Kevin Petrilak Lissa Kapstrom Miguel Puga July 21, 2014 ( ) N/A
Timmy, his dad, Cosmo and Mr. Crocker get tired of their respective mothers'/wives' nagging, so Mr. Turner wishes the universe was without women for 24 hours. However, this turns out to have consequences, as they are unable to survive properly without the women. Worse yet, a group of alligator-like aliens called the Snobulacs arrive to Earth and blame them for their females disappearing.
134a 19a "Stage Fright" Gary Conrad Joanna Lewis, Kristine Songco, and Becky Wangberg Miguel Puga July 22, 2014 ( ) N/A
Vicky uses Timmy to help her get into acting...with painful consequences for Timmy.
134b 19b "Gone Flushin'" Kevin Petrilak Lissa Kapstrom Mike Nassar and Butch Hartman July 22, 2014 ( ) N/A
Timmy, Cosmo, Wanda, and Poof (all in fish form) get flushed down the toilet, and must find their wands in the sewer to get back home. Meanwhile, Catman adopts a new superhero identity after ending up getting flushed as well.
135a 20a "Two and a Half Babies" Gary Conrad Sindy Spackman Mike Milo and Butch Hartman July 25, 2014 ( ) [N 1] 1.57[17]
Foop and Poof must take care of an egg for a school project. However, Foop breaks it and swaps it with a dangerous one.
135b 20b "Anchor's Away" Gary Conrad Kevin Arrieta and Sindy Spackman Mike Nassar and Butch Hartman July 25, 2014 ( ) [N 1] 1.57[17]
Due to several of Timmy's wishes causing effects on the news reports, Chet Ubetcha quits his job. Timmy's dad becomes the new(s) reporter and chaos ensues.
136a 21a "Weirdos on a Train" Gary Conrad Ray DeLaurentis, Kevin Sullivan, and Will Schifrin Jim Mortensen and Butch Hartman July 29, 2014 ( ) N/A
Mr. Crocker agrees to get rid of Dinkleberg for Timmy's Dad if he captures Timmy's fish (his fairies) for him.
136b 21b "Tons of Timmys" Michelle Bryan, Kevin Petrilak,
and Tuck Tucker Lissa Kapstrom Mike Milo and Butch Hartman July 29, 2014 ( ) N/A
The Dads from the episodes "Add-a-Dad" and "Invasion of the Dads" return to take Timmy to their workplaces. When that proves to be too much for Timmy, he wishes for a clone of himself for each Dad. But when the Timmys want Timmy's fairies (apparently thanks to Cosmo), Timmy must save them.
137a 22a "Lame Ducks" Michelle Bryan Sindy Spackman Jim Mortensen and Butch Hartman July 30, 2014 ( ) 2.21[18]
Timmy, Timmy's Dad, and Crocker become detectives and investigate a string of robberies all over Dimmsdale following a robbing of the Turners' house. Their actions, however, end up doing more harm than good.
137b 22b "A Perfect Nightmare" Kevin Petrilak Ray DeLaurentis, Will Schifrin, and Kevin Sullivan Marcelo DeSouza July 30, 2014 ( ) 2.12[18]
Timmy wishes for the perfect family to win a contest, but it turns into a nightmare for being perfect all the time.
138 23 "Fairly Odd Fairy Tales" Ken Bruce and Gary Conrad Whitney Fox, Joanna Lewis,
Alec Schwimmer, and Kristine Songco Marcelo DeSouza and Brandon Kruse August 1, 2014 ( ) 2.14[19]
After Poof refuses to fall asleep Wanda reads him fairy tales.
139 24 "Man's Worst Friend" Michelle Bryan and Gary Conrad Ray DeLaurentis, Will Schifrin,
Alec Schwimmer, and Kevin Sullivan Wolf-Rüdiger Bloss and Fred Gonzales February 8, 2015 ( ) [N 2] 1.48[20]
Foop replaces Sparky with Anti-Sparky.
140 25 "Fairly Old Parent" Michelle Bryan and Gary Conrad Ray DeLaurentis, Will Schifrin, Alec Schwimmer,
Kevin Sullivan, and Becky Wangberg Marcelo DeSouza, Jim Mortensen,
and Butch Hartman March 28, 2015 ( ) [N 3] 1.95[21]
Poof becomes Mrs. Crocker's fairy god parent, but eventually gets tired after she constantly keeps making wishes.
141 26 "The Fairy Beginning" Ken Bruce and Michelle Bryan Ray DeLaurentis, Will Schifrin,
Alec Schwimmer, and Kevin Sullivan Fred Gonzales, Brandon Kruse,
and Miguel Puga March 28, 2015 ( ) [N 4] 2.03[21]Series (with order)
Original publication date
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound.
-Fulke Greville, Mustapha And do you think that unto such as you
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew
God gave a secret, and denied it me?
Well, well - what matters it? Believe that, too!
-The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
(Richard Le Gallienne translation) Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in your name, and beyond the grave they will find only death. But we will keep the secret, and for their own happiness we will entice them with a heavenly and eternal reward.
-The Grand Inquisitor to his "Savior" in
The Brothers Karamazov
Dedication For Ian McEwan
In serene recollection of
La Refulgencia
First words If the intended reader of this book should want to go beyond disagreement with its author and try to identify the sins and deformities that animated him to write it (and I have certainly noticed that those who publicly affirm charity and compassion and forgiveness are often inclined to take this course), then he or she will not just be quarreling with the unknowable and ineffable creator who - presumably - opted to make me this way.
Quotations The voice of Reason is soft. But it is very persistent. And here is the point, about myself and my co-thinkers. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anthing that contradicts science or outrages reason. ("Putting it Mildly")
Last words To clear the mind for the project, it has become necessary to know the enemy, and to prepare to fight it. (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Publisher seriesIt was a week ago that the nation watched news of the Texas church attack unfold and quickly learned that the attacker fled the scene after being shot by a good guy with a gun.
Breitbart News reported that the good guy was Stephen Willeford, a Sutherland Springs, Texas, resident who grabbed his AR-15, ran out of his house barefoot, and shot at killer Devin Kelley, causing him to flee.
Willeford told KHBS, “I was scared to death. I was. I was scared for me, and I was scared for every one of them, and I was scared for my own family that just lived less than a block away.” Yet Willeford put his fears behind him and went to the church, took cover behind a vehicle, and waited for Kelley to come outside. Once Kelley emerged, Willeford took a shot. “He saw me, and I saw him. I was standing behind a pickup truck for cover. I know I hit him. He got into his vehicle, and he fired another couple rounds through his side window. When the window dropped, I fired another round at him again.”
Willeford then climbed into a truck driven by Johnnie Langendorff and the two gave chase. The 12 to 15 minute chase ended with Kelley running off the road and dying.
Police officers arrived to secure the accident scene and interview Willeford. ABC News obtained a body cam video of the interview and it shows a trembling Willeford describe shooting Kelley with an AR-15.
The officer asks Willeford, “So, you think you shot him?”
Willeford responded by pointing to the place where Kelley’s vehicle left the roadway and crashed in a field, saying, “I can’t think of any other reason why he took that sign out and ended up in that ditch.”
He then assures the officer that he put “some well placed shots” on Kelley.
Senate Democrats responded to the Texas church shooting by seeking to ban the gun Willeford used to stop Kelley’s attack. The gun ban is being spearheaded by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and is supported by roughly two dozen other Senate Democrats.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.Defense Minister Gen Nakatani has expressed his support for the U.S. Navy’s sailing of a warship close to one of China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea.
Nakatani told reporters in Hawaii after meeting Adm. Harry Harris, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, that the U.S. military was at the forefront of the international community’s efforts to protect open, free and peaceful oceans in the region.
“The international community will not allow the unilateral changing of the status quo by force, and our country believes the same,” Nakatani said Tuesday. “The U.S. believes the same, too, and we agreed on this point.”
The U.S. Navy last month sailed a guided missile destroyer inside what China claims is a 12-nautical-mile territorial limit around Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands. The move was a challenge to what the U.S. considers Beijing’s “excessive claim” of sovereignty in those waters.
The defense minister’s visit to Hawaii to meet with senior U.S. military leaders was his first since Japan’s parliament in September approved legislation loosening post-World War II constraints on its military.
He said Japan would continue to help countries in the region bolster their own maritime forces. Japan is giving 10 patrol ships to the Philippine Coast Guard.
“We have proactively participated in activities promoting the regional stability, including helping build the capacity of countries around the South China Sea and holding joint exercises between the U.S. military and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces,” Nakatani said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and Japanese navies established a new level of cooperation to resupply each other’s vessels during joint exercises in the seas south of Japan last week, the commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet said Tuesday.
Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin said the delivery of boxes of food and other provisions to a Japanese warship by a U.S. helicopter heralded greater operational integration. It was the first time that the two allies have shared supplies other than ship oil at sea.
“It’s a big step forward, and we want to do more of that in the future,” Aucoin said at a news conference aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan.
The 100,000-ton U.S. carrier participated in the annual exercise along with six other U.S. ships and around 25 Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels.
The agreement to begin such exchanges means that U.S. vessels can now be resupplied by Japanese ships in waters closer to Japan and will make it easier for the MSDF to operate farther from home waters with the help of U.S. supply ships.
The MSDF and U.S. Navy are deepening already close military ties as Chinese military power in the region grows.
Vice Admiral Yasuhiro Shigeoka, commander of the MSDF fleet, who joined Aucoin at the briefing, described the security situation in the region surrounding Japan as “severe.”
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won lawmakers’ approval in September for new security legislation that allows Japan’s military to come to the aid of allies under attack.
Abe said the biggest shift in Japan’s defense policy since the creation of its postwar military in 1954 was vital to meet emerging challenges such as those posed by China’s growing military power.
It means the U.S. and Japan can repackage regular joint drills, such as the one in waters about 563 km (350 miles) south of Japan “to do more high level sophisticated” training.
Based in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, with the only forward-deployed U.S. carrier, the 7th Fleet with some 80 vessels, 140 aircraft and 40,000 sailors is the most powerful naval force in the Western Pacific.
After China, Japan is Asia’s second most powerful maritime nation, with more than 100 warships.David Rockefeller is a part of American history and the only billionaire in the world who is over 100 years old. The richest oldest man on the planet is due to turn 101 in June.
He is part of a family dynasty whose name is associated with America and has become legend. His grandfather John D Rockefeller who died in 1937 was the founder of Standard Oil and the world’s richest individual.
The name Rockefeller has been associated with wealth, power, politics, finance, diplomacy, philanthropy, marijuana prohibition, aliens, UFO’s and conspiracy theories.
One such conspiracy theory is the creation of a ‘one world order’, according to which a group of ‘Elites’, including David, are milking the system for their own benefits and the benefit of their friends and fellow conspirators against the interest of the United States.
They have been accused of setting up institutions such as the ‘Trilateral Commission’ and the ‘Bilderberg Group’ among others to advance their interests nationally and globally.
Their aim is to create an international world order under a single umbrella, to deal with global issues, initiated and controlled by western countries.
Obviously such a hefty vision could be seen as a conspiracy, by the powerful and the well connected, to dominate and manipulate the weak and the fragmented people of the world.
David Rockefeller, the last former member of the unofficial royal family of America, has admitted in an article by The Independent, that if he is accused of such conspiracies to bring about a ‘one world order’, then he is proud and guilty as charged.
He says: “Some even believe [the Rockefellers] are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterising my family and me as ‘internationalists’ conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I’m proud of it.”
Although the name ‘Rockefeller’ still retains its resonance, its influence is fading. Being a Rockefeller these days ain’t what it used to be.
The Independent reports:
David, patriarch of that family and of a vanished Wasp establishment, celebrated his 100th birthday.
These days he is pretty low in the billionaires’ pecking order: 603rd according to Forbes magazine, the chronicler of such matters, with a fortune of “only” $3.2bn.
Even the family’s total wealth, much of it locked away in trusts, is put at a relatively modest $10bn – enough to buy fleets of yachts, private jets and a couple of mansions in Belgravia, but not a patch on his grandfather John D Rockefeller.
When he died in 1937, “Senior”, the founder of Standard Oil and a contender for the world’s richest ever individual, was reckoned to have assets equal to 1.5 per cent of US GDP, about $250bn today. Compared with that, Carlos Slim, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are distant also-rans.
See also: Dark History : Secrets of Wealthy Families
From almost the moment of his birth, on 12 June 1915, in the embers of the Gilded Age, David was the favourite grandchild: the one, according to “Senior”, who was “most like myself”.
The others of John Rockefeller Jnr’s six children are now long gone. Winthrop, a former governor of Arkansas, died in 1973. Abigail, David’s only sister, died in 1976, followed by John in 1978, and by Nelson – his most famous sibling, governor of New York and Gerald Ford’s vice-president – in 1979.
Laurance Rockefeller, an airline magnate, survived until 2004. David is the last one left. And in his day, Nelson notwithstanding, he was probably the most influential of them all.
David Rockfeller flourished at the intersection of business, high finance and international diplomacy. He was never elected to any political office, but in his heyday, in the 1970s and 1980s, he seemed to know every politician who mattered on the planet.
Part of that went with the job of chairman of Chase Manhattan, which David sought to make a global bank. Part was due to merely being a Rockfeller.
“Having the name can be an advantage,” he once said. “I’m more apt to get through on the telephone to somebody.” Part perhaps also reflected his much-praised work in US wartime intelligence in Europe, between 1943 and 1945.
All of this made him a networker of epic proportions (his Rolodex, in that pre-smartphone age, read like a global Who’s Who); not surprisingly the journalist and former LBJ aide Bill Moyers once called him “the unelected but indisputable chairman of the American establishment”.
From the outset, too, David was a committed internationalist. To that end, in 1973 he set up the Trilateral Commission, featuring the West’s great and good, and soon found himself the butt of conspiracy theorists around the globe.
Today, there’s much hyperventilating about the secretiveness of the Bilderberg Group (another collection of worthies favoured by David). But that fuss is nothing compared with the suspicions once aroused by the Trilateral Commission.
For the right, it was a cabal operating as a global government; the left saw an unaccountable rich man’s club, promoting free markets to the exclusion of all else. Senior’s favourite grandson was accused of being the plotter in chief – and he positively revelled in the charges.
“Some even believe [the Rockefellers] are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterising my family and me as ‘internationalists’ conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I’m proud of it.”
But the globetrotting chumminess had its downside. David Rockefeller, it was said, never met a dictator he disliked.
More specifically, he worked with his friend Henry Kissinger to persuade President Carter to allow another friend, the deposed Shah of Iran, into the US in 1979 to be treated for cancer.
The result was the Tehran embassy hostage-taking and a rupture with Iran that endures to this day.
Most fascinating perhaps is David’s relationship with the domineering Nelson. His elder sibling was tempestuous, ferociously ambitious and a compulsive womaniser. As a child, David was reserved and solitary, with an passion for collecting beetles.
As an adult, he was suave and non-confrontational, a man who loathed scenes above all else. Not surprisingly, the pair grew apart, especially after Nelson’s divorce and remarriage to his mistress Happy Murphy in 1963, a scandal that may have scuppered his presidential aspirations.
Gradually, starting even before Nelson’s death, David became the family head, his image further burnished by philanthropy: over his life, he is reckoned to have given away $900m, including $79m last year alone. In 2002, he became the first Rockfeller to write an autobiography, entitled, simply, Memoirs.
Ultimately, David Rockefeller is a reminder of how even the mightiest dynasties fade. Before the Kennedys, the Rockefellers were America’s unofficial royal family.
But the last Rockefeller to hold public office, David’s nephew Jay, retired last year from his Senate seat in West Virginia. The Kennedys are increasingly history, and, one day, the Bushes and Clintons will be as well.
The younger Rockefellers have gone their own way. Most have to make their own living; some have even changed their names. Being a Rockefeller ain’t what it used to be.
Their political relevance, however, persists. David, like Nelson, was a “Rockefeller Republican”, a well-born moderate endowed with a deep sense of noblesse oblige.
If the GOP is to recapture the White House in 2016, a dash of inclusive Rockefeller Republicanism is essential. And nothing, surely, would more delight the oldest billionaire on earth.#1 Part of what made George such a great leader was his ability to learn from his mistakes, like the time he accidentally started the French and Indian War. He reflected for years on his failures and never again started the French and Indian War.
#2
George Washington was the Michael Jordan of retiring, except he retired even more than Jordan. You just couldn’t keep Ol’ Wash away for long.
Washington very publicly "retired" from the public scene to spend the rest of his days as a planter. He did this after the French and Indian War...and the Revolutionary War...and then again after his presidency. But when President John Adams called on him to once again command the US forces against a brewing war with France, the 67-year-old Washington unretired again. He was waiting for the fancy new uniform he designed to arrive when he died.
#3
George was a man of few words. Maybe because he only had one remaining tooth when he became president and a mouthful of ill-fitting (but not wooden) dentures. It often hurt him to talk, so he put thought into everything he deemed worthy of saying. Lucky for him, he pulled off the strong silent type.
#4
During his frequent retirements, George loved living the life of a planter. He grew tobacco and wheat and experimented with different fertilizers like manure. He farmed over 3000 acres and ran the largest whiskey distillery in America, with the help of over 300 slaves.
Unlike Adams and Jefferson, Washington never expressed a wish to abolish slavery. Unlike Jefferson, however, Washington freed his slaves after his death. He couldn’t legally free the ones Martha owned, but he stipulated their freedom upon her death. Not wanting to give them any ideas about speeding up her demise, she freed them herself.
#5
Washington loved the theatre, whether attending it in person or reading Shakespeare in his library. Congress banned the performance of plays during the Revolutionary War, but that didn't stop Washington. After a famously harsh winter at Valley Forge, he had his men put on a performance of his favorite play, Joseph Addison’s “Cato” about a Roman soldier going up against the tyrant OJ Simpson Julius Caesar.
#6
Washington lost more battles than he won, but he was a ninja when it came to stealthy escapes. That's what made him famous in the deadly Battle of the Monongahela in the French and Indian War, and that's what saved his ass time and again in the Revolutionary War. In the fog, in the middle of the night, over hills…George Washington knew how to get out of a sticky situation.
#7
George was a voracious reader with an extensive library of more than 1200 books. Unlike other founding fathers, he didn’t have any formal secondary education. Books were his university and they provided him guidance on his military, political, and agricultural pursuits. It was particularly devastating to him when his stepson’s teacher reported that the boy “ does not much like books.”
#8
George loved dogs. Foxes, not so much. To create a superior dog for his beloved fox hunts, he imported French hounds to breed with Virginia hounds, in time creating the American foxhound. It’s easy to think of Washington as formal and stuffy (because he often was), but how dignified could he be when he gave his dogs awesome names like Venus, Truelove, Drunkard, and Sweet Lips?
#9
#10
This well-read, dancing farmer was no pacifist. In case there was any doubt, Washington's G.I. Joe figure came equipped with a pistol and a sword. And a telescope, so he could look ahead at all the ass he was about to kick.
After his first battle at 21 years old Washington was hooked, saying there was “something charming in the sound” of bullets whistling. When the British military wouldn’t accept him during the French and Indian War, he volunteered just to get back into the action. Years later, he showed up to the Continental Congress in his old (too-tight) war uniform, ready to kick some Redcoat butt. He was either an adrenaline junkie or he just liked shooting people.
You might think he had to step back from the action as president, but he disagreed. It had been 13 years since he got to shoot anybody, so when farmers in western Pennsylvania were unwilling to pay a new whiskey tax, the 62-year-old President jumped on his horse and personally led 13,000 troops to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion. Fortunately for the country, his heavy-handed response established the strength and sovereignty of the federal government and probably prevented (or postponed) a civil war.
Unfortunately for his bloodlust, the Whiskey Rebellion ended peacefully.
Today is George Washington's birthday, but it feels likebirthday because I just got the greatest present ever - a supercool George Washington G.I. Joe action figure.Li'l George and I celebrated his birthday by illustrating ten things he loved.George loved assembly balls and could dance for hours without stopping. Ladies loved to dance with him, if only so they could “get a touch of him.”This post is bittersweet for me, as it's my last focused on the first president. I'll miss you, George... you'll always be my first. But now it's time for me to plod through to John Adams, who might be cool but definitely doeshave his own G.I. Joe.For more presidential passions, check out: Plodding Through The Presidents on Facebook for more like this!LONDON (Reuters) - British industrial output suffered its sharpest monthly drop in December since 2012 as warmer than usual weather curbed demand for electricity and gas and manufacturing continued its decline, denting hopes for improvement this year.
Mine workers walk towards the pit head at Kellingley Colliery on its last day of operation in north Yorkshire, England, December 18, 2015. REUTERS/Phil Noble
Britain has been one of the fastest-growing major advanced economies in the world for the last couple of years. But it has relied heavily on domestically focussed services for growth, frustrating plans for a better-balanced recovery.
Industrial output fell 1.1 percent month-on-month in December after a 0.8 percent drop in November, the Office for National Statistics said, worse than all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists that forecast a 0.1 percent dip.
The figures add to a run of poor industrial output data from countries around Europe, including France and Germany, and is unlikely to allay worries about the global economy’s health.
“December’s sharp drop in industrial production will fuel concerns about the UK economic outlook as well as the unbalanced nature of growth,” IHS Global Insight economist Howard Archer said.
The ONS revised down its estimate for industrial output in the fourth quarter to show a 0.5 percent drop from a 0.2 percent decline previously, reflecting a sizeable fall in electricity generation caused in part by unusually mild weather.
Britain’s economy expanded 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter, but this early estimate could easily be trimmed if poor construction output numbers on Friday follow the industrial data, Pantheon Macroeconomics economist Samuel Tombs said.
The manufacturing sector failed to contribute to British economic growth in 2015 and the latest figures do not augur well for this year.
Output in manufacturing fell for a third month in a row for the first time since early 2012, dropping 0.2 percent on the month after falling 0.3 percent in November. Economists had expected output to edge up 0.1 percent in November.
A separate survey from the Bank of England’s regional agents also showed a slowdown in manufacturing, with exports suffering from the global economic slowdown.
Both industrial and manufacturing output saw their biggest annual declines in December since mid-2013, the data showed.
Finance minister George Osborne has warned the economy is facing a “dangerous cocktail” of risks from overseas in 2016, as growth slows in major emerging markets, stock markets tumble and a slump in oil prices reduces demand from oil-exporting nations.
Output from the oil and gas extraction sector fell 4.6 percent on the month, the biggest decline since September.
Brent crude oil prices slid 16 percent in December and 35 percent for 2015 as a whole.
(This story corrects record in ninth paragraph provided by ONS on consecutive monthly declines to read 2012, not 2009)We all have heard the buzz about Virtual Reality (VR) being the next big thing of the future, along with Internet of Things (IoT), right? VR is actually an artificial environment created using computer hardware and software to make it appear real for users. Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist, author, and composer, coined the term Virtual Reality in 1987.
The good news is that you no longer need to buy expensive Oculus Rift or HTC Vive headset to experience Virtual Reality. It may take you by surprise, but as a matter of fact, even an Android or iOS smartphone serves the purpose of a VR device. You can easily pair a sub-£20 Google Cardboard headset with your Android/iOS phone to allow it to use your device’s screen and bring some place else for you.
Now that you know about VR capabilities of your Android/iOS device, it’s worth knowing about 7 best VR apps. Unlike apps that force you to buy Samsung’s Gear VR mobile headset, these apps are regular Android and iOS apps, meaning no extra burden on your pocket.
Cardboard
Cardboard app is free to download and gives you an easy access to virtual reality. The app is distinct from Google Cardboard, which is aÂÂ device to place your smartphone into its back and get the amazing view through the lenses in front. Coming back to the Cardboard app, it lets you find those apps that are available for download and are compatible with the Cardboard device, like Earth and Photo Sphere Camera. If you want to build your own Google Cardboard viewer, you must visit Google's Get Cardboard page to learn the specifications. However, if you don’t like this DIY approach, you can buy a pre-manufactured one available from various vendors. Click here to know about best Google Cardboard apps.
Image source: www.tomshardware.com
NYT VR
NYT VR, a product of New York Times, allows users to view content, like a compelling video of three children who were forced to leave their homes because of conflict. You can watch such videos without Google Cardboard as well, however if you want to feel as if you are there, you must use the Google’s VR device. The video of the three children brings the content back to life, showing you the destruction from war, a plane dropping food to not let the victims starve, etc.
The website of New York Time says, “All it takes is a smartphone. Go underwater or on the campaign trail. Experience life through the eyes of a refugee or explore previously unseen worlds. Experience stories reported by award-winning journalists, all told in an immersive, 360-degree video experience.” The app is available to download for free for both Android and iOS smartphones.
Image source: www.technobuffalo.com
VRSE
VRSE, a free-to-download virtual reality app, hosts high production value 3D 360 content. Chris Milk, an artist and filmmaker, who has directed videos for popular names like Kanye West, Beck, Arcade, etc, has formed VRSE to create virtual reality experiences. A short VR documentary “Waves of Grace” tells the story of an Ebola survivor in Liberia. So, you can get the real feel of documentaries with VRSE.
Vice, The New York Times, and NBC were so smitten by the idea that they decided to enter into a partnership with VRSE. Click here to learn from Chris Milk about the future of VRSE.
Image source: YouTube.com
Sisters: A Virtual Reality Ghost Story
Sisters: A Virtual Reality Ghost Story app takes your horror experience to an all new level. Don’t give it a try late at night. Without a doubt, the entry of VR in horror genre will encourage other ghost storytellers to bring users scary, terrifying experiences. The app is available to download for free for both Android and iOS smartphones.
Image source: www.youtube.com
Seene
Seene, a free-to-download app available on Play Store and App Store, enables users capture photographs and view them in 360 degrees. The app does not require a special camera on your smartphone to let you capture and share pics in 3D. Unlike Google’s Cardboard Camera app, Seene sports an awesome feature to share 360-pics with the world. Seene was also crowned as the UK's most innovative mobile company on display at Mobile World Congress.
Image source: play.google.com
Jaunt VR
Similar to VRSE, Jaunt also enables users to get cinematic VR experiences. The app is available to download from both App Store and Play Store. The company aims at making VR content production easy. Jaunt works with Google Cardboard, $25 Dodocase cardboard headsets andÂÂÂ the foam Merge headset. With Jaunt VR, you can celebrate Disneyland's 60th Anniversary celebration on Main Street, USA. Besides, you will feel as if you are on stage with Jack White as he performs “Freedom At 21” at The Bleacher Theater at Fenway Park in Boston, MA. More and more creators are getting attracted to Jaunt to take your entertainment experience to an all new level.
Image source: www.slashgear.com
Orbulus
Orbulus enables stereoscopic 3D photo viewing on mobile devices. It supports most 3D content viewers like Durovis Dive and Altergaze. It works flawlessly with Google Cardboard and other Smartphone VR Viewers. This VR app lets you visit interesting locations with a simple click. So, you can stand on Mars or get a virtual sight into the New Year’s Fireworks on Hong Kong Harbour by simply looking into your Cardboard gear. It’s also free-to-download VR app for both Android and iOS smartphones.
Image source: play.google.com
All these apps are the best VR apps for smartphones and enable you to get first-hand experience of virtual reality, without forcing you to make any hefty investment. Have you ever used a virtual reality app before? If yes, and want to tell us more about VR apps for smartphones, then please share your views in the comment box below.(CNN) The man accused of killing a San Francisco woman in what appeared to authorities to be a random shooting has told CNN affiliate KGO-TV that he he did it, but that it was an accident.
"Did you shoot Kate Steinle, the lady who was down at Pier 14?" the station's reporter, Cornell Barnard, asked Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez in a jailhouse interview.
"Yes," he answered, according to a transcript of the interview posted on the station's website
But he said the weapon -- which he said he found lying on the ground wrapped in a T-shirt -- went off by accident when he picked it up, according to KGO.
"Then suddenly I heard that boom boom, three times," Lopez-Sanchez said, according to the station's transcript.
Steinle was shot Wednesday while walking with her father on Pier 14, a popular walking spot on the city's waterfront. She died on the way |
determined by courts to be a fair and transformative use. Not only is it fair, but as Professor Peter Jaszi noted during the hearing it is also tremendously beneficial, enabling the indexing and searching of huge sets of works.
Several panelists, however, pointed to the legal status of mass digitization as evidence of "fair use creep," stressing its supposed lack of “transformative” quality over the other fair use considerations. That's a mistake. Mass digitization is absolutely the sort of thing fair use is supposed to enable. Fair use is a flexible doctrine, not a rigid list of exceptions, so that it can accommodate changes in practices or technology.
Even more troublingly, some panelists seemed fixated on the commercial character of a use in determining whether it could be considered fair. On the one hand, the Supreme Court is abundantly clear that commercial use does not preclude a finding of fair use. But to listen to some of the panelists Tuesday, the notion seemed to be that if anybody is making money, rightsholders want a cut—or worse, the power to veto the use in the first place. The definition of commercial use, too, was stretched to its breaking point: according to one panelist, an otherwise non-commercial video remix can be tainted with the label of commercial as soon as it is posted to an ad-supported platform like YouTube.
That same panelist—the songwriter and copyright expansion activist David Lowery—also repeatedly raised hip hop as an example of copyright working effectively without fair use because the genre has managed to achieve popularity despite often requiring licenses for musical samples. Of course, this characterization overlooks how licensing schemes limit what sorts of creativity are sanctioned under the law, and that seminal works in the genre simply could not be made under today's understanding of sampling.
Taken together, these two themes represent a pernicious misconception that there are "legitimate" works—the ones presented by companies that belong to lobbying organizations with multi-million dollar budgets—and "illegitimate" ones that require permission to be created or commercially exploited.
In terms of the law, the Supreme Court rejected that argument over 100 years ago, and has been reaffirmed numerous times in cases like Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music ("Whether... parody is in good taste or bad does not and should not matter to fair use") and Yankee Publishing Inc. v. News America Publishing ("First Amendment protections do not apply only to those who speak clearly, whose jokes are funny, and whose parodies succeed"). Any understanding of fair use has to reflect that legal tradition.
Although it didn't get much attention during Tuesday's hearing, issues of fair use are complicated by the incredibly high penalties that can await those accused of infringement. These punitive fees discourage artists from actually exercising fair use rights as they create.
One panelist, Professor June Besek, recently suggested that statutory damages don't need to be addressed, but her record on this issue is troubling. Writing to the Department of Commerce this month, Besek pointed to a $6,000 court judgment won by notorious copyright troll Prenda Law—a judgment that was almost certainly achieved by fraud—as an example of the current copyright law working well.
Professor Besek said that copyright penalties for individual file-sharers don't need fixing at this time because cases like Prenda's (brought using the law firm's alter ego, AF Holdings, as plaintiff) result in damages "under $10,000." It's widely known that Prenda has coerced millions of dollars in "settlement" payments from Internet subscribers by building false copyright cases on a framework of shell companies, forged documents, lies to the courts, and threats of $150,000 penalties. Using an AF Holdings case to show that the copyright system is working well—because the fraud victim lost $6,000 instead of a possible $150,000—is bizarre, and casts doubt on Professor Besek's testimony.
Tuesday's hearing was cut short by other legislative action on the floor, but as Committee Chairman Goodlatte noted, it was "perhaps the most important copyright hearing" yet. Congress should continue to get the opinions of witnesses like Professor Jaszi and Naomi Novik from the Organization for Transformative Works—people that have experience with art and media that depends on fair use.Felipe Massa started the race from pole position, his first since the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix. [3] Massa had one previous participation in an Austrian Grand Prix, back in 2002, while from the last Austrian Grand Prix to be held before 2014, which was in 2003, only three drivers (Fernando Alonso, Kimi Räikkönen, and Jenson Button) returned to drive in the 2014 Austrian Grand Prix.
Background Edit
The Grand Prix was contested by eleven teams, each of two drivers. The teams, also known as constructors, were Red Bull Racing, Mercedes, Ferrari, Lotus, McLaren, Force India, Sauber, Toro Rosso, Williams, Marussia and Caterham.[4] Tyre supplier Pirelli brought four different tyre compounds for the race; two dry compounds, the soft "primes" and the supersoft "options", and two wet-weather compounds, the intermediate and full wet.[5] The drag reduction system (DRS) had two activation zones for the race; one was on the start/finish straight from the final to first corners, and the second on the straight between turns 2 and 3.[4]
Going into the race, Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg led the Drivers' Championship with 140 points, ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton on 118 points and Daniel Ricciardo on 79. Fernando Alonso was fourth on 69 points while Sebastian Vettel was fifth on 60 points. In the Constructors' Championship Mercedes were leading with 258 points and Red Bull were second on 139 points. Ferrari with 87 points and Force India with 77 points contended for third place, with McLaren fifth on 66 points.[4] Mercedes had so far dominated the championship, winning six out of the previous seven races, with Ricciardo winning the Canadian Grand Prix. Championship competitor Kevin Magnussen had gained one second-place finish, while Jenson Button, Vettel (twice), Sergio Pérez and Alonso had achieved third place podium finishes.[4]
Practice and qualifying Edit
Nico Rosberg was the fastest in the first free practice session with a lap time of 1:11.295.[6] Teammate Lewis Hamilton was the fastest in the second free practice session with a lap time of 1:09.542.[7] Valtteri Bottas was the fastest in the third free practice session with a lap time of 1:09.848.[8]
Williams driver Felipe Massa became the first driver other than Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg to claim pole position in 2014 with a Q3 lap time of 1:08.759.[9] He was joined on the front row by teammate Valtteri Bottas; it was the team's first front row lockout since Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher did so, at the 2003 German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.
Hamilton failed to post a time in Q3, ending up ninth on the grid after Sergio Pérez's penalty was applied. On his first flying lap in Q3 – having been 0.4 seconds faster than Bottas' provisional pole time of 1:08.846 through the first two sectors – Hamilton ran wide at the final corner and had his lap time deleted for exceeding track limits. On his second and final lap Hamilton locked his rear brakes under braking for turn 2 and spun.[10] Sebastian Vettel failed to reach Q3, although his teammate Daniel Ricciardo did.
Race Edit
At the start, Felipe Massa led the field into the first corner, with Nico Rosberg passing Valtteri Bottas, but being repassed the following straight. Lewis Hamilton gained five places on the first lap, after passing two cars on the run into the first corner and two further cars heading towards turn 2, before taking another spot from Fernando Alonso at turn 7. As a result, he ended the first lap only one position and 0.9 seconds behind his teammate, despite starting ninth. Sebastian Vettel once again suffered from technical problems, losing drive on the first lap and attempting to retire on lap two. However, his car then regained drive and he was able to continue, albeit a lap down. After damaging his front wing halfway through the race, he later retired from Red Bull Racing's home Grand Prix on lap 34.
At the front, the Mercedes cars were able to pass the Williams cars by stopping earlier and undercutting them during the pitstop phases. Rosberg passed both Williams during the first stops, and Hamilton took second position during the second round, despite suffering two slow pit stops. Sergio Pérez once again drove a good race with a different tyre strategy, only running the super soft compound for the last 16 laps and successfully challenging Kevin Magnussen for sixth place, despite starting sixteenth following a grid penalty.
For much of the race both Mercedes cars had to manage overheating brake issues. On lap 55 Hamilton was held up by backmarkers, losing around a second. During the final laps, Hamilton was slowly gaining on teammate Rosberg, and despite having lost a total of 1.9 seconds to his teammate through slower pit stops he began the final lap 1.1 seconds behind. However, he was not close enough to his teammate to challenge him and backed off at the end of the lap. Rosberg took the chequered flag for his third win of the season.[11]
As a result of the race, Nico Rosberg extended his championship lead to 29 points, the largest it had been all season.
Lewis Hamilton admitted he was frustrated by his slow pit stops, but said that second was still a "good result" considering his qualifying position.[12]
Fernando Alonso, who managed to finish closely behind Felipe Massa in the Williams and with a smaller gap to Mercedes than usual, later described the race as his best of the season so far.[13]A CSX freight train carrying about 8,000 tons of coal partially derailed in Bowie early Thursday morning, according to CSX officials and the Prince George's County Fire & EMS Department.
The incident marked the third major Mid-Atlantic incident for the railroad since Wednesday, when a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in Lynchburg, Va., and a massive retaining wall collapsed onto freight tracks in Baltimore.
Gary Sease, a CSX spokesman, said Thursday that the railroad is focused on the needs of nearby residents in Baltimore and Lynchburg, and did not have estimates for when any of the tracks would be cleared.
Whether heavy rains in Maryland and Virginia played a role in the accidents will be part of the railroad's investigations, Sease said.
The line where the derailment occurred in Bowie is also a freight line, officials said — raising questions about the combined impact the Baltimore and Bowie incidents will have on freight movements in the region, including out of the port of Baltimore.
The Baltimore tracks covered by the collapse and subsequent landslide in Baltimore serve trains carrying container cargo out of the Seagirt Marine Terminal, and port officials were assessing the potential impact on port operations late Wednesday, according to Richard Scher, a Maryland Port Administration spokesman.
Sease said all of CSX's operations out of Seagirt were at a "standstill" as of Thursday morning.
"But we're talking to [the Maryland Port Administration] on contingency plans, and of course working at the Baltimore site to determine how quicky we can get our line open there," Sease said.
Commuter lines were not impacted in Baltimore or Bowie, officials said.
No injuries were reported in the Bowie incident, which firefighters and hazardous-materials personnel responded to at about 2:30 a.m. near the intersection of Old Annapolis Road and Laurel Bowie Road, Prince George's fire officials said.
The train of three locomotives and 63 cars was headed from a coalmine in southwestern Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh, to Woodzell in southern Maryland, Sease said.
Three CSX employees who were aboard the train at the time were accounted for and uninjured, officials said.
At the scene, three locomotives and 10 train cars had left the tracks but did not overturn, according to the fire department. According to Sease and in images shared on Twitter by the Bowie Volunteer Fire Department, which also responded, at least one car appeared to have overturned, spilling its load of coal.
Prince George's officials said there were "no immediate life safety concerns or haz-mat issues" at the site of the Bowie derailment, and the situation had been turned over to CSX.
Fire officials will "continue to monitor the situation throughout the day," the department said.
In Baltimore, engineers were still assessing the collapsed retaining wall early Thursday morning, which sent street lights and fencing, sidewalks and half a dozen cars careening onto tracks below. There were no injuries reported.
In Lynchburg, the downtown district was evacuated Wednesday afternoon after about 15 tanker cars carrying crude oil derailed — some plunged into the James River, which was at flood stage, and a large fire burned amid the spilled oil. There were also no injuries there.
The large amount of rain that pounded the region through Wednesday seemed to have played a major role in the Baltimore street collapse and landslide, though it was not clear if it played a role in the other two incidents.
The National Transportation Safety Board is participating in the investigation of the Lynchburg accident, though they had not gotten involved in either the Baltimore or Bowie incidents as of Thursday morning, Sease said.
"Weather will be just one of many factors that are part of the investigation in all of the accidents, Bowie and Lynchburg and Baltimore as well," Sease said. "It's definitely a lot of rain in the region lately, but again our investigations and the NTSB's investigation in Lynchburg are just underway and nothing's been established yet."
krector@baltsun.com
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World of Warcraft Fan Site Chat - October 24, 2002. [GShif] Hi Everybody. Members of the World of Warcraft Development team are going to being introducing some new things that we'll be discussing about the game. Please note that we are asking that nobody run a live chat log during the chat. We will email the chat log to you after the chat. Until then, please don't post information text or summary from the chat. Without further ado I'll turn the floor over to the WoW Dev Team.
[WoWDevTeam] Hello everyone. Today we are going to be fielding general quesitons and talking about a few new features. On the table today are skills, mounts, instancing, combat, and anything else y'all want to discuss. So in brief our skill system is comprised of class skills and secondary skills. Class skills are abilities we consider integral to who a character is. For example, core to a Warrior is the ability to use swords, maces, axes, and such. These skills are developed in two ways: by leveling and through usage. Your level determines your potential and then usage determines your actual proficiency. As for secondary skills, they are more general purpose and will allow players to uniquely flavor their characters. Now for some questions.
[RBridenbecker] Is it possible to establish guilds in WoW with your own guild halls, emblems and such?
[WoWDevTeam] Absolutely. Socializing is a huge part of this type of game and a large part of that revolves around the creation of guilds. Guildmembers will be able to uniquely identify themselves through the use of Guild Tabbards. These Tabbards are worn over your armor and through the use of color and emblem will uniquely identify guilds and their members. As for guild houses, player housing is in the plan and guild houses are a part of that.
[RBridenbecker] Will the skills be in a skill tree, such as in Diablo II?
[WoWDevTeam] Nope, no skill trees. Instead, spread across the world will be various skill trainers. Many skills will have prerequisite skills or minimum levels, but there is no skill tree as such.
[RBridenbecker] Will any spells from the Warcraft or Diablo series be carried into WoW?
[WoWDevTeam] Oh ya... many, many of the spells from the WarCraft series will be available in World of Warcraft.
[RBridenbecker] Are there any plans to make guilds more dynamic, or easier to govern?
[WoWDevTeam] Hmmm. Not sure exactly what you mean by more dynamic, but I'll throw out a few more details and see if this helps. We are planning web site support for listing key stats of the various guilds. and we are planning fairly extensive Guild Master and Guild Officer commands for viewing and managing membership whether members are online or not. :).
[RBridenbecker] Will the setting of WoW, for example, Azeroth, Kalimdor, etc., be the same as Warcaraft III?
[WoWDevTeam] Yes, the world is largely based on the known geography of WarCraft. From Khaz Modan to Kalimdor, from Azeroth to Lordaeron, you'll be able to live in the world you are familar with.
[RBridenbecker] Will quests provide adequate experience and/or items that will substitute for combat?
[WoWDevTeam] This is a great question. We view questing as an area that Morgs have only begun to develop... So the direct answer to the question is: Yes, we are planning a vast number of quests, that provide meaningful amounts of experience and lots of good loot. We are planning a Quest Log that will track currently assigned quests and one of our goals is that the log is pretty much never empty.
[RBridenbecker] Can you discuss the monster AI?
[WoWDevTeam] Well, this is still in flux but we can mention a few things... We are planning a higher level, group AI that allows the leader of a group of monsters to direct the group's behavior. For example, a group of Gnolls, lead by a Taskmaster, might decide to sic a couple of Brutes on your Warrior and a Brute on your healer and a fourth on your Mage.
[RBridenbecker] Will there be mounts in the game, and if so, will they be unique to the races?
[WoWDevTeam] Good question. Yes, we are planning on a variety of mounts. For example, we have Humans riding around on Horses and Orcs on Wolves. Also, in some rare cases, player's who choose to specialize in riding will be able to ride mounts normally reserved for other races. Just to be explicit, mounts will be player controlled and will be a great way for mid to high level characters to travel the world.
[RBridenbecker] How will you avoid player camping and kill stealing?
[WoWDevTeam] This is one of the big problems of MMORPGs today. Here's our plan: Many of the areas of our world are instanced meaning that you and your friends can enter an instance that is essential a private copy of a section of the world. That being said, this is a social game, and too much instancing can be a bad thing. So large portions of the world are not instanced. Some player collision is good. It gives people an opportunity to make new friends. The key is that if you get to a location and find it 'camped' that you always have somewhere to go. Private instances guarantees there will always be somewhere for you to hunt in peace.
[RBridenbecker] How does combat work?
[WoWDevTeam] Hmmm. Let's start by discussing what it is not. It is not a 'click-fest' or a 'potion-fest'. These are questions we see frequently so we want to clarify that. Player's will initiate combat with a simple click on a creature then go into Combat Mode. While in combat mode, the character automatically continues swinging at the target creature. then to mix things up, the player will get to time a host of special moves and of course magical spells. As for potions, they do exist in our game, and are more abundant than in most other Morgs. We think consumable items are interesting when properly balanced.
[RBridenbecker] How is death handled in the game?
[WoWDevTeam] The trick with death is to make it painful enough so that player's respect the world but not so painful that it is overly frustrating we want people to explore and we want people to be heroic when you die, you will resurrect at your last bind site, with all of your items intact. There will be some form of penalty, but we haven't settled on exactly what that will be just yet.
[RBridenbecker] Can you discuss multi-user spells?
[WoWDevTeam] Ah, we mentioned those a long time ago, but haven't really discussed them recently we call multi-user spells 'Rituals'. The idea here is that a group of casters would need to get together to cast a Ritual. We're not prepared just yet to discuss the specifics of what these will do, but rest assured, they're mighty nice.
[RBridenbecker] Will there be class specific items in the game?
[WoWDevTeam] Yes.
[RBridenbecker] Will there be ranged weapons and can Dwarves use guns?
[WoWDevTeam] Yes. We have bows, crossbows, and... guns! Warcraft just wouldn't be Warcraft without Dwarves running around shooting stuff.
[RBridenbecker] When will we hear from Brann again?
[WoWDevTeam] Well, Brann has gone missing in fact... and one of the quests in the game will be to discover what has happened to him. Instead of Brann's updates we are going to a whole new Web Site. It should be up in the next couple of weeks and will contain a ton of new information, new screen shots, new FAQ, and a beautiful new format.
[GShif] Hi Everybody, we only have about 5 minutes left, so please type in your last questions for the chat now.
[RBridenbecker] How large is the party size for players?
[WoWDevTeam] The current party size is 5. This allows us to balance the game in such a way that every member of the party is important. Beyond the standard group we have the ability to link groups to form super-groups. These super-groups will allow players to tackle tougher monsters, split xp, split loot, and generally have a good time raiding together.
[RBridenbecker] Is there a way to finish the game? How long can we play?
[WoWDevTeam] Well, in fact there is no real way to finish the game... we will have storylines that player's can follow through to completion but the world is such a giant toy that there will always be hundreds of things to do. On top of that, our live team will continually add new quests, new items, and new lands to explore, so the game really never does finish.
[GShif] Ok, everybody. Looks like 6:00 got here faster than we expected. There was a lot of new information here, and we'll be emailing you all the log shortly. Thanks very much for participating today. Sorry we couldn't get to all of your questions, but please stay tuned and look for emails from me in the future. We'll be in contact to discuss the next chat, and of course, we expect to be discussing the game with the press a bit more following this chat. Thanks again and good night!
[WoWDevTeam] Thanks everyone. --Return to Top--Remember how peculiar it was that presidential candidate Mitt Romney refused to release his tax returns? That was predictably a non-starter. Most voters probably assume the reason he resisted was to avoid the controversy over his strikingly low tax rate.
Another factor appears to have played into this decision. The release of the tax returns shows Romney neglected to disclose some required financial information in his personal disclosure form filed with the Office of Government Ethics last year. His team apparently timed the release of his tax records with the hope that State of the Union hooplah would dominate news coverage and result in his finances getting less attention than they might otherwise. And that appears to been correct. His failure to divulge information about 23 investments, and more important his use of secret Swiss bank accounts, has been given a free pass. As Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington director Melanie Sloan observed, “Mr. Romney says the errors are minor, but then again he also claims earning $374,000 in speaking fees isn’t much money.”
This anodyne coverage in a Los Angeles Times article from last week is typical:
Some investments listed in Mitt and Ann Romney’s 2010 tax returns — including a now-closed Swiss bank account and other funds located overseas — were not explicitly disclosed in the personal financial statement the Republican presidential hopeful filed in August as part of his White House bid. The Romney campaign described the discrepancies as “trivial” but acknowledged Thursday that it was reviewing how the investments were reported and would make “some minor technical amendments” to Romney’s financial disclosure that would not alter the overall picture…. The campaign has emphasized that Romney has paid all required U.S. taxes on his foreign funds…. Among the assets omitted is a Swiss bank account in Ann Romney’s blind trust that held $3 million until it closed in 2010. The account was listed on a financial disclosure Romney filed in 2007, but it was mistakenly named as an asset held by the couple, not as part of Ann Romney’s trust. A campaign spokeswoman said Thursday that Romney will file amendments to both his 2007 and 2011 financial disclosures to correctly identify the bank account.
That account was at UBS. Pretty much anyone who follows the financial press known of the pitched battle between the US government and first UBS, then Swiss banking regulators, over Swiss bank secrecy. The US engaged in a series of prosecutions that led one UBS unit that catered to wealthy individuals to be shuttered as part of a deal in which UBS also turned over the names of several thousand US customers that the US suspected of engaging in tax evasion. This case effectively ended Swiss bank secrecy; the efforts of the Swiss to avoid divulging the names of its customers was front page news in the Financial Times for the better part of two years. This is the summary in Wikipedia:
UBS agreed on February 18, 2009 to pay a fine of $780 million to the U.S. government and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement on charges of conspiring to defraud the United States by impeding the Internal Revenue Service. Of the $780 million that UBS will pay, $380 million represents disgorgement of profits from its cross-border business; the balance represents United States taxes that UBS failed to withhold on the accounts. As part of the deal, UBS also settled Securities and Exchange Commission charges of having acted as an unregistered broker-dealer and investment adviser for Americans. The day after settling its criminal case on February 19, 2009, the U.S. government filed a civil suit against UBS to reveal the names of all 52,000 American customers, alleging that the bank and these customers conspired to defraud the IRS and federal government of legitimately owed tax revenue. The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) had given the United States government the identities of, and account information for, certain United States customers of UBS’s cross-border business as part of its criminal investigation in 2009. On August 12, 2009, UBS announced a settlement deal that ended its litigation with the IRS. However, this settlement set up a showdown between the U.S. and Swiss governments over the secrecy of Swiss bank accounts. It was not until June 2010 that Swiss lawmakers approved a deal to reveal client data and account details of U.S. clients who were suspected of tax evasion.
Let us stress: the US prosecutors were firmly of the view that the main purpose of these accounts was tax evasion. As the Financial Times noted:
Bradley Birkenfeld, Mario Staggl and “others known and unknown” were accused in the indictment, unsealed yesterday, of conspiring to defraud the US from at least 2001 by engaging in a scheme that included falsifying documents, helping to set up shell companies and destroying banking records… The indictment said while marketing their services to wealthy US clients, Mr Birkenfeld and Mr Staggl claimed that “Swiss and Liechtenstein bank secrecy was impenetrable”.
That indictment was followed by the indictment of the head of the UBS’s global wealth management business.
The Financial Times provided some details on how customers who had accounts with that unit fared:
The criminal case alleged UBS had failed to prevent a handful of private bankers from helping US clients to evade tax. The evidence showed UBS had 20,000 offshore US clients holding $20bn in assets in an operation that generated revenues of $200m a year. The disclosures included tantalising details about specially encrypted computers and training in counter-surveillance techniques for bankers before they travelled to the US. Bradley Birkenfeld, a former UBS private banker turned whistleblower, even admitted to having squeezed diamonds into a tube of toothpaste for a billionaire client determined to export assets without detection. The UBS unit concerned, which employed 60-70 bankers, has been wound down. Clients are receiving letters informing them their accounts are being closed. While those whose holdings were declared to the IRS have nothing to fear, the rest face a bleak choice. Clients who transfer their money risk leaving a paper trail that could lead to scrutiny. Even those who sit on their funds may fear questioning. The letters advise clients to seek professional advice and consider coming forward voluntarily.
The unit was shut down in early 2009, but UBS did not settle the tax-related charges until later in the year, which then set off a battle royale between the Swiss banking regulator and the US over the secrecy of customer identities. The US sought the release of 52,000 names but settled for several thousand. An adverse court ruling in Switzerland led to further machinations, and the deal was effective in July 2010.
It appears that the Romneys kept this $3 million offshore until it was clear the secrecy gig was up (note it is not clear that their account was with the unit that was targeted in the probe). Even though it is pretty unlikely that they were among the customers whose names were turned over to the US ($3 million is chump change in private banking), Swiss accounts were no longer assured of safety.
The answers given by the Romney’s financial advisor about this account aren’t entirely satisfactory. From Reuters:
Brad Malt, who oversees the Romney blind trusts, said on the conference call that Romney’s wife’s trust had a $3 million bank account at UBS AG, the Swiss banking giant. Malt told Reuters he closed the UBS account in late 2010. “I am aware that there have been some allegations recently that some Swiss bank accounts have been used to evade taxes – I would like to emphasize that this account is not … one of those,” Malt said. “I decided to remove any possible source of embarrassment,” he said, adding that “taxes were all fully paid” on the UBS account and that he closed it because “it just wasn’t worth it.” The closing of the account came amid a crackdown by the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service on Swiss and Swiss-style banks suspected of selling offshore tax evasion services to wealthy Americans. The Romney campaign said on Tuesday in an emailed response to a reporter’s queries that the UBS account held by Ann Romney’s blind trust “was set up for diversification.” The email described the account as “a passive bank account that simply earned interest. It did not make any other investments. It did not pay any bills.” The email went on to say that the account was “fully compliant with all tax laws.”
The problem is that the story does not add up. Diversification? Huh? You don’t diversify by putting money in a no-yielding cash account in Switzerland; you can hold cash as an asset class far more simply and at better returns pretty much any other way. The account earned a grand total $1.718, or.06%, in 2010; low returns were the usual tradeoff for vaunted Swiss secrecy. It might be that this $3 million was excess cash targeted for opportunistic investments and was never deployed.
So you have to assume that the Romneys did want the secrecy. After all, they were paying for it with terrible returns on their money. And if not for tax reasons, then why?
Moreover, one has to wonder whether the income from this account was reported on a current basis. The Romneys no doubt NOW paid the taxes due, query whether they paid them prior to the loss of certainty of account secrecy. The IRS launched a voluntary disclosure program in the wake of the UBS settlement, so it is possible that the relevant taxes were paid as part of that initiative, rather than on a current basis. Notice also that Romney delayed the release of his tax returns till January, and got his filings done early so he could report tax years 2011 and 2010 (I’m really impressed that someone with a tax situation as complex as his can file so early). What would his 2009 tax returns have shown? Was the Swiss account on them? (He could have amended them if they had been “missed”, but returns are seldom amended for small amounts).
Whether or not Romney has something to hide, the failure to include the Swiss account in his Federal ethics filing has him acting as if he has something to hide. Even if there was nothing technically amiss with what Romney did, having a large stash in a secrecy jurisdiction does not pass the smell test. It speaks of an intent to skirt the law even if that never actually took place.The Old and the New: SOAP and Ember.js
We don’t always get to choose the technologies we have to deal with everyday. I, for one, would love to be using an iPhone 9 right now, but it seems Apple hasn’t yet invented it. Despite it being 2014, some of us have to deal with SOAP every day and yet yearn to use some of the new technologies out there, like Ember.js.
We at Bendyworks believe in the power of leveraging existing solutions, replacing them only when worthwhile. So it goes with many SOAP implementations out there; lots of business value is tied up in these services, and it’s easy to think new technology is out of one’s reach when having SOAP in the backend.
Fear not! What follows is a relatively simple way to connect a shiny, new Ember.js front-end to a SOAP backend. The solution presented only handles SOAP in the most straightforward way. Full interaction with a complicated SOAP service is left as an exercise to the reader.
Ember Setup
Our project will use a very simple SOAP service provided by webservicex.net that returns a list of elements on the periodic table. This service is so simple that its GetAtoms endpoint only returns a list of element names. Secondary endpoints provide atomic weights, atomic numbers, and symbols and will not be covered in this article. It doesn’t make for a very cool demo, but it will certainly prove our point.
We’ll use ember-cli to set up our project:
$ ember new atomic-soap && cd atomic-soap $ ember generate resource atoms
The Model
Since our data source only provides a name, we’ll update our model as appropriate:
// app/models/atom.js import DS from 'ember-data' ; export default DS. Model. extend ({ name : DS. attr ('string' ) });
Routing
We want to auto-transition to the atoms resource we already made, and we’ll eventually want to show something about the element, assuming we had more information about it. Here’s what our IndexRoute looks like:
// app/routes/index.js import Ember from 'ember' ; export default Ember. Route. extend ({ beforeModel : function () { this. transitionTo ( 'atoms' ); } });
And here’s what our Router looks like:
// app/router.js import Ember from 'ember' ; var Router = Ember. Router. extend ({ location : AtomicSoapENV. locationType }); Router. map ( function () { this. resource ( 'atoms', function () { this. route ( 'atom', { path : '/:name' }); }); }); export default Router ;
Finally, we’ll want to load our atoms from the store, so let’s set up an AtomsRoute:
// app/routes/atoms.js import Ember from 'ember' ; export default Ember. Route. extend ({ model : function () { return this. store. findAll ( 'atom' ) } });
Templates
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the back of the keyboard deck. I wish Samsung had simply built this into the keyboard deck, because anyone purchasing the optional keyboard deck is already doing a lot with the Tab S3, and they likely need the S Pen available at all times.
Listing image by Valentina PalladinoSony was forced to take down the official PlayStation 4 gameplay trailer for BioWare's new first-person shooter franchise Anthem after receiving massive criticism.
The backlash against the video was because it was a poorly edited version of the gameplay trailer first released at E3 2017, which was running on rival Microsoft's Xbox One X.
Anthem Gameplay Trailer: PlayStation 4 Or Xbox One X?
Developer BioWare provided the first glimpse into the gameplay of Anthem through a trailer that was shown off by Microsoft at E3 2017. While highlighting the visual capabilities of the Xbox One X, the gameplay trailer revealed several things that players can expect from the first-person shooter, including various kinds of exosuits, flying through the air with jetpacks, and teaming up with allies to carry out missions. Anthem looks very similar to Bungie's Destiny, but with BioWare behind the shooter, players may expect a heavy focus on storytelling.
It was not unusual for developers to release the same gameplay trailer for various platforms, so when Sony uploaded an identical video to the PlayStation channel on YouTube, many gamers believed that it was just the same demo running on the PlayStation 4.
However, that was not the case. Viewers noticed that the video was edited to overlay PlayStation 4 buttons on the Xbox One buttons originally included in the trailer.
Editing the buttons is not a massive issue on its own, as it has been previously used in gameplay footage from other titles. The backlash that Sony received is due to the fact that the Anthem gameplay trailer from E3 2017 was running on the more powerful Xbox One X, raising allegations that Sony wanted to make it appear that the game looked just as good on the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 4 Pro.
Sony Takes Down Edited Gameplay Trailer
It remains unclear whether the edited Anthem gameplay trailer being passed off as PlayStation 4 footage was a shrewd move or an honest mistake, as Sony has not yet issued a comment regarding the matter. The video, however, has been taken down.
There is also the chance that it was Electronic Arts behind the sloppy editing, as the publisher is in charge of all the promotional materials of its games. Even if that would be the case, it is still wrong to pass off gameplay footage on the Xbox One X as that on the PlayStation 4.
Unfortunately for Sony, the edited Anthem gameplay trailer continues its recent run of bad press for the PlayStation 4, mostly surrounding the topics of backward compatibility and cross-platform play.
ⓒ 2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.An F-18 fighter jet has reportedly crashed shortly after take-off from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. Local police confirmed the pilot died at the scene.
The jet was one of six returning from combat operations in the Middle East and reportedly failed to rendezvous with a fuel tanker before the crash occurred.
A US Air Force official confirmed the crash. However, US Navy officials have reportedly claimed they had no planes in the air when the fighter jet crashed near the British base.
A United States Air Force (USAF) offical has arrived at the scene together with an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) truck and a bomb squad vehicle to examine the crash site.
UPDATE US Embassy confirm pilot killed in US F-18 jet crash in England (AP) https://t.co/BV4qJOMbS8 — AirLive.net (@airlivenet) October 21, 2015
Latest photos from US jet crash near RAF Lakenheath #Suffolk#HeartNewspic.twitter.com/9YT8zffU2s — Cambridgeshire News (@HeartCambsNews) October 21, 2015
Cambridgeshire police have confirmed the pilot was the only crew member to die in the crash.
According to Air Live, the aircraft crashed into farm land in Redmere, near the Suffolk border. Emergency services were alerted at 10.30am.
Witnesses report that they saw an explosion in the air before the aircraft came down.
One eye witness has paid tribute to the pilot who died in the crash. They told BBC News he steered the aircraft away from 20 houses to prevent others from being injured.
BREAKING: We believe that the pilot of the F-18 jet which crashed in #Cambridgeshire has sadly died at the scene after ejecting. — Eastern Daily Press (@EDP24) October 21, 2015
UPDATE F18 crash site in Redmere near Ely https://t.co/BV4qJOuAtypic.twitter.com/D7X3s2Zgj8 — AirLive.net (@airlivenet) October 21, 2015
US Ambassador Matthew Barzun has also paid tribute to the pilot.
The loss in Cambridgeshire today is terrible news, my thoughts & prayers are with all involved. — Matthew Barzun (@MatthewBarzun) October 21, 2015
“The loss in Cambridgeshire today is terrible news, my thoughts and prayers are with all involved,” he said on Twitter.
Have received update on this news. Tracking situation closely. We're grateful for everyone's concern. https://t.co/pCyrA1aL98 — Matthew Barzun (@MatthewBarzun) October 21, 2015
RAF Mildenhall said it is currently investigating the crash and response efforts are underway.
Marines aircraft down in UK STUTTGART, Germany (Oct. 21, 2015) — An incident involving a U.S. Marine Corps... https://t.co/XCz09Evwu6 — RAF Mildenhall (@RAFMildenhall) October 21, 2015
“An incident involving a US Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet, which departed from RAF Lakenheath, occurred at about 11am today near Littleport, United Kingdom,” it said in a statement.
“Response efforts are under way and the incident is currently under investigation. More information will be released as it becomes available,” it added.
‘All hell broke loose’
Local witness Patrick Turner, 72, of Redmere said he heard an aircraft, then all of a sudden “all hell broke loose.”
“I was outside in my shed and heard an aircraft coming over. All of a sudden all hell broke loose. The noise was terrible – I’ve never heard that before. I looked up to the sky but it was so foggy that I couldn’t see anything,” he told Cambridge News.
Another witness, named as Mr Turner, said he saw a “massive fireball.”
“The flames were huge. There was no way anyone was getting out of that alive. It’s certainly not the sort of thing you expect on your doorstep,” he told the paper.
“It was like something from a film.”
According to Associated Press, the US Embassy have confirmed the pilot was killed in the crash.
Despite the RAF prefix, Lakenheath is a United States Air Force base.
Emergency services are on the scene near Shippea Hill station near Ely, Cambridgeshire.
‘Unknown if pilot ejected from aircraft’
The US Marine Corps said it is still unknown whether the pilot ejected from the aircraft.
“United Kingdom authorities have officially confirmed the death of the pilot, but it is unknown at this time if the pilot ejected from the single-seat aircraft,” it said in a statement.
“The aircraft was transiting from Bahrain to Miramar in a flight of six aircraft when it crashed approximately six miles northwest of the airfield.
“The remaining five F/A-18C’s safely diverted to RAF Lossiemouth. The United Kingdom Coast Guard is currently on the scene of the crash site and is in close coordination with US military officials.
“Our deepest condolences go out to the family and friends of the pilot. The cause of the crash is still unknown.”
A parachute was found on the crash scene.
‘We want more facts’
48th Fighter Wing Commander Colonel Robert G. Novotny said he is determined to “get some more facts.”
“Friends, thanks for the private messages regarding the F-18 crash this afternoon,” he said on Facebook.
“We are hard at work coordinating with the local responders and preserving all the evidence we can.
“We will have a statement shortly but it is so dynamic right now that we want to get some more facts.”
The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather fighter jet which has been in service since 1983.
The aircraft is reported to have crashed around 6 miles north west of Lakenheath Airfield.
A Swiss F-18 crashed near the village of Glamondans in eastern France earlier in October.
We apologize for the insensitivity of our #BackToTheFutureDay post. We pulled the post in light of recent events. — U.S. Air Force (@usairforce) October 21, 2015
The US Air Force has apologized for sharing a Back To The Future tweet showing a fighter jet with flames coming from its wings following Wednesday’s crash.
The force later deleted the post and said: “We apologize for the insensitivity of our #BackToTheFutureDay post. We pulled the post in light of recent events.”
This crash comes a year after an American fighter based at Lakenheath crashed near a Lincolnshire school.
In the past hour, more police and military vehicles have arrived at the scene in Redmere.
Cambridgeshire Police said an 800m (0.5 mill) cordon will remain in place.
The case will be passed on to the coroner on Thursday. Until then, emergency services say they will remain on the site “into the evening.”At least one in 10 of UK 16 to 21 year-olds questioned in a survey admits to having a "distressing sexual problem" in the past year.
A lack of education around "issues of sexual satisfaction" is one of the causes, according to researchers.
They analysed data from 1,875 sexually active and 517 sexually inactive people aged 16 to 21.
Climaxing, erectile dysfunction and lack of interest in sex are some of the main issues.
The findings have been published in the Journal of Adolescent Health and the analysis is described as the "largest scientific study" of sexual health lifestyles in Britain.
It concluded that around one in 10 men and one in eight women aged 16 to 21 in Britain who are sexually active have experienced a "distressing" sexual problem lasting at least three months in the past year.
Among women, the most common problem reported was difficulty reaching a climax.
UK sex education is often silent on issues of sexual satisfaction Professor Kaye Wellings Report co-author
Among men the most common were reaching a climax too quickly and difficulty getting and keeping an erection.
Researchers say that failing to address problems in early adulthood could potentially affect sexual happiness and relationships in the future.
Doctor Kirstin Mitchell from the University of Glasgow is the lead author of the report and says sexual difficulties can impact on young people's sexual wellbeing in the longer term.
"When it comes to young people's sexuality, professional concern is usually focused on preventing sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancy," she says.
"However, we should be considering sexual health much more broadly."
The report found more than a third of people who reported one or more sexual problems had sought help about their sex life, but rarely from a professional.
They asked for help from family and friends or searched for advice on the internet.
Study co-author Professor Kaye Wellings, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wants sex education in schools to change.
"UK sex education is often silent on issues of sexual satisfaction, but these are clearly important to young people and should be addressed.
"Sex education could do much more to debunk myths about sex, discuss pleasure and promote gender equality in relationships."
Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeatD-Day and the Battle of Normandy
Details This publication is available upon request in alternate formats.
PDF Version By the spring of 1944, Germany had occupied France and much of the European continent for almost four years. A narrow stretch of water, the English Channel, was all that separated the German forces from Great Britain. An Allied raid on the French coast at Dieppe in August 1942 had resulted in heavy losses, particularly for Canada, but by 1944 the Allies had made strong gains against German troops in both Italy and the Soviet Union. The Allies knew they would have to defeat Germany in Western Europe to win the war and decided to mount a major campaign for 1944. Planning lasted more than a year, taking great effort and involving many elements. Ground, sea and air forces rehearsed endlessly to make sure their timing and coordination was perfect. Great numbers of troops, boats, tanks, supplies and equipment were gathered in total secrecy in southern England. Portable docking facilities were built for the supply ships to off-load their cargoes in the days after the Allies had landed. A long flexible pipe, called “Pluto,” (Pipe Lines Under The Ocean) was even built to carry fuel under the sea from England to Normandy, the region of northwestern France where the Allies would come ashore.
Fortress Europe
Even with all these preparations, the Normandy campaign would be very difficult. The shores of Northwest Europe were littered with German land mines, barbed wire, heavy artillery batteries and machine-gun nests. There were also anti-tank walls, shelters constructed of thick concrete, anti-aircraft guns and many other types of defensive positions. For these reasons, the coastline from Denmark to the south of France was known as “Fortress Europe.”
For the Allied offensive to be successful, harbours along the continent’s coastline would have to be secured for the many transport ships that would be needed to ferry food, medical supplies, weapons and fresh troops after the initial landings. As well, Allied armies would continue to need “Pluto” to help transport the fuel needed to liberate occupied Europe.
An Allied defeat on the beaches of Normandy would have meant certain disaster as there would be no way to remove troops to safety. But if the landings succeeded, the Allied forces would finally gain that all-important foothold in western Europe and a chance to liberate France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark from German occupation.
On Land, By Sea, In the Air
Allied aircraft paved the way for the landings, bombing the coastal defence in the months leading up to the attack. On June 6, 1944—D-Day—a massive Allied force crossed the English Channel to engage in Operation Overlord. Their destination: an 80-kilometre stretch of the heavily-defended coast of Normandy. There were five landing zones, given special code names: Juno Beach (Canada); Gold Beach (United Kingdom); Sword Beach (United Kingdom and France); and Utah Beach and Omaha Beach (United States).
Seven thousand vessels of all types, including 284 major combat vessels, took part in Operation Neptune, the assault phase of the D-Day offensive. Destroyers and supporting craft of the Royal Canadian Navy did their part and shelled German targets while many Royal Canadian Air Force planes were among the 4,000 Allied bombers (plus some 3,700 fighters and fighter bombers) which attacked the German beach defences and inland targets.
More than 450 Canadians parachuted inland before dawn on June 6 and engaged the enemy. A few hours later, some 14,000 Canadian troops began coming ashore at Juno Beach in the face of enemy fire. Their mission: to establish a beachhead along an eight-kilometre stretch fronting the villages of Courseulles-sur-Mer, Bernières-sur-Mer, and Saint Aubin-sur-Mer. Once secure, the troops would push inland to capture the city of Caen, an important communications centre for the Germans.
A Hard-Won Victory
Many Canadian soldiers in the Normandy campaign were young and new to battle, but their courage and skill meant they often helped lead the Allied advance against a determined enemy. Canadians soon captured three shoreline positions on D-Day and established themselves near the village of Creully, but this was to be only the beginning of the struggle to liberate France. Savage fighting in Normandy continued and grew even more intense as Canadian forces faced powerful German Panzer tank divisions in the struggle for Caen.
Through the summer of 1944, the fighting continued through choking dust and intense heat. The conditions were terrible and the enemy was ruthless, but the troops moved forward. Canadians played an important role in closing the “Falaise Gap” in mid-August as the Germans finally retreated in the face of the Allied offensive. On August 25, 1944, Paris was liberated by the Allies, bringing the Normandy campaign officially to a close.
Sacrifice
Against difficult odds, the Canadians advanced against the best troops the enemy had. Victory in the Normandy campaign, however, would come at a terrible cost. Three hundred and forty Canadians were killed on Juno Beach on D-Day alone and the Canadians would suffer the most casualties of any division in the British Army Group during the Battle of Normandy. More than 5,000 made the ultimate sacrifice, losing their lives, and lie buried in a place far from their homes and loved ones. Others returned home with injuries to body and mind that they carry to this day.The developers of the GNU Project Debugger (GDB) have released version 7.6 of their tool. Among GDB's new features are native as well as target configurations for ARM's new AArch 64 architecture and the addition numerous new commands and options.
Users can now set and show print type methods and print type definitions as well as the size of the trace buffer, as well as toggling debug settings for aarch64, coff-pe-read, mach-o and notification. Another important change is that target record has been renamed to target record-full. The newly added target record-btrace command uses hardware support to record the control flow of a process.
The developers have also put quite a bit of work into the new version's Python scripting: GDB 7.6 supports Python 3 and, for example, allows vectors to be created via gdb.Type.vector; the new gdb.Architecture class exposes GDB's internal representation of the architecture in the Python API. Types can also be pretty-printed by Python for better readability. The Frame.architecture method can now return the gdb.Architecture object that corresponds to the frame's architecture.
The added native configurations in GDB 7.6 are ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux, FreeBSD/powerpc, 86_64/Cygwin and Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux. New target configuration are ARM AArch64, ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux, Lynx 178 PowerPC, x86_64/Cygwin, and Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux. Further information on the new version of the de-facto standard debugger for Linux systems can be found in the release announcement. GDB is available to download from the project's FTP server and is licensed under the GPLv3.
(fab)Picks 1 through 3 can be found here, and 4-8 can be found here
#9- Deron Williams
40.7% FG, 84.3% FT, 2.1 3PG, 3.3 RPG, 8.8 APG, 4.0 TO,1.2 SPG, 0.4 BPG, 21.0 PPG
Deron Williams kills you in the stats he isn’t good at and he kills it in the stats he is good at. Since his days in Utah his field goal percentages have been absolutely terrible. Last season with New Jersey he averaged 34.9% shooting over twelve games. This year he averaged 40.7% over 55 games. An incomplete season and awful shooting on 17.5 attempts. He led the league in turnovers and to cap it all off he played a season low minutes since his rookie year.
Risky right?
Well nothing is set in stone until the free-agency period ends, and odds are he won’t be a Brooklyn Net next season. For now though he’s a Net, so let’s pretend that he’s a Net next season too. This year he made 2.1 threes per game, a career high despite his drop in field goal percentage. As the only reliable scoring option his points per game also went up while his assists took a hit.
For the sake of Deron Williams I hope he leaves the Nets for a better team, his assists dropped like a stone when he was in New Jersey so it would be nice to see him back on a team that can put the ball in the hoop.
#10- Carmelo Anthony
43.0% FG, 80.4% FT, 1.2 3PG, 6.3 RPG, 3.1 APG, 2.6 TO, 1.1 SPG, 0.4 BPG, 22.6 PPG.
The New York experiment has failed.
After bringing in piece after piece after piece the Knicks still don’t seem to be winning at the pace their roster suggests they should. The return of Lin may bring the Knicks back to prominence but it is hard to pin much hope on a pair of knees that gave out after a month of play.
Anthony is an absolute beast on the offensive end, the only other person who can score as easily as him is probably Kevin Durant. That’s why it’s surprising to see his points per game fall by nearly 4 a game while still shooting around the clip per game. He has been a better 3-point shooter but that can be chalked up to his increase in three-point attempts as well. If you shoot more you’re bound to get one in right?
Carmelo still rebounds and assists well and he keeps his turnovers reasonably low for his usage rate.
The state of the Knicks is in a flux right now, I expect them to make some more moves to get the perfect team. Will Carmelo Anthony be a part of it? Most likely, but, it’s the other parts that will determine his fantasy value.
#11- Andrew Bynum
55.8% FG, 69.2% FT, 0.0 3PG, 11.8 RPG, 1.4 APG, 2.5 TO, 0.5 SPG, 1.9 BPG, 18.7 PPG
Andrew Bynum put together a career year this season. Nominated to be the starting center of the Western All-Star Team, many people felt that he should be taking the game-winning shots instead of Kobe.
Bynum gives you stellar big man numbers. Excellent field goal percentages, double digit rebounds, and well-above averages in blocks and points.
Some people think that he may be on his way out of Los Angeles to make room for an even bigger Magical center, and if that were to happen his usage in Orlando would sky-rocket. However you always have to be aware that his knees aren’t in the best shape. He has only played a single full season in his second year and since then he has missed 130 games over 5 seasons. He did look very-good on court this year though and dominated in the paint.
Next to Dwight Howard, Andrew Bynum is the best pure center in the game. If you get a late draft pick and like building around big-man numbers then you better get your hands on Andrew Bynum. Just cross your fingers that he doesn’t try to go all Ray Allen on you.
#12- Al Jefferson
49.2% FG, 77.4%FT, 0 3PG, 9.6 RPG, 2.2 APG, 1.0 TO, 0.8 SPG, 1.7 BPG, 19.2 PPG
Al Jefferson puts up amazing numbers while never really hurting you anywhere. He doesn’t get any threes but we can let that slide considering the position he plays.
After missing much of the 08-09 season from injury, Jefferson has come back strong to play consistent minutes without missing many games. The best thing about Big Al, is that he averages just a single turnover a game. For someone who scores at that rate while still managing to throw in a few assists, it’s really amazing that he is able to do that. An increase in free-throw percentages really put the icing on the cake and the fact that he is only 27 this year puts him at his prime.
Rumours that Paul Millsap is on his way out only boosts Jefferson’s value on the Utah Jazz. Although incredibly underrated, Al Jefferson gets my pick because of his ability to do everything efficiently under the radar.
AdvertisementsThe hacker who claimed responsibility for both the Gamma Group and Hacking Team breaches has struck again, this time sending €10,000 (about £8,000) of allegedly stolen Bitcoin to Rojava, an autonomous region in northern Syria that they described as "one of the most inspiring revolutionary projects in the world today."
The hacker, who goes by the pseudonyms "Phineas Phisher," "Hack Back!" and "@GammaGroupPR," declined to name the victims of the heist, saying he'd "rather not yet, since there's hopefully a few orders of magnitude more on the way."
If true, Rojava could soon be the beneficiary of a cool million in Bitcoin.
Rojava is one of the most inspiring revolutionary projects in the world today. I just donated 10000€ in bitcoin https://t.co/2ubZctplSy — Hack Back! (@GammaGroupPR) May 5, 2016
Considered by neighbouring Turkey as a haven for the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers' Party, a group designated by the US State Department as a "terrorist organisation" which seeks to create an independent Kurdish homeland, Rojava is not, on closer inspection, that easy to pigeonhole.
An in-depth investigation by The New York Times last year found stark contrasts with ISIL/Daesh, with whom Rojava are at war, including a constitution that mandates gender equality and freedom of religion.
Cut off from foreign trade by the conflict with ISIL/ISIS/Daesh and a hostile Turkey, the region is struggling to feed itself, and seeks donations to purchase farm equipment, according to their crowdfunding page.
“We are currently extremely busy and it is sometimes hard to get online, this being a warzone and all,” Deniz Tarî, from Rojava Plan, told Ars by e-mail. “You can see the payments made to our campaign on the campaign page. You can also check our Bitcoin address, which is public.”
The page lists a €10,000 donation by "Hack Back!". The Rojava Plan's Bitcoin address received a 25 BTC transaction timestamped 2016-05-05. At current market prices that's around €10,000 or £8,000.
“And for what we will do with the money,” Tarî added, “you can also check our campaign page where we have a rough description of where the money is going.”
The crowdfunding campaign has received just over €26,000 at the time of writing, and includes a plan to purchase, among other things, two trucks, a small bulldozer, and a hangar. Their stated goal is to recycle human and animal waste as ecological fertiliser for the region’s wheat farms.
"They're in an incredibly difficult situation, with ISIS on one side and US ally Turkey embargoing and attacking them on the other," the hacker told Ars. "Yet, in a part of the world the West likes to look down on as a backwards shithole, they're building a society that takes ‘Western’ values like democracy and feminism to lengths that put the West to shame. All while fighting ISIS and winning, unlike the US trained and supplied Iraqi army."
The hacker donated the money not only to support Rojava, but also to draw media coverage to the region, which he said too often defaulted to a "gimmicky article about women fighting ISIS, headlined by a picture of a hot chick with a gun."
Instead, he argued that Rojava should be compared to "other libertarian revolutions or attempts such as anarchism during the Spanish Civil War [1], the Ukrainian Free Territory [2], the Paris Commune [3], autonomous Shinmin [4], a small glimmer of hope from inside the empire [5] [the Seattle General Strike of 1919], APPO [6], CIPO-RFM [7], or the Zapatistas [8]."
Rojava stretches along the Syrian-Turkish border for 400km or so, and is bounded to the south and west by the Euphrates River and to the east by Iraq. The region also includes the northwestern tip of Syria. The two parts are separated by around 100km of ISIL-controlled territory.
The US is not a fan. In March of this year, US State Department spokesman John Kirby told Reuters that "We don't support self-ruled, semi-autonomous zones inside Syria. We just don't."
To others, though, Rojava is on the cutting edge of progress. "What you are doing is a unique experiment that deserves to succeed," Raymond Joliffe (Lord Hylton), a member of the UK House of Lords, said during a 2015 visit, according to The New York Times.
In a moment of snark, Phineas Phisher told Ars:
If you do talk about [Rojava's] politics, misrepresent them as a Kurdish nationalist movement fighting to establish a Kurdish state. Because of course a neoliberal "democratic" state is what any freedom loving people would want. Ignore the fact that while mostly Kurds, there's a variety of ethnicities, religions, and languages in Rojava. Absolutely do not mention words like "democratic confederalism," "direct democracy," "anticapitalist," "feminism," "social ecology," or "libertarian socialism". Remember, according to Fukuyama we've reached the "end of history." And according to Thatcher, "there is no alternative." That depends on you not talking about the alternative.
David Graeber, a professor at the London School of Economics, who visited Rojava in December 2014, agreed with the hacker's analysis that the region bears strong resemblance to past anarchist movements. The difference, he told Ars, was that in this case "they're a radical anti-authoritarian movement that's also militarily super-effective."
However, Graeber dismissed the idea that the funds would be used for something other than purchasing farm equipment. "They have dire economic needs," he said, but "militarily they are already getting what they need from the US and Russia, even though neither will admit it."
Graeber also noted that Rojava "captures most of their weapons from ISIS because they're much better fighters."
Tarî emphasised that Rojava Plan is not part of the region’s military.
“We are part of the economic committee and do civil projects not military ones,” Tarî told Ars. “If we get the one million euros [which Phineas Phisher has suggested he will donate] we would use it to fund our other projects that we want to do such as the Kurdish Ubuntu distro and earthbags for construction.”Insects like all creatures have preferences in what they like to eat. Yellow Jackets, for example, are very attracted to sweets, while mosquitos are very attracted to humans. Since some insects eat very specific plants or prey, they must have a way to distinguish one taste from another. While insects don't have tongues the way humans do, when they ingest a solid or liquid they are able to sense it's chemical make up. This ability to sense chemicals is what makes up an insects sense of smell.
How Insects Taste
An insect's ability to taste works in much the same way it is able to smell. Special chemoreceptors in the insect's nervous system trap chemical molecules. The chemical molecules are then moved and placed in contact with a dendrite, a branching projection from a neuron. When the chemical molecule contacts a neuron, it causes a depolarization of the neuron membrane. This creates an electrical impulse that can travel through the nervous system. The insect brain can then direct the muscles to take appropriate action like extending a proboscis and drinking nectar, for example.
How Insects Sense of Taste and Smell Differ?
While insects probably don't experience taste and smell the same way humans do, they do react to the chemicals they interact with. Based on the insect behavior researchers are confident in saying insects do smell and taste. In the same way that the human senses of smell and taste are connected so are insects. The real difference between an insect's sense of smell and sense of taste lies in the form of the chemical it is collecting. If the chemical molecules occur in gaseous form, traveling through the air to reach the insect, then we say the insect is smelling this chemical. When the chemical is present in a solid or liquid form and comes in direct contact with the insect, the insect is said to be tasting the molecules. An insect's sense of taste is referred to as contact chemoreception or gustatory chemoreception.
Tasting With Their Feet
Taste receptors are thick-walled hairs or pegs with a single pore through which chemical molecules can enter. These chemoreceptors also called uni-porous sensilla, they usually occur on the mouthparts, since that's the part of the body involved with feeding.After three seasons of working as an analyst for the FOX Sports Midwest pregame and postgame shows, Edmonds is moving to the broadcast booth, where he'll work alongside play-by-play announcer Dan McLaughlin for 30 regular-season games.
JUPITER, Fla. -- Having spent his career analyzing the game from his position in center field, eight-time Gold Glove winner Jim Edmonds is now poised to offer his insight from a new perch, as a member of the FOX Sports Midwest broadcast team.
JUPITER, Fla. -- Having spent his career analyzing the game from his position in center field, eight-time Gold Glove winner Jim Edmonds is now poised to offer his insight from a new perch, as a member of the FOX Sports Midwest broadcast team.
After three seasons of working as an analyst for the FOX Sports Midwest pregame and postgame shows, Edmonds is moving to the broadcast booth, where he'll work alongside play-by-play announcer Dan McLaughlin for 30 regular-season games.
"I'm excited because it's something different. It's a challenge," said Edmonds, who is serving as a guest instructor for the Cardinals at Spring Training. "I have to figure out how to approach it. I'm just going to try to do the best I can. I'm going to try to bring a different take."
The addition of Edmonds is part of a shuffle designed to help the Cardinals' Radio Network fill its analyst spot on the road now that Mike Shannon will be broadcasting only home games. Rick Horton will take Shannon's place alongside radio play-by-play man John Rooney on the road, leaving him with a smaller slate of TV games overall.
Al Hrabosky and Tim McCarver will also rotate in as analysts alongside McLaughlin throughout the season. Edmonds will maintain his in-studio presence as well, as FOX Sports Midwest has him lined up to serve as the pregame and postgame analyst for approximately 20 other games.
Edmonds, who admits that he never envisioned a post-playing career as a broadcaster, did work as a game analyst once last season, when FOX Sports Midwest stationed him just beyond center field. Offering insight from that spot, he complemented the two-man broadcasting team calling the game.
"Having played the game at an All-Star level, and at a different position from our other broadcasters, he delivers unique insights," said Jack Donovan, FOX Sports Midwest senior vice president and general manager. "We're excited to add him to our lineup in the booth."
Edmonds is slated to get some practice this spring by calling five Grapefruit League games for FOX Sports Midwest; he'll be in the booth for the first time on March 9. He is also preparing for the new role by reaching out to various broadcasters for advice. Joe Buck is among those Edmonds has already talked to about the craft of calling game action.
"Hopefully, I'm not just a one-dimensional person that has an expertise in one field," Edmonds said. "I know a little bit about every position on the field. I played all three outfield positions. I played first base. I was in a lot of pitchers' meetings and catchers' meetings over the years. And I was a hitter. I think that will help me. I have a lot of knowledge about what's going on. And I'm still learning. I have always paid attention to every aspect of the game."ESPN Bears reporter Jeff Dickerson discusses why the Chicago Bears decided to hire Marc Trestman as head coach over Bruce Arians in 2013. (3:22)
LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians said Wednesday he was surprised the Chicago Bears did not hire him in January of 2013.
"Yeah. I was [surprised]," Arians said on a conference call with Chicago media members.
"I thought when I left, I said, 'I don't think anything could've been any better throughout the whole day.' And I didn't look back thinking I did anything wrong in any way. It was just their decision."
The Bears (0-1) welcome Arians and the Cardinals (1-0) to Soldier Field on Sunday.
Instead of tabbing Arians -- now a two-time NFL Coach of the Year -- to replace longtime coach Lovie Smith, former Bears general manager Phil Emery settled on Montreal Alouettes coach Marc Trestman. That decision backfired. The Bears fired Trestman (13-19 in two years) and Emery following the 2014 regular season.
Bruce Arians was hired by the Cardinals as their coach, but he said he's surprised the Bears didn't hire him first. Matt Kartozian/USA TODAY Sports
But Arians has no regrets over the Bears' decision. The veteran coach quickly landed on his feet in Arizona, where the Cardinals have gone 21-11 (one playoff appearance) in the past two years.
"The Bears were the first ones to put paperwork in for me, so that was the first interview I gave," Arians said. "I felt very comfortable; I thought it was a great organization, Phil and all the guys there, Mr. McCaskey -- they were great. It was a day I felt went very well and they made a decision and I went on with it."
Arians welcomed the opportunity to coach Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, who is now playing for his fifth offensive coordinator and third head coach since 2009.
Arians and Cutler met for one hour during the interview process, an experience Arians has fond memories of.
"Cutler is a passionate guy that wanted to win, you know," Arians said. "I think he gets misunderstood a lot. We spent a good hour together, and I was very, very impressed with him.
"Sometimes when you care a lot, your |
it safe for everyone to attend school and feel good in their bodies," she says.
But the presence of feel-good politics in college classrooms concerns some scholars, who worry about promoting acceptance and tolerance at the expense of hard academics. Anna Kirkland, an associate professor of Women's Studies and Political Science at the University of Michigan, is a supporter of Fat Studies, but fears it may lead to social proselytizing rather than serious study. "I'm not interested in areas of study whose main justification is that they're going to advance the situation of some social group," she says. "I mean, that's fine if that's part of the reason. But the main reason should be intellectual interest and energy cohering around a single topic area."
In an article published last year on CampusReform.org, Abigail Alger, a manager at the Leadership Institute in Washington D.C., wrote that the subject is "part of a dangerous dumbing down of liberal education in which the pursuit of knowledge is replaced by frantic social programming and promotion of state programs." The discipline, Alger argued, doesn't encourage open debate, but instead "begins with the end in mind," and brands as a bigot anyone who disagrees.
Members of fat academia have noticed the scarcity of plus-size silhouettes on campus—particularly in exclusive private schools, where Fat Studies is most likely to be taught.
At this point, at least, students seem to be just as much on the fence about the practical value of Fat Studies as the academic community. One senior in Johnson's class who asked not to be named said she thought that Fat Studies was extremely interesting and important, but that it didn't make a big difference in her everyday life. "I personally don't know anyone that's really obese," she said.
Nor, in fact, do many college students. As it stands, most fat activists still don't consider college to be a "weight-safe" environment. Fat undergraduates often experience subtle forms of prejudice that most people tend not to notice, from tiny wooden desks that won't fit their bodies to sidelong stares whenever they visit the student fitness center. Some—like Margitte Kristjansson, a Fat Studies graduate student and alumna of the University of Washington—will voice their concerns to administrators, but many fat students would rather suffer in silence than spotlight themselves by speaking up. "It's definitely harder to be a fat student on campus, when you don't yet know that you deserve respect in the same way that any other student would," Ms. Kristjansson says.
This may explain, at least in part, why there seem to be so few overweight and obese undergraduates enrolled in universities today. Recent studies have shown that body-consciousness can not only hurt academic performance in high school, but can also deter fat students from applying to college, and from receiving adequate help and attention from teachers and college advisers. The exact amount of attrition is impossible to pinpoint, but members of fat academia have noticed the scarcity of plus-size silhouettes on campus—particularly in exclusive private schools, where Fat Studies is most likely to be funded and taught. "The more elite a campus is, the fewer people you will see who are anything but ideal weight," says Rothblum, explaining that in addition to being daunting to fat students, top-tier schools tend to attract applicants from stronger socioeconomic backgrounds, who are much less likely to be overweight.
If marshaling the troops is the goal, then Fat Studies still has a long way to go. Linda Gokee-Rindal, a senior and fat activist at the University of Minnesota Duluth, knows that firsthand: she gave a presentation last month on campus about the politics of body acceptance, and could feel some members of her audience bristle. "I presented it from a fat activist perspective, because that's what I know—and a few people weren't comfortable with that," she says.
That resistance may eventually fade if Fat Studies takes root on campus. But if that's going to happen, slender students may need to turn up the volume of their support for the subject. "For members of any oppressed group, the ones who are allowed a foot in the door are the ones who look as mainstream as possible," says Rothblum. If that's the case, then the fat-exclusive movement that Johnson once faced could be a thing of the past. What fat activism needs now, it seems, are a few small waistlines.
Eve Binder is a senior at Yale University. She currently serves as managing editor for the college blog IvyGate, and has written for Time Out New York and The Deal.Today we rolled out a small update to Battlelog with some tweaks and fixes, mainly focused on dog tag presentations. Full details below.
Battlelog December 3 change list
Fixed the Scavenger mode Battle Reports to properly display team information
Restored previous dog tag sorting order as the alphabetical sorting introduced in the last Battlelog update was unintentional
Fixed dog tag “Expansions” filter not showing Aftermath dog tags
Added an “ALL” button to the new dog tag filter options for the “Types” selection. Known issue: The Premium and Expansion filter options do not return all the dog tags associated with this filter — This will be resolved in a later Battlelog update
Fixed homepage CO-OP button that was not working as intended
Fixed chat window boxes not getting proper focus when opening them
Fixed some weapons showing as locked with a negative unlock score amount left (some weapons might still have this behavior – we are working on a fix)
Fixed equipment stats not showing up correctlyA New York Times report Saturday detailed President Donald Trump’s complicated relationship with TV news and his heavy consumption of it.
People close to Trump estimate that he spends “at least four hours a day, and sometimes as much as twice that, in front of a television,” sometimes on mute, “marinating in the no-holds-barred wars of cable news and eager to fire back.”
Trump reportedly begins his day around 5:30 each morning tuning into TV in the White House’s master bedroom. He flips to CNN for news, moves to “Fox & Friends” for “comfort and messaging ideas,” and sometimes MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” because it “fires him up for the day.”
Aides also monitor “Fox & Friends” in the morning “the way commodities traders might keep tabs on market futures to predict the direction of their day.” They’ve learned that if Trump does not immediately tweet about “something memorable” on Fox, he may be saving it for later viewing on his “Super TiVo” recorder and instead watch MSNBC or CNN live—both of which put him “in a foul mood to start the day.”
These habits set the stage for how the “ammunition for his Twitter war is television.”
In Trump’s world, “no one touches the remote control” except for himself and the technical support staff. He reportedly “keeps an eye on scrolling headlines” on a 60-inch screen during dining room meetings.
As he watches the news, he “shares thoughts with anyone in the room, even the household staff he summons via a button for lunch or one of the dozen Diet Cokes he consumes each day.”
However, Trump doesn’t like being viewed as someone who watches so much TV that it “reinforces the criticism that he is not taking the job seriously.”
NYT notes that during his recent trip to Asia, Trump was told of a list of 51 fact-checking questions for this article, including one about his “prodigious television watching habits.” Trump then pushed back on the assertion—and slammed the media while at it.
“I know they like to say—people that don’t know me—they like to say I watch television,” Trump said. “People with fake sources—you know, fake reporters, fake sources. But I don’t get to watch much television, primarily because of documents. I’m reading documents a lot.”
Trump’s constant need to consume TV is reportedly chronic enough that one former top adviser told NYT that he “grew uncomfortable after two or three days of peace and could not handle watching the news without seeing himself on it.”
NYT’s insider look into Trump’s TV news consumption habits comes the same day he railed against CNN and ABC over erroneous reports.On Monday, ESPN suspended SportsCenter co-host Jemele Hill for two weeks after she took to Twitter to recommend fans who disagreed with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ stance on kneeling during the national anthem—Jones said that Cowboys players who “disrespect the flag” will not play for his team—should boycott the Cowboys’ advertisers. Regardless of whether you agree with ESPN’s decision or Hill’s statements, her suspension demonstrates how America is far more equipped to silence black voices than address our complex racial dynamics.
ESPN stated that the suspension was due to a second violation of their “social media guidelines,” and that employees will be punished for tweets that “may reflect negatively on ESPN.” Last month, Hill drew considerable heat when she called President Donald Trump a “white supremacist” on Twitter, but no apparent disciplinary action was taken.
In light of Hill’s tweets from last month, the White House has been on a crusade to silence Hill and further politicize the NFL. In the middle of September, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders recommended that ESPN fire Hill over her “white supremacist” tweet.
Later in the month, during a rally in Alabama for Republican Senate candidate Luther Strange, President Trump further escalated tensions when he said, “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’”
At the same rally, Trump advocated that his supporters respond to NFL players taking a knee by staging their own protest and leaving the stadium.
The weekend after Trump’s “son of a bitch” comments many NFL players, coaches and owners showed unity and defiance toward Trump’s inflammatory statement by collectively taking a knee during the national anthem. Cowboys owner Jones even took a knee with his players.
Many viewed this act of unity as a progressive step in the right direction for the embattled NFL, but Hill’s suspension and the politically charged events that preceded her suspension demonstrate how the inherent hypocrisy of white privilege can be used to silence black voices and divide America.
When America praised members of the NFL community for taking a knee to object to Trump’s comments, we changed the discussion from one about racial oppression and police brutality into one about the socially acceptable parameters for taking a knee during the national anthem. White owners and black players taking a knee together to stand up to hurtful comments by the president had now become socially acceptable, and apparently not as “disrespectful” to the flag as black players taking a knee to protest police brutality and the killing of African Americans by law enforcement.
Without batting an eye, America had again normalized the oppressive status quo of requiring African Americans to obtain the approval of a white American to express their First Amendment rights. A black protest that had earned the approval of white Americans had become far more socially acceptable than a black protest without a thumbs up from white America. And not surprisingly, white approval only extended to issues that did not substantially impact the black community or challenge a white dominated status quo.
At this point, the meaning and the merits of the protest had become irrelevant, and the only thing that mattered was if the protest had obtained the white seal of approval. And by minimizing the original purpose of the protests, America further opened the door for other voices—most significantly Trump and his divisive rhetoric—to redefine the meaning and motivations of black players taking a knee.
According to Trump, and many of his supporters, black players took a knee to “disrespect the flag” or “disrespect the military,” and the voices of the black players remained essentially meaningless or illegitimate unless they stopped protesting or found a reason to protest that most of white America could approve of.
Obviously, the NFL was not going to protest the president every weekend, so the specter of black players protesting police brutally remained despite one weekend’s show of unity. Since Trump’s bully pulpit exceeds the NFL’s and the Republicans most likely won’t impeach Trump due to tweets that, “may reflect negatively on” the United States, he has a greater license to disseminate racially divisive rhetoric that aims to silence black voices.
Last weekend, Jones and Vice President Mike Pence—who flew across the country specifically to protest against African Americans who took a knee during the national anthem—became pawns in the racially divisive game Trump remains hell-bent on playing, which he articulated in Alabama.
And the complexity of Hill’s, those of black NFL players, and other African Americans who want to speak candidly about racial injustice extends beyond politics, and into the workplace. America has long condoned a business culture that concentrated power at the top and gave employees few protections.
Historically, this structure has marginalized minorities and relegated them to low-paying jobs, but now that things have begun to change many voices argue that minorities should be appreciative of their new bounty and remain silent. Minorities who challenge this political and business status quo by discussing civil rights and racial injustices, face the threat of lost employment, and the widespread misrepresentation and demonization of their actions.
The hypocrisy and dangers of white privilege allows for Trump to embolden a movement about stopping peaceful black protestors and “respecting” the American flag by appealing to Confederate sympathizers in the South. It allows for Trump to organize a peaceful protest and a boycott while also demonizing protests and boycotts organized by African Americans.
President Trump and his friendship with business leaders like Jones has rekindled the American formula for silencing and demonizing black voices. Political and economic pressure forced Colin Kaepernick out of the NFL, and countless NFL players confront the same threat. Hill’s tweets do not trouble African Americans, but they do peacefully challenge a white dominated status quo, and as a result, her career hangs in the balance, as American politicians and business leaders seek to silence her voice.The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is seen to welcome more foreign players into the local banking system, as the Philippines’s financial industry remains a prime destination for international banks. Foreign banks also seem to make local banks “work harder” to improve their services, a Central Bank senior official said.
Since the full liberalization of the local banking sector to foreign players in July 2014, foreign banks, particularly those coming from the region, have been coming to the Philippines either to set up branches or to come in as stakeholders to existing local banks.
In particular, the Central Bank has already granted nine foreign banks licenses to operate in the local banking system since July 2014 with the passage of Republic Act 10641.
Earlier, the Central Bank said more foreign banks are to enter the Philippines this year; about six more, in particular, have expressed their intent on establishing and operating in the Philippines.
BSP Deputy Governor for the Supervision and Examination Sector Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. said the Central Bank expects the Philippines to continue to attract a lot of foreign banks, despite global volatilities this year—as the local scene comes from a position of strength and opportunity.
PHL’s lure
“The Philippines is an attractive market, because we are one of the fastest-growing economies, relatively big domestic market, young and upwardly mobile, and relatively underbanked. We also have large financing needs for infrastructure and other investments,” Espenilla replied to the BusinessMirror’s query.
Earlier this year international credit watcher Fitch Ratings lauded the Philippines for taking the “biggest steps” toward banking integration in the region, setting the country apart from the rather “slow and uneven” progress the region is making toward a unified financial sector.
The credit watcher noted the Philippines’s steps toward banking-sector liberalization, saying the country has one of the largest strides toward the Asean banking integration framework (ABIF)—or the initiative which envisions qualified Asean banks to eventually be allowed to operate freely in the region.
Fitch particularly noted the Philippines’s legislative move to allow full entry of foreign banks to the local sector through the removal of the cap on foreign ownership of banks, as signed by former President Benigno S. Aquino III.
Local benefits
The entry of foreign players in the country proved to bode well thus far to local players, easing earlier concerns that bigger regional banking giants will crowd out local financial institutions once they set up their operations on shore.
In Fitch’s most recent report of the Philippine banking sector, the credit rating agency said the influx of more banks would help improve the overall system of the banking industry in the Philippines.
“We believe the entry of well-managed foreign banks expands the system’s capacity to fund growing trade and investment needs, and enables potential knowledge transfer in areas such as risk management, project finance and systems,” Fitch Ratings said.
Espenilla added: “These resources are not just funding, but also managerial, technology, product innovations and market connections. These help a lot because the country remains underbanked.”
“The new players also bring healthy competition that makes our incumbent domestic banks work harder, innovate, improve their services and lower prices,” he said.
FDI
The deputy governor also said the entry of foreign banks promotes more foreign direct investments (FDI), in addition to their own investments, by attracting their business customers at home to come and do business in the Philippines. The new foreign players also bring in additional resources that expand and improve the capability of the banking system.
Latest data from the Central Bank shows FDI growing by about 25.4 percent from January to November 2016 to reach $6.97 billion in the first 11 months of last year. This is a leap from the $5.56-billion FDI seen in the same 11-month period in 2015.
The BSP said the rise in FDI was buoyed by investors’ confidence in the economy on the back of sound macroeconomic fundamentals and sustained growth potential.
In 2015 the Philippines had the lowest volume of FDI as compared to its counterparts in the Asean-5 bloc—with Singapore leading at $65.33 billion FDI of the year. This is followed by Indonesia with $20.22 billion, Malaysia with $10.96 billion and Thailand with $9 billion.
The Philippines’s FDI total in 2015 was at $5.84 billion.
While the Philippines is lauded for being one of the front-runners toward full Asean banking integration, the rest of the region, according to Fitch, remains slow in development.
‘Distant goal’
In particular, Fitch said full financial integration looks like a “very distant goal”, as initiatives from different jurisdictions in the bloc have been uneven and slow, with further moves projected to remain at a gradual pace.
“Bilateral deals have been slow to get off the ground. Malaysia and Indonesia have signed an ABIF agreement and others are being negotiated, but the bigger moves toward regional financial liberalization will be happening outside of the ABIF framework,” the credit watcher said.
For the Philippines, meanwhile, the BSP has already signed bilateral agreements with the central bank of Malaysia, marking one of the first bilateral agreements to be signed under the ABIF.
This particular agreement, according to Fitch, will allow for three new qualified Asean banks (QABs) to enter and operate in the local economy.
QABs are strong and well-managed banks, headquartered in Asean and majority owned by Asean nationals. Banks that apply for QAB status must be endorsed by the home country regulator and may be accepted by the host country regulator based on their bilateral agreement.
The Central Bank earlier said it is on its way to inking two more bilateral agreements with neighboring countries with regard to the guidelines allowing the entry of regional banks into the local industry.
The BSP, in particular, bared that it is about to initiate formal discussions with the Bank of Thailand and with the Otoritas Jasa Keuangan, or OJK, of Indonesia under the same ABIF guidelines as that of the country’s bilateral agreement with Malaysia.Britain helped to capture one of the leading opponents of the Gaddafi regime before he was sent back to be tortured in Libya, according to a secret document discovered by The Independent on Sunday in the offices of Moussa Koussa, then Muammar Gaddafi's spymaster.
London's involvement in the rendition of Abdel-Hakim Belhaj, currently the military commander of rebel forces in Tripoli, is revealed in the letter from an MI6 officer. In it, he reminds Mr Koussa that it was British intelligence which led to the capture of Mr Belhaj, then leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, before he was sent to Libya in the rendition process by the Americans.
The senior UK intelligence official, whose identity is not being revealed by The Independent on Sunday for security reasons, then sought information obtained from the Islamist leader by "enhanced interrogation technique". Mr Belhaj had revealed that he was tortured during questioning.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
The letter refers to Mr Belhaj by his nom de guerre, Abu 'Abd Allah Sadiq, and reads in part: "The intelligence about Abu 'Abd Allah was British. I know I did not pay for the air cargo [Mr Belhaj]. But I feel I have the right to deal with you direct on this and am very grateful to you for the help you are giving us."
The senior UK intelligence official wrote: "This was the least we could do for you and for Libya to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built over recent years... I was grateful to you for helping the officer we sent out last week. Abu 'Abd Allah's information on the situation in this country is of urgent importance to us."
So close had the relationship become that several Western European intelligence agencies were using the services of MI6 to approach the Libyans for help with their own terrorist suspects. The Swedish, Italian and Dutch services sought the help of the UK agency in liaising with Tripoli. A sign of the warmth of the relationship between British intelligence and their Libyan counterparts is shown in the stream of letters from London to Tripoli, headed "Greetings from MI6" and "Greetings from SIS".
Although the documents, which we have not been able to independently verify, relate to the years when Tony Blair's government was in power, they threaten to undermine the UK's relations with the new Libyan administration, the Transitional National Council (TNC). Last night one Conservative MP accused Blair's government of "aiding and abetting" the Gaddafi regime.
Most of the papers were found at the private offices of Moussa Koussa, the foreign minister, regime security chief and one of Gaddafi's chief lieutenants, on Friday afternoon. Rebel fighters had been inside the building and paperwork was strewn on desks and the floor amid broken glass. The building was locked up on the orders of the TNC yesterday morning.
Mr Koussa, who defected after the February revolution and spent time in the UK, left to take up residence in the Gulf after demands that he face police questioning over the murder of Libyan opposition figures in exile, the Lockerbie bombing and the killing of the policewoman Yvonne Fletcher. In a sign of the importance of the British connection, MI6 merited two files in Mr Koussa's office, while the CIA had only one. UK intelligence agencies had played a leading role in bringing Gaddafi's regime in from the cold.
The documents reveal that British security agencies provided details about exiled opposition figures to the Libyans, including phone numbers. Among those targeted were Ismail Kamoka, freed by British judges in 2004 because he was not regarded as a threat to the UK's national security. MI6 even drafted a speech for Gaddafi when he was seeking rapprochement with the outside world with a covering note stressing that UK and Libyan officials must use "the same script".
The Libyan government sought the services of British intelligence in attempting to block asylum applications by opponents of the regime. One document, regarding an application for refuge by a man with the initials SRA-Z (name withheld by The IoS for security reasons), led to a response from British officials. "It is not the practice of the UK government to comment on possible asylum cases."
However, the intelligence agency then sought to gain information about the applicant. The letter, addressed to "Dear Friends", said: "We are sorry we can't be more helpful in this case but we must comply with this practice. We... would welcome hearing from your service why you are interested in Mr A-Z so we could consider what action we might wish to take should we become aware of him."
Other documents show urgent requests for information about Abu Hamza al-Libi, said to be a senior al-Qa'ida operative who had travelled to the UK from Italy and the Netherlands to collect forged UK passports destined for Iran. Al-Libi was suspected of being involved in a plot to carry out a cyanide attack in Rome in 2002. He was detained in Britain, but freed in January 2010. He is believed to have died in a motorbike crash in London eight months later.
Ben Wallace, a Conservative MP, said the last government should be made to answer publicly for "conspiring" with Gaddafi's regime. The former military intelligence officer said: "Giving countries like this information they can use to oppress their people and break international law amounts to aiding and abetting the Gaddafi regime. We need to get to the bottom of how far British officials and ministers went to assist the Libyans to do their job of suppressing their own people. We might hand information like this over to our allies, but we would be confident they would use it lawfully. You can't have that confidence with Gaddafi."
Britain's extraordinary rekindling of relations with Libya did not start as Mr Blair sipped tea in a Bedouin tent with Gaddafi, nor within the walls of the Travellers Club in Pall Mall – although this "summit of spies" in 2003 played a major role. It can be traced back to a 1999 meeting Mr Blair held with the man hailed as one of the greatest to have ever lived: Nelson Mandela, in South Africa.
Mr Mandela had long played a key role in negotiations between Gaddafi, whom he had hailed as a key opponent of apartheid, and the British government. Mr Mandela first lobbied Mr Blair over Libya in October 1997, at a Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Edinburgh. Mr Mandela was pressing for those accused of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing to be tried outside Scotland. In January 1999, Mr Mandela, during a visit by Mr Blair to South Africa, actively lobbied the PM on behalf of Gaddafi, over sanctions imposed on Libya and the Lockerbie suspects.
UN sanctions were suspended in April 1999 when Gaddafi handed over the two Lockerbie suspects, including Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was eventually convicted of the bombing. Libya also accepted "general responsibility" for the death of Yvonne Fletcher. Both moves allowed the Blair government to begin the long process of renewing ties with Libya.
Within a couple of years, the issue of persuading the Gaddafi regime to turn itself from pariah into international player surged to the forefront of the British government's agenda. It was during this time, according to the documents found in Mr Koussa's office, that MI6 and the CIA began actively engaging with Libyan intelligence chiefs. But it was a key meeting on 16 December 2003, at the Travellers Club, that would put the official UK – and US – stamp on Gaddafi's credibility. Present were Mr Koussa, then head of external intelligence for Libya, and two Libyan intelligence figures; Mr Blair's foreign affairs envoy, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, and three MI6 chiefs; and two CIA directors. Mr Koussa's attendance at the meeting in central London was extraordinary – at the time he had been banned from entering Britain after allegedly plotting to assassinate Libyan dissidents, and so was given safe passage by MI6.
Mr Koussa's pivotal role at the Travellers Club casts light on how, following his defection from Gaddafi's regime during the initial Nato bombing campaign earlier this year, he was able to slip quietly out of the country. Two days after the 2003 meeting, Mr Blair and Gaddafi held talks by telephone; and the next day, 19 December, the announcement about Libya surrendering its WMD was made by Mr Blair and President Bush.
In March 2004, Mr Blair first shook hands with Gaddafi in his Bedouin tent. The pair then met again in May 2007, shortly before Mr Blair left office.
Downing Street and the doctorate
Tony Blair helped Muammar Gaddafi's son and heir, Saif al-Islam, with his controversial PhD thesis while at the London School of Economics, new documents unearthed in Tripoli revealed last night.
The former premier sent Saif a personally signed letter on Downing Street headed paper – addressed in his own handwriting to "Engineer Saif" – which thanked Saif for showing him "your interesting PhD thesis". The letter was written on 5 March 2007, two months before Mr Blair's second meeting in the Libyan desert with Colonel Gaddafi.
Mr Blair helped Saif on a number of points, including offering examples of co-operation between governments, people and business "that might help with your studies". Saif Gaddafi later gained a PhD from the LSE in 2008. It was claimed that Saif, who donated £1.5m to the institution, plagiarised large parts of his work.
Yet a spokesman for Mr Blair last night denied that the ex-PM had seen the thesis "in full or in draft form" and said that officials had drafted the letter.
The spokesman added: "Tony Blair didn't see Saif Gaddafi's thesis in full or in draft form. What he did receive was a letter from officials for him to sign, which was entirely appropriate.
"Saif Gaddafi wrote to Downing Street. He did not send in his thesis. Officials drafted a reply that the Prime Minister signed. That was the entirely appropriate way to handle the correspondence."
Saif Gaddafi, who also has links to Mr Blair's ally Peter Mandelson, was seen as his father's successor before the regime fell. Just days before the rebels seized Tripoli, he turned up in the middle of the night in front of TV cameras claiming his father's forces had overcome the advance.
Jane Merrick
Timeline: From Lockerbie to Martyrs' Square
21 December 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Lockerbie, killing 270 people
November 1991 US and UK accuse Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah of being responsible.
April 1999 UN sanctions on Libya suspended after suspects handed over
31 January 2001 Megrahi found guilty and jailed for life, Fhimah cleared. Foreign Secretary insists "no deal" with Libya on Megrahi's sentence and "full sentence will be served in a Scottish prison"
2002 CIA and MI6 begin active engagement with Libyan intelligence agents
15 August 2003 Libya officially accepts responsibility for Lockerbie and agrees to compensate relatives of the victims
16 December 2003 Senior Foreign Office, MI6, CIA and Libyan officials agree deal to bring Libyain from cold at the Travellers Club in Pall Mall
24 March 2004 Blair offers Gaddafi "hand of friendship" during talks in a tent outside Tripoli
May 2007 Blair meets Gaddafi again for talks in Libyan desert
21 October 2008 Megrahi has advanced-stage prostate cancer
25 July 2009 Megrahi asks to be released from jail on compassionate grounds
20 August 2009 Scottish government releases Megrahi
15 February 2011 Arrest of human rights campaigner in Benghazi sparks wave of protests
27 February 2011 Blair calls Gaddafi twice to ask him to stop the slaughter of protesters
17 March 2011 UN no-fly zone authorised over Libya. Two days later Britain and France begin bombing military targets
22 August 2011 Rebels take Tripoli, including Green Square (now Martyrs' Square). Gaddafi's whereabouts unknown
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Subscribe nowEDINBURG, Texas — Teams of gunmen have been running rampant in various communities near the Texas border, storming into homes demanding drugs or robbing victims at gunpoint.
In one night, a team of hooded gunmen carrying rifles stormed at least three homes, assaulting the victims inside while demanding cash or drugs. Just one day later, a team of gunmen shot a robbery victim and led authorities in a high speed chase and managed to flee.
Information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office revealed that the attacks began on Sunday late night and continued onto early Monday morning where–in a span of hours–the gunmen struck three separate homes and unconfirmed information points to a possible fourth being ransacked.
In the first attack, three hooded gunmen stormed a house in a rural community near this border city. The gunmen ordered the family inside to get down on the floor while they looked for drugs. The gunmen stole various electronic items from the house.
Less than 30 minutes after the first robbery, authorities responded to another rural home near the border city of Mission. In that attack, the gunmen stormed into the house and struck the homeowner of the house in the head with one of the rifles. The gunmen demanded drugs as they kicked him several times in front of his family. The gunmen also stole various electronic items from the house.
About two hours later, authorities responded to a third home invasion where a team of five hooded gunmen stormed a house. The homeowner told authorities that he woke up to seeing the team of gunmen in his house. While no one was injured in that attack the gunmen stole a television on their way out.
The latest attack took place on Tuesday night when a team of gunmen riding in a dark colored SUV ambushed, robbed and shot a 36-year-old man as he was leaving a convenience store in the rural border town of Donna.
The victim was able to provide a description of the vehicle and the gunmen. Sheriff’s deputies spotted a vehicle matching the description shortly after and with the help of Texas State Troopers tried to pull it over. The gunmen managed to elude capture by driving at high rates of speed through rural neighborhoods. The shooting victim is listed as being in stable condition at a local hospital and is expected to recover.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project and you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.On the 29th of August I gave a presentation at Compose :: Melbourne about Plasma's goals and ideas, how it is different from many other functional languages and the current status of the project. Now that the video has been made available it is now easy to show other people, people who couldn't make it to Melbourne, the presentation.
The bibliographic information for this presentation is: P. Bone Plasma Programming Language Compose :: Melbourne Conference Aug, 2016
After the presentation I received plenty of positive feedback and some questions and had quite a few interesting discussions with various people. I still need to talk with Lee naish some more about resources. My favorite feedback however was someone calling out "Plasma Rocks!" in my direction as our paths crossed at the after party. I don't know who this was or what they liked about it in particular, but I'm pleased that they liked it so much the felt the need to call out.
If you have any feedback about the presentation or Plasma itself I'd love to hear from youHits: 353
Hi readers today we go through the most worst topic in the world that is civil war. It is possible here to give no more than a brief summary of how different historians have interpreted the causes of the Civil War over the past one-hundred and thirty plus years,
Worst Civil Wars Around The Countries. So let’s see the most worst civil war around the countries and also see the fatalities of civilians and soldiers.
Lets start Worst Civil Wars Around The Countries
Taiping Rebellion(1850-1864): China
The Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) was the largest of several major rebellions that threatened the Qing dynasty in the middle of the nineteenth century. As the Taiping army spread through China, it destroyed more than 600 cities. Historians estimate that between 20 and 30 million people died. The Taiping rebellion was the world’s bloodiest civil war. Lasting for 13 years from 1851 to 1864. Almost every citizen of Taiping was conscripted.
Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990): Lebanon
The Lebanese Civil War was a conflict fought in Lebanon from 1975-1990, with approximately 120,000 casualties. The civil war was finally settled in October 1989, under an accord of national reconciliation, negotiated by members of the Lebanese Parliament under Arab auspices in the town of Tai’f, Saudi Arabia. During the war approx 1500,00 people were die and 9,00,000 fled away from the country.
Mozambican civil war(1977-1992): Mozambique
The civil war between the Frelimo government and the Renamo rebels, which left at least one million dead and brought the country to its knees. During the civil war, religious activism re-emerged with a vengeance. 3 million people fled and 6,00,000 died when war erupted following Independence from Portugal.
English civil war(1642-1651): Britain
The basic causes of the English Civil War were lack of money, religion, foreign affairs and the struggle between the monarchy and Parliament. The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists, royalist was the supporter of a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. Religion was a major cause of the War. It was part of a Europe wide conflict between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Ultimately led to the execution of Charles I & 8,68000 people was dead.
Second sudan civil war(1983-2005): Sudan
The Second Sudanese Civil War was a conflict from 1983 to 2005 between the central Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. The two civil wars of Sudan (1955-1972 and 1983-2005) have been primarily understood as conflicts between the dominant Arab Muslim North and the less developed Christian an traditional African South. The sudan’s people liberation movement rose up against the sudanese government
Chinese civil war(1927-1950): China
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought from 1927 to 1950. Because of a difference in thinking between the Communist Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT). Ideological war between nationalist party and people’s liberation army led by Mao Zedong.
Spanish Civil War(1936-1939): Spain
Spanish Civil War Conflict developing from a military rising against the republican government in Spain. 5.00.000 people |
death penalty for those who insult Islam, as well as the imposition of stricter Islamic education Image copyright Reuters Image caption Police used tear gas, rubber bullets and, in this instance, a broken piece of brick against protesters Image copyright Reuters Image caption The government, which describes Bangladesh as a secular democracy, has rejected the demands of the group previous slide next slide
Hefazat-e Islam - a coalition of around a dozen Islamist organisations - is seeking to impose a stricter form of Islam on Bangladeshi society.
The movement, which draws its strength from the country's madrassas, or religious schools, has issued a 13-point charter of demands, including greater segregation of men and women.
Its opposition to a national development policy for women has angered women's groups.
The government, which describes Bangladesh as a secular democracy, has rejected Hefazat-e Islam's demand for a new law on blasphemy.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said current legislation was adequate.
Muslims make up nearly 90% of the country's population, with the rest mostly Hindus.During a live interview immediately following Tuesday night’s election results, Newsweek contributor Andrew Sullivan told Comedy Central’s faux conservative pundit Stephen Colbert that Republican strategist Karl Rove’s head actually “exploded” live on Fox News when the election was called for President Barack Obama.
“Karl Rove is demanding a raincheck,” Sullivan quipped. “Right now, Karl Rove is challenging Fox News’s own polling unit and telling them they’re wrong.”
RELATED: Karl Rove in denial and arguing with Fox News as election called for Obama
“What do you think happens to Karl now?” Colbert replied. “He promised my billionaire friends…”
“His head just exploded,” Sullivan said, grinning.
“He promised a bunch of billionaires that if they gave him $300 million he would deliver [a win against] Obama,” Colbert said. “Does he have to go into, like, the witness protection program now?”
“Sheldon Adelson poured millions into six races and lost all six of them,” Sullivan noted. “Money is not everything.”
This video is from Comedy Central, aired Tuesday, November 12, 2012.Previous Next
“Why me?” Mary asked.
Evette lay on the bed, working hard to breathe. Her vision had cleared up from what it had been, but that only let her see just how extensive the damage was. In the gloom, tubes ran in and out of Sylvester’s chest, leading to an external heart that lay on the table, pumping its mechanical rhythm. The heart was flesh and bone, the bone shell encapsulating the upper left quarter and the bottom right. With every beat, the corners of the two quarters clicked together faintly.
Two men were in the room, a rebellion doctor that stood by the window, smoking, and a soldier who had positioned himself by the door, so he could read by the shaft of light that came in through the crack in the door.
“You’re working on making us available to you again,” Mary said.
“Yes,” Evette murmured.
“You could have picked anyone else for this. But you picked me.”
“The mission comes first,” Evette said. “And you won’t lose track of that.”
Mary, faceless and distorted around the edges, standing in the dark, turned her head, taking in the room.
“Right?” Evette prompted Mary.
“Yes.”
Mary seemed angry, but Evette wasn’t willing to push it or wonder why.
Better to muster her forces. Hours were passing, she was supposed to be checking in to rescue Shirley, and instead she was lying in a bed in a dark room with rain pattering against the window. Men’s voices in other rooms suggested an ongoing discussion between Mauer and his men. She couldn’t make out the words, or really distinguish Mauer’s voice from the others, but one speaker’s voice definitely set the pace for the others. There were longer pauses following it as others considered their words, and nobody interrupted or jumped in to add their thoughts to the tail end of any statements.
As discussions went, it was serious and methodical.
Mary spoke, looking in the general direction of the group of men in the other room, “Mauer isn’t cooperating. I’m not sure there is a mission at this point.”
Evette looked at the shadowy lump that was the mechanical heart. It didn’t keep as steady a rhythm as she would have liked, and it made her feel particularly out of sorts as she felt her pulse maintain a different course than her thoughts and feelings did.
“All part of the plan,” she murmured.
“No it isn’t,” Mary said.
“Don’t be that way, hon. You and I, we can learn to dance,” Evette said. “We could have gotten along.”
“There’s something Sylvester and I share in common,” Mary said.
“Yeah. Fine. I get it.”
“If you’d existed, Sylvester wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have.”
“I get it. Lordsy. So you’re keeping me at arm’s length. Fine.”
“And I’m not going to let you pretend. No lies. No disruption. If we do this, we’re going to do it right. I can stand separate and do that because there was never going to be a Mary and Evette. Gordon and Evette? Yes. Helen and Evette? To be sure. But our stories never converged. I was a bad seed and you were the problem solver. At best, you would have killed me.”
“No lies, no disruption. I can try that.”
“Shirley is a priority.”
“Not that I’m arguing, but I didn’t expect that from you. You’re not exactly the warmest or softest.”
“I have my weak points.”
“Lillian. But Lillian isn’t here, nor is she even liable to find out. I can’t imagine that you’re representative of any part of Sylvester that’s compassionate. Not given who you are, where you come from, and how you operate.”
“No,” Mary said. “But we made a promise. We hold to that. Sylvester did when he promised Lillian and Emily that he would kill the Baron.”
“And you’re that?” Evette asked. “That drive?”
“I don’t know,” Mary said. “I don’t think it’s that cut and dry. But maybe a part of me doesn’t want to be used by someone I can’t respect.”
“Percy? No, this is his thought process too. Him and the Academy. You represent that too, even going back to the night he shot you in the knee. I knew my instincts were good when I turned to you. You won’t let us take any garbage from Mauer, either. You don’t like being manipulated.”
“We don’t mind being manipulated if it’s someone we respect,” Mary said.
Evette cocked her head to one side. That line bore some thought. It was true, in a way, but at this stage, there was nobody they respected and trusted enough. Could there ever be? Was it part of why they didn’t want to get involved with Fray?
Did it color their interaction with Mauer?
Looking across the room, she saw the soldier with the book wasn’t reading, but was staring at her. Was it her little head movement that had drawn his attention?
Mauer’s men were good at what they did. Alert and effective.
He lowered his lead, facing his book, but she was pretty sure that, in the gloom, he wasn’t taking his eyes off her. Still watching.
“We’ll need help,” Mary said. “Work on bringing back the others.”
“Not like I can do anything else,” Evette muttered.
Helen first. Helen was safe, predictable as an element. Stable, and relatively unchanging over time. Her act had become more refined, less like a mask she wore, but the monster beneath the skin was more or less the same.
That monster was angrier now, bloodier, more dangerous. But more or less the same. The same measures worked for winning her favor and for staying out of her clutches in the here and now as the measures and safety protocols of four or five years ago.
Jamie was next. Jamie the younger, the one she’d seen as she had blacked out. One of the few old memories that Sylvester held onto with any ferocity or clarity.
She was working on Gordon when the door opened.
Mauer stood there. Two piping hot mugs of tea were in the palm of his oversized hand, which he held with his other hand to keep steady.
“You’re awake,” he observed, as he crossed the room.
“Yes,” she said.
“He’s been awake for some time,” the doctor said. “He’s been talking to himself under his breath. Incessantly.”
“Fever? Infection?”
“No, and no. Nothing physiological, I don’t think.”
Psychological.
Evette raised her head up to look at Mauer as he came to stand beside her bed. He took care in lowering a mug of tea to the bedside table, just beside the artificial heart, before lifting the other with his good hand.
“If you would, Mackenzie, would you help him sit up? I don’t want to speak to someone that’s lying down.”
Silent, the soldier by the door rose to his feet, put his book down, and walked around to the other side of the bed. He put one arm under each of her armpits and raised her up, propping up pillows behind her.
“Thank you,” Mauer said. “I’d like to speak to him alone, now.”
“Shall I guard the door?” Mackenzie asked.
“You can. You can listen in and interrupt if you think I’m in danger. But give us the illusion of privacy in the meantime,” Mauer said.
The soldier gave him one short nod, then left the room, closing the door behind him.
Evette reached out for the mug, but the handle was too hot to hold. Mauer had held the cups in the one hand? Was it supposed to be a show of strength, or did he just not care?
“You know what I’m going to ask,” Mauer said. “You’ve been talking to yourself, so I would think long and hard before happening to lose your voice now. I’ll end you if you try to be clever.”
Evette nodded.
“Speak,” Mauer ordered.
“I left West Corinth because I broke from the Lambs. I came here because one of them, a new Lamb, he’d been taken as a child, and unlike many others, unlike…”
She hesitated. Would it be see as a trick to imply she wasn’t Sylvester?
“…Me,” she decided, “he remembered details. He was taken and he remembered what people said. And what they said was that the children went to Gomer’s Island. A number of them. To something called the Block.”
Mauer nodded.
“Strip away everything else I am, everything I’ve been cultivated to be, everything I want to be, and I’m always going to look out for the children. I’m always going to protect them, and shelter them. I tried to set something up in West Corinth…”
The ‘I’ here was Sylvester. Evette wasn’t so invested in it. It made her sound, she realized, very insincere.
“I hope it works,” she said, without passion. Maybe the fact she was relying on an artificial heart to live would explain it.
“If you’re trying to distract me-”
“No!” Evette interrupted. Then, thinking about her position, she softened her voice. “No. It’s just, it was my motivation for coming here. I was intercepted by the nobles. Brought before the Infante. Then things spun out.”
“I almost believe you,” Mauer said. He lifted the tea to his mouth to drink, swallowed as a kind of punctuation, then added, “Almost.”
She reached for the mug at the bedside table. Still too hot to touch.
“What else do you know?” Mauer asked.
“Not much at all. It was a lead, a starting point. I wanted to get away, to focus on something else. In the last moments, when I thought you finished me for good, I wanted to… to communicate it. To not let that thread go untied.”
Mauer walked around the bed, over to the window. With the lights on inside, it would have been hard to make out the world beyond the thick, rain-streaked glass. He stared out at the dark city, drinking his tea.
He was taking his time to answer.
“You know something about it,” she said.
Mary, Helen, and Jamie all watched the man with keen interest.
“I chased down that thread,” Mauer said. “That winding road was what led to me meeting with Genevieve Fray in the first place. Not so long after the mass sterilization and the chemical leash was inflicted on the public. We found two parts of the same lead and followed it. Oddly enough, it started with you.”
“Me?” Evette asked.
“The Lambs. You uncovered Percy’s plot to seed the upper class with sleeper agents, children who would be programmed to kill their parents, he fell into Cynthia’s clutches. Percy found me. Genevieve found Cynthia.”
Evette nodded.
“From there, we started discussing ideas and priorities. It eventually led to the meeting at Brechwell. The one you joined.”
Evette didn’t interject. She wondered if her selection of Mary had had some prey instinct feeding into it too. Some subconscious connections pointing to Percy being relevant, and thus Mary being key.
Mauer turned around. He leaned against the thickest branch that supported the window, and sipped at his tea.
“You appear slated to walk this path, Sylvester Lambsbridge,” Mauer said. “Every time the topic is raised, you appear as part of the greater picture.”
“Maybe,” Evette said. She picked up her tea, avoiding the tubes and the beating heart, shifted position, and sipped at it.
“Maybe,” Mauer agreed.
They drank their tea, each thinking about what to say next. Mauer seemed very relaxed, not inclined to be aggressive or counterattack. It made her uneasy, because he had seemed agreeable before, before he had turned on her.
Maybe he knew that.
Outside, something screeched. The screech took on a different sound as the source drew near, moving very quickly, before it flew past the window, making the entire building shudder fractionally. The screech took on a different tone as the creature started moving away rather than moving closer.
“A small war started somewhere in this country,” Mauer observed, glancing at the window. “Hundreds or thousands will die because of it. People will lose loved ones. The Crown will, if they don’t win outright, at least take an eye for an eye.”
“But you intend to fight that war? You sacrificed soldiers to kill nobles.”
Mauer drew in a deep breath. “You’re right. It seems to be an undeniable reality. They can never lose. I thought, if they would kill one of ours for every one of theirs we killed, we could at least ensure we killed their best. My comrades and soldiers are prepared to fight on that sort of battlefield, with those sorts of rules. But when it came to Fray, I saw her maneuver against the Academy as a net victory for her. Do you understand? I thought perhaps we had a way of hurting them more than they hurt us. She and I thought that Gomer’s Island was one of the best ways to achieve that.”
“What is it that makes the island special?” Evette asked.
“Imagine that New Amsterdam encapsulates the whole of the Crown States, if you will. Imagine that it is representative of everything from west coast to east, arctic circle to the southern border.”
“I can do that,” Evette said. She held her tea in both hands now.
“Gomer’s Island is the rebellion, in the midst of that expanse. Small, isolated, an ongoing rebuke. A condensation of the Lughs and Wickerhills, the Sudburys and the Lonshires, a place where the stubborn, the pious, and the recalcitrant reside. A pocket of resistance. It has taken many forms over the years, but the name should tell you what it is. Gomorrah. It is a heretical place.”
“I don’t understand.”
“New Amsterdam is a contradiction. It paints itself as one thing while giving evidence to another. In religion in particular, in a city where the Crown should have more control than anywhere else, it has the most faithful. Gomorrah is where the faith is so often centered. They name themselves as a place of sin and wrongness as an ongoing rebuke to the Crown and the Academies.”
“And the Crown allows it?”
“The Crown fosters it. Gomorrah is a feast laid out for the faithful, with poisoned dishes scattered across the table. For the starved, and the people are starved, it’s impossible to ignore. But partaking leaves one vulnerable.”
“And the missing children find their way there?”
“Found. Genevieve and I followed the thread to its conclusion years ago, and it was a trail that ended in Gomorrah. I still keep an eye out for any clues that might allow us to pick it up again, any detail we might chase down. I still hold hope that we could find another way to attack the Crown.”
“There are the children, too,” Evette said. “The ones that are being preyed on. That’s more important than finding a way to hurt the Crown.”
“There will be children who suffer for as long as the Crown lives and the workings of the Academies march forward.”
“There will always be a Crown and always be an Academy,” Evette said.
“And we have a circular argument,” Mauer said. “One I’ve had with myself. Give me a choice of saving children and hurting the Crown or the Academy, and I’ll choose the latter. Their abuses and wrongs will cause more harm in the long run.”
There was a bitter, angry note to his voice.
He sounded spent.
Powerful, dangerous, but there was a faint ragged edge to the tail end of his words that suggested he’d talked himself raw over the past day.
“I don’t think I can agree,” Evette said. She started to speak, then stopped herself. She had to weigh her words before speaking again. “Jamie and I spent the winter and some of the spring in Tynewear.”
“Jamie. He died of plague, according to my intel.”
Evette nodded.
“My condolences.”
She smiled sadly. The condolences stung, given how Sylvester might well have lost Jamie forever, given how things stood. He had lost the Lambs.
“We spent our time plotting how best to hurt the Crown. We weighed plans of attack, and decided our priorities. Given the choice, I think Sylvester would choose to spare children before he chose to hurt the Crown and Academy.”
“You referred to yourself in the third person again.”
She closed her eyes, cursing to herself.
“Go on,” Mauer said, glossing over the misstep.
“You spared us because you thought we might give you that lead. We haven’t.”
“You haven’t.”
“You haven’t stayed here, dug, searched, or targeted people. You haven’t gone door to door, searching for answers. You said it yourself. You wrapped up things in pursuing this, and then you went to Brechwell.”
“Nothing so tidy as that, but yes,” Mauer said.
“If it’s so important, then why didn’t you keep looking?”
Mauer didn’t volunteer an answer.
“Or did you make the choice? Leave that behind, wage your war, eye for an eye, breed your primordials, and start targeting nobles with those guns of yours?”
Mauer tippd his teacup back. He didn’t stare at Evette, or at anything in particular. His gaze fixated a distant point.
“Because-” Evette said, before stopping herself. A doubt in the back of her mind told her to stop talking. It was a hard voice to listen to. The phantoms around her weren’t strong enough or complete enough to jump into the discussion and make her stop, either. “Because those guns, right now, they aren’t helping you much, in the grand scheme of it all. This is their battlefield. The costs you’re paying are too great. They adapt to any challenge they’re faced with.”
She expected him to argue. To tell her something about how he could adapt too, or about the choice he’d made and the rationale for it. He was a clever enough man to come up with good reasons, and he was talented enough to frame them in a clever argument.
Instead, however, he simply said, “I can show you.”
☙
Mauer hadn’t joined her in this particular carriage. The beasts that pulled the carriages were unrecognizable, reminiscent of the primordials, but stable, unchanging. Simply ugly, irregular, vat-grown life, with the strength of ten mules and mass enough to bully their way through the streets. Not that Mauer or his people had them do so. The drive was quiet, dark and placid, navigating a loose tide of carriages, carts, wagons and the rare automobile.
They moved onto a bridge. The water over the side of the bridge was only darkness, the sky’s canopy obscured by stars. It was a bridge lit by lamps that were positioned such that they weren’t reflected in the water. A glowing structure that seemed to cross nothing but void.
Something about the mood changed as they entered another part of the city.
People were outdoors, in the rain, gathered in groups. The number of Academy-created monsters increased dramatically from the already dramatic totals in New Amsterdam proper, with seemingly no group going unescorted.
Familiar, that.
There were more churches here. More religious symbols. On the rarer occasions where a carriage or cart with a lamp mounted on it passed close to a wall, Evette could see the graffiti, and much of it was religious.
A bastion of faith in the heart of the Crown States, but it was an insecure faith. Mauer had elaborated on it some as they had made their way down the stairs to the carriages, but had refused to provide information or influence her expectations about what was to be found there.
According to Mauer, this area was littered with hidden traps. Academy agents posed as the faithful and found their way into groups. There were entire groups that were Academy sponsored, that invited people in, catered to them for months and years, building trust enough to draw in others, before collapsing in on them. The people were killed or happened to disappear.
The wider streets were brightly lit, with stores and buildings on each side, with one in five being a church. But their destination was not on a wider street. They went somewhere where there were few lights at all, where the streets were narrow, and where parked carriages and garbage here and there made them even harder to navigate.
Their destination was a proud looking building, with pillars and broad steps, windows that nearly reached from the floors to the ceilings, and five stories of height. The carriage stopped. Evette climbed out, and Mauer climbed out of a second carriage, which had been following.
There were no lights on, so they took the lanterns from the carriages and brought them with them. Evette walked beside Mauer, the tubing and artificial heart slung over one shoulder and packed into a bookbag she wore.
Mauer’s men opened the front doors, which were unlocked. They entered the hall proper.
A library without books.
Evette looked around, noting the dust. It was thick, and none of the weather that had blown in through the cracks in the glass had really disturbed it, except for one hallway that had patterns like sand dunes forming in the stuff.
The shelves formed something of a maze.
“Almost weeks before we arrived, there was an event,” Mauer explained. “A great many figures were in attendance. If you saw the Infante and his doctors, and all the other doctors that spend time in his proximity, then you would know what they were like. Scholarly men and women in their finest dress, many wearing stylized lab coats. They came here. Men and women brought trays of food and alcohol.”
Evette looked at the rows an columns of shelving, and the shelves that lay against the wall, to either side of the windows.
“Later in the evening,” Mauer said. He reached a set of bookshelves that rested against the wall, found a catch, and then hauled on one shelf with his oversized arm, before switching to his good arm to haul on the next shelf. They swung away, hinges screaming their rusty cries. “The doors would open. The partygoers would make their way to the Block.”
The Block was downstairs. The set of stairs leading down was wider than any of the hallways at Lambsbridge orphanage had been long, leading into a basement.
Evette saw the first of the corpses, lit by the lantern.
She saw the next, all tangled together, arms and ribs interlocking, making it impossible to see where one of the skeletal remains ended and the next began. Not because they were modified. No, they had simply been embracing as they’d died, huddled together. The bodies had collapsed into each other.
Behind Mauer and Evette, Mauer’s men ignited lanterns and lit candles. Slowly, the area grew lighter. Slowly, Evette, being sure to keep the light behind her, was able to make out the details.
Bodies littered the area.
Mauer was a man of words, very effective words, but he’d been unable to convey this scene. It was something he’d needed to show, not tell.
The corpses had dessicated, or been devoured by bugs and by vermin. There were so many, dropped where they’d stood, crumpled on the floor in awkward positions.
“The Block, based on what I was able to find out,” Mauer said, “Was an event held at this location once every two weeks. We counted the bodies of at least eighty children and twenty grown adults here. Our doctors tested the remains and it suggested they were all drugged to be complacent. One by one, they would have their numbers and ratios rattled off, along with grades for psychology, wellness, nutrition, and more.”
We came from a place like this. Sylvester did. Jamie did.
“After each one had their numbers read out, the bidding would start. They would be dragged away, very frequently to be experimented on. Modified. Quotas for the best, the healthiest, the brightest, all were demanded and met. Money changed hands, and that money went to the Academies and the Crown, with a share going to procurers. An endless supply of test subjects, fed through this engine.”
Evette looked around. She could see the bodies, and she could easily imagine it was a hundred.
She could imagine it was more.
“You’re clever enough that I’m sure you can figure out what Genevieve and I figured out,” Mauer said.
The count was wrong, her gut told her. Then, as she looked at some of the bodies, she realized that there were piles that were misleading. A pile of two adults could easily look like three children.
But she saw the black fabric of a lab coat, and she moved it, looking closer at the long-decayed corpse, all bone and dried-on tatters of flesh that the mice and rats hadn’t elected to eat.
Academy people had died too?
She looked around at the bodies, and she realized what had unfolded.
“They killed them all,” she said. “All of the children. All of the adults. And then they killed themselves?”
“Yes,” Mauer said. “The bodies were still cooling when we made our way down here.”
She could look at Mauer, and because he wasn’t trying to hide it, because the pieces were all there, and because he’d hinted at it, she could see how it all came together.
“They killed all of these people, then themselves, all because you came looking? Burning bridges before you could cross them?”
“Yes,” Mauer said, sounding very tired again, even as he tried to put a kind of emphasis on that.
It was, in a word, the end of the story Mauer had been trying to tell her. The final stroke of the picture he’d painted before her.
“No leads? No clues?”
“Some,” Mauer said. “We chased down what we could. There were two, with one we intended to hold in reserve.”
“In reserve? Then this trail isn’t cold.”
“It’s very cold, as trails go.” Mauer said. “There were two people who knew the full story about how this worked, and just why they had a protocol like this in place. One of the two people was the Duke of Francis. I put a bullet in him, destroying his brain. Word from within the Infante’s castle is that he drools and doesn’t eat unless a tube is pushed into his throat.”
“Leaving one person,” Evette concluded. Her mind caught up, drawing connections. Whisperings of the word ‘Noble’ found their way from Jamie’s mouth to her ear. “Oh.”
“The Baron Richmond,” Mauer said. He knelt, his hands moving in a gesture of supplication before he touched a child’s skull, one that had been picked clean by vermin. He took a moment, praying silently, then stood. “You utterly destroyed the man, and with that, you left Genevieve and I with no people to chase, and no people to interrogate. I’d happily spared him in hopes of getting answers at a later date. Not so. I thought I had time to apply pressure on him.”
“Not so,” Evette echoed Mauer. She felt a damaged, non-functional, broken heart plummet into her stomach. The false heart in her bag continued to pump away.
Evette looked at Mary, who stared down at the bodies.
“Percy led you here. He bought from this place, once.”
“He had a friend from the days he attended Radham, who gave him access. It was a way for him to get the funds he needed to maintain his enterprise. Given the chance, Genevieve hoped to slip into their ranks and observe things herself. We never got that far.”
“Sylvester asked the Baron, once, about what happened to the children,” Evette said.
“Did he? What did the Baron say?”
“The Baron laughed, and took this to his grave. I think he liked the idea we’d find our way here, and we’d stumble on this scene, or one like it. Maybe the bodies would still be warm.”
Mauer was only half listening. One of his men had approached, and now whispered in his ear.
“I have to go,” he said.
Evette nodded.
“It would be hypocritical to blame you for your part in this when I had the other lead killed. I believe you when you say you want to solve this particular riddle. My only concern is that you will get in my way. Swear to me that you won’t, and I’ll leave you here, to make your way.”
Evette couldn’t swear it. Not without consideration.
She looked down at the sea of bodies, dropped where they stood.
“I want you to comb this place for evidence. I want you to find what you can, Sylvester. To share the information, or even covet it for yourself. Search out answers elsewhere. Whoever bought from this place years ago has found a new place to go for the purchase of test subjects. I want you to find them, if you can. You could do it with my blessing. I want to let you. But I need you to promise you won’t get in my way.”
She was being asked to make the choice.
She nodded. “I won’t.”
“I wish you the best of luck, then.”
She remained in the graveyard, watching as Mauer and his men made their way up the steps to the library. In a minute, they would be getting into their carriages, riding off to fight the next battle in an unwinnable war.
Evette spoke to her phantoms. “Two different people were able to find this place, but something was important enough to keep under wraps that they had loyal Academy people kill themselves.”
“It doesn’t add up,” Jamie said.
Evette shook her head.
She moved her hand from behind her back. Her fingers were crossed. She uncrossed them.
She looked at each of her phantoms in turn. She stopped by meeting Mary’s eyes.
“You don’t intend to keep your promise of leaving him alone,” Mary said.
“Not at all,” Evette said. “Does that bother you? I know promises are important to you.”
“Promises from the heart are important to me,” Mary said.
Evette nodded. “Let’s go save Shirley, then. And see if we can’t get my actual heart working again, without them asking too many questions.”
Previous NextThis week’s Podcast comes to us from Dustin Zahn. A bad ass behind the decks, and in the studio since 1998, his productions have found their way onto some of the bigger techno labels as well as more obscure imprints. You can find Dustin’s releases and remixes on popular record labels such as Drumcode, Droid, Rekids, CLR, Mindshake Records and Audio Assault to name a few.
His always evolving techno sound has earned him a spot among industry leaders in the world of Techno. When he’s not on tour with his DJ sets or supercharged live pa sessions, he co-promotes some of Minneapolis’s biggest techno events. In addition to event promotion, he also manages his labels Abiotic Recordings and Enemy Records, which both receive wide support from the international techno community. Check out Music by Dustin Zahn on Soundcloud and Beatport.The No. 1 complaint of most D.C. Police officers isn't about stupid residents. Or even false alarms. Or, for that matter, thugs.
The rank and file, rather, love to bitch about their bosses. They've never made any real arrests. They're messing around with my days off. They don't let me do my job.
And that's where it usually ends. The grunts mutter something under their breath, always off the record, and go about their business.
Yet on Dec. 28 the old cop-vs.-white-shirt tension went a bit beyond its usual confines. Inside the D.C. Police Department's Special Operations Division (SOD), it exploded into threats of violence.
According to police records, Officer Steven Hebron had made the mistake of questioning why Captain Burt Henry had taken overtime assignments. Hebron allegedly believed Henry's use of overtime was unnecessary. The allegation did not sit well with Henry.
Henry spent a lot of time on Dec. 28 hunting down Hebron. Whoever was in his path got an earful. Marvin Spriggs was ready to leave the office on an assignment when Henry yelled for him to stop what he was doing and listen to his rant.
"As I walked over to him it was clear that he was upset by the look on his face," Spriggs wrote in his witness statement. "At this time, he pointed his finger toward me and stated, 'Tell your motherfucking boy to keep my name out of his mouth.'"
Spriggs stated that he then asked Henry which officer he was talking about. Henry replied: "That bitch Hebron! I'm going to fuck him up. I'm going to get him....Where is he?" Spriggs told the captain that Hebron was inside. "Capt. Henry then stormed inside looking for officer Hebron."
Hebron, in his own statement to police, stated that a fellow officer informed him that Henry was looking for him. He left the roll call room and entered the locker room, where he spotted Henry and another officer sitting on a couch. Henry then confronted the officer.
Hebron writes:
"Captain Henry stated, 'Listen motherfucker, what is this I been hearing about you telling people that I been cornering the market on overtime?' He then said that he would fuck me up and that this conversation is not the captain officer conversation, but a man to man conversation. He told me to consider myself lucky and that the next time it will be a captain to officer conversation....The captain was pointing with his finger in my face within close proximity, gesturing as if he wanted to fight me. I asked the captain to please stop talking to me in that tone. However he continued to move in my direction and follow me around the locker room."
The other officer, Louis Guerra, cut off Henry's rant. Guerra made his own formal statement to police officials. His statement confirms Hebron's testimony: "At one point Captain Henry called Officer Hebron a'mother-fucker' and also said, 'I will fuck you up.'"
Guerra goes on to state:
"I got up off the couch and told the captain that he was out of line, and that he couldn't just turn his rank on and off like a light switch. I also told him that his demeanor did not represent his rank of the Metropolitan Police Department and that he should leave the locker room. After that he kept rambling on like a mad man and saying something like he did the best he could but that people did not appreciate him around here. He acted as if he was going thru some kind of break-down."
Although the incident is under investigation, Henry remains on duty. The investigation is being conducted by Henry's boss within SOD.
The police union has lobbied police officials that Henry should be removed from SOD and be required to undergo a psych review. "I have no comments," Henry tells City Desk when asked about the incident.
"If this were you, and I pulled up on the scene, you would be arrested. This should be a criminal investigation," says one officer in SOD.
The police union had e-mailed one police official, Alfred Durham, several times concerning the incident. Durham told the union that Henry would not be sent for a psych evaluation. "If that was any police officer, he would be sent to a clinic ASAP," says the SOD officer.
Henry is currently in charge of the department's SWAT team.
"It's stunning that the department would leave him in that position," says union chief Kristopher Baumann. "It's certainly cause for alarm both for police officers and the citizens of the District of Columbia."
*photo by Darrow Montgomery.Nucleic acid amplification-based diagnostics offer rapid, sensitive, and specific means for detecting and monitoring the progression of infectious diseases. However, this method typically requires extensive sample preparation, expensive instruments, and trained personnel. All of which hinder its use in resource-limited settings, where many infectious diseases are endemic. Here, we report on a simple, inexpensive, minimally-instrumented, smart cup platform for rapid, quantitative molecular diagnostics of pathogens at the point of care. Our smart cup takes advantage of water-triggered, exothermic chemical reaction to supply heat for the nucleic acid-based, isothermal amplification. The amplification temperature is regulated with |
New York was the intro, a DJ Premier beat, over which Jay Z didn't even rap (He gave the song to Memphis Bleek). Vol. 2's biggest single, "Hard Knock Life," epitomized this new sense of sonic possibility in hip-hop: of all things to sample, even showtunes were an option. Nothing was off the table.
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When you're living in a golden era, you usually aren't even aware of it. It feels like the natural state of things. Of course hip-hop samples whatever it wants. Of course DMX can yell in (heavily censored) prose on MTV one minute, only to be followed by Eminem's precision provocations the next. The Lox should absolutely rap about their need for a ride or die bitch over a sunny, summery strummed guitar sample, and pizzicato strings should accompany dancefloor commands to back up that azz. It was just the way things were.
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OutKast's Aquemini wasn't the full realization of the group's mainstream appeal, as Vol. 2 had been for Jay Z. OutKast were not yet "everywhere." That would come two years later with Stankonia. What can be said about this record that hasn't been said hundreds of times? It is a masterpiece, obviously. One that held the personalities of its two members in a perfect balance. The album has a strong sense of place; it creates a world, one that never feels completely examined. No matter how many times you listen, there is always more terrain to parse, places to explore. It is a record packed with latent tensions, from the yin-yang pull of its chief players, to the seeming contradiction of its futurism/earthiness mythology, to the low-key sonic diversity. It was an experimentalism that never calls that much attention to its unprecedented nature. It resisted pigeonholding, and in so doing, seemed unknowable. It took place in a living, breathing universe, and exemplified the real range that could come from its genre's increasing openness. Aquemini also suggested what could be lost in the near future of indiscriminate, extroverted populism.
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Aquemini found the group successfully making their first strides in the direction of this new, omnivorous pop hip-hop world, where music's entire history was raw material fit for repurposing. Beats weren't just beats. Lead single "Rosa Parks" was dynamic, catchy, and, with hip-hop's first harmonica solo, unapologetically "country." It had an immediacy, in contrast to the stoned backwoods breakbeat feel of the group's earlier work. The group's topical range was as strong as it had been on ATLiens, but in keeping with the new era, their musical range had increased dramatically. Better than Jay's coldly calculated star-making moment, Aquemini was the sound of a group recognizing how musical history was now raw material for creating a new present.
Aquemini was the sound of a group recognizing how musical history was now raw material for creating a new present.
But the sonic expansiveness and pop appeal of later OutKast was the seed of the group's destruction, right at the pinpoint moment of their biggest crossover. Much has been written about how their two personalities, so in balance on Aquemini, split with the increasing pressures of fame and their own maturation. For many fans, though—particularly those who enjoyed their '90s work most of all—Stankonia already felt like certain pieces had fallen from the frame. What had been the accidental experimentalism of a group focused on narrative innovation became a group increasingly aware of their reputation as musical innovators. As the floodlights of fame splashed across the group's increasingly popular music—"Ms. Jackson" spent a week atop the charts in February, 2001—it felt like their music, in parallel, contained fewer darkened, unexplored areas. It became entirely knoweable, larger than life, all nuance blanked out by the glare.
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This was the trade-off. A lot of hip-hop fans—subterranean, underground heads by nature—were put off by the increasing attention of the spotlight. And certainly, there were negative aspects to such unprecedented success. Exploitative ones, even. But now that hip-hop is in a different place again, it's easier to see what has been lost. The genre is healthy, but more fractured than ever before. The hidden nuances of the genre are now hiding in plain sight, online, easy to find by word of mouth but difficult to stumble across as they become dwarfed by the noise. It no longer feels as if the genre is simply a part of the air the way it once was, at least, in a national sense. We have to seek out interesting hip-hop, and many talented artists never receive the investment or attention their talent deserves. But maybe once things change again, we'll recognize the faucet of free music unleashed in the late '00s as its own golden era.
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*All memories of publications are memories, because most publications have not put their back catalogs onto the internet, which means they may as well not exist.It's been quite a long time since Childish Gambino released his last project, STN MTN/Kauai, but the wait for new music from the rapper/actor could finally be coming to an end. While Childish has given no hints about new music—he's actually ghost on all of his social media pages right now—a major clue may have surfaced on engineer Andrew Dawson's personal website.
Dawson, who has worked extensively throughout his career with Kanye West, How to Dress Well, Gambino, and more, recently updated his site with his most recent work—like 'Ye's The Life of Pablo—and also included a note about Childish's new, untitled album. Based on the index on top of Dawson's page, it seems to indicate that he mixed Gambino's forthcoming album, but it unfortunately gives no further details.
Does this mean that the project is completed? We don't really know, but it's certainly a possibility since mixing an album is one of the last steps done before it comes out. With new music possibly on deck and his original show, Atlanta, coming to FX this summer, it's a safe bet that Childish Gambino is going to have a major year in 2016. We reached out for comment from Gambino's camp and will update this story when more details are made available. You can check out Dawson's website for yourself here.Taylor Swift has strongly condemned Apple’s refusal to pay artists, labels, songwriters and publishers any royalties for the three-month free trial of Apple Music.
[UPDATE: Swift’s open letter did the trick… Apple says it now WILL pay artists (and presumably other rights-holders) for the free period.]
The contract for Spotify rival Apple Music has been the source of much recent industry criticism.
Many independent music labels and publishers have so far declined Apple’s request to sign a licensing agreement for the platform – with the three-month free window their No.1 bugbear.
That means that when Apple Music arrives on June 30, it may do so without the likes of Adele, Arctic Monkeys and The Prodigy.
On Friday, Taylor Swift’s label, Big Machine Records, confirmed that her latest album, 1989 – the best-selling LP of 2014 – would not be available for Apple Music’s launch.
Now she’s explained why.
“I find [Apple’s offer] shocking, disappointing and completely unlike this historically generous company.”
Directly addressing her fans, Swift says in a new blog post that she finds Apple’s offer “shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company”.
She goes on to explain that “this is not about me”, but rather “the young songwriter who just got his or her first cut and thought that the royalties from that would get them out of debt”.
She adds: “This is about the producer who works tirelessly to innovate and create, just like the innovators and creators at Apple are pioneering in their field…but will not get paid for a quarter of a year’s worth of plays on his or her songs.”
And in her open letter – which you can read in full below – she finishes in style:
“I say to Apple with all due respect, it’s not too late to change this policy and change the minds of those in the music industry who will be deeply and gravely affected by this.
“We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.”
‘To Apple, Love Taylor’
I write this to explain why I’ll be holding back my album, 1989, from the new streaming service, Apple Music.
I feel this deserves an explanation because Apple has been and will continue to be one of my best partners in selling music and creating ways for me to connect with my fans.
I respect the company and the truly ingenious minds that have created a legacy based on innovation and pushing the right boundaries.
I’m sure you are aware that Apple Music will be offering a free 3 month trial to anyone who signs up for the service.
I’m not sure you know that Apple Music will not be paying writers, producers, or artists for those three months. I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company.
This is not about me. Thankfully I am on my fifth album and can support myself, my band, crew, and entire management team by playing live shows.
This is about the new artist or band that has just released their first single and will not be paid for its success.
This is about the young songwriter who just got his or her first cut and thought that the royalties from that would get them out of debt.
This is about the producer who works tirelessly to innovate and create, just like the innovators and creators at Apple are pioneering in their field…but will not get paid for a quarter of a year’s worth of plays on his or her songs.
“These are not the complaints of a spoiled, petulant child. These are the sentiments of every artist, writer and producer in my social circles who are afraid to speak up.”
These are not the complaints of a spoiled, petulant child.
These are the echoed sentiments of every artist, writer and producer in my social circles who are afraid to speak up publicly because we admire and respect Apple so much. We simply do not respect this particular call.
I realize that Apple is working towards a goal of paid streaming. I think that is beautiful progress.
We know how astronomically successful Apple has been and we know that this incredible company has the money to pay artists, writers and producers for the 3 month trial period… even if it is free for the fans trying it out.
Three months is a long time to go unpaid, and it is unfair to ask anyone to work for nothing. I say this with love, reverence, and admiration for everything else Apple has done.
I hope that soon I can join them in the progression towards a streaming model that seems fair to those who create this music. I think this could be the platform that gets it right.
But I say to Apple with all due respect, it’s not too late to change this policy and change the minds of those in the music industry who will be deeply and gravely affected by this.
We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.
Taylor
This isn’t the first time Taylor Swift has spoken out against a digital music service’s terms, of course.
Last November, she pulled her entire catalogue from Spotify – arguing that “valuable things should be paid for” and predicting that “individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is.
“I hope they don’t underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.”
Spotify founder Daniel Ek directly replied to Swift in his own blog post shortly afterwards.
He wrote: “Taylor Swift is absolutely right: music is art, art has real value, and artists deserve to be paid for it.
“We started Spotify because we love music and piracy was killing it.
“So all the talk swirling around lately about how Spotify is making money on the backs of artists upsets me big time.”Music Business WorldwideMcLaren racing director Eric Boullier is hoping the team's partnership with Renault will yield at least one race win next season.
The Woking-based outfit begins a new chapter in its existence after reaching the epilogue of its painful story with Honda.
While Boullier is determined to keep everyone's expectations in check, including McLaren fans, he believes however that the team's new partnership with Renault will prove successful in its maiden season.
"For 2018, our goal is to fight for third place in the constructors' championship," the Frenchman told Spanish sports daily Marca.
"But I hope we can do more than this and get a win after so many years.
"I will not start to create false expectations or put hope in our fans that we cannot fulfil, but I believe that we will at least win a race (next year)," Boullier added.
Boullier's positive outlook is supported by McLaren's proficiency in building good F1 cars.
"It’s a bit early. There’s still some regulation changes for next year with the introduction of Halo and this kind of stuff, and we’re just in September.
"Even if we started working early on next year’s car, we need to wait a little bit more. We also need to wait for testing and obviously Australia to understand where the other teams are in terms of performance.
"We have always been in the top three, but we were far from that position in the last three years," he said.
"So we are going with Renault to have a better engine and get back to those top positions."
Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and TwitterEarlier this week, we put you onto 15 artists that you simply can't miss at HARD Summer, which kicks off tomorrow in Los Angeles. A few days back, Destructo (aka Gary Richards, aka head honcho at HARD) posted the above image, giving you an idea of what's restricted at this year's festival. While some of the items on their restricted list would make Kaskade upset, I had to laugh at "wubs" not being allowed. Wubbing was a craze that randomly hit our line of sight earlier this month, and while we're not 100% sure of it being real or a troll, it has to be real enough that HARD feels you shouldn't bring your $100+ wubs to their HARD Summer event. Check out a video on wubbing down below, as well as the full list of restricted items.
HARD Summer Restricted Items:
NO Masks
NO Illegal Substances
NO Drugs or Drug Paraphernalia
NO Pets
NO Massagers
NO Laser Pointers
NO LED Gloves or LED Microlights used for Light Shows
NO Pacifiers
NO Eyedrops
NO Glass, Cans, Cups or Coolers
NO Markers, Pens or Spray Paint
NO Large Chains or Spiked Jewelry
NO Stickers or Fliers
NO Balloons, Balls, Inflatable Balls or Frisbees
NO Tents, Large Umbrellas, Chairs or Blankets
NO Camelbacks or Bota Bags
NO Large Purses or Bags (Anything over 10" x 10")
NO Stuffed Animals or Dolls (Including Plush Backpacks)
NO Kandi Bracelets or Kandi Necklaces
NO Open Packs of Cigarettes or Unsealed Tampons (Upon Entry)
NO Outside Food or Beverages (Including Alcohol and Candy)
NO Weapons of any kind (Includes Pocket Knives, Pepper Spray, Fireworks, etc.)
NO Professional Recording Equipment - Photo Video, or Audio (No Detachable Lenses, Tripods, Big Zooms or Commercial Use Rigs)
NO Video Cameras or GoPros
NO Toy Weapons or Real Weapons of any kind
NO Electronic or Vapor Cigarettes
NO Wubs
NO Totems
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(inthemix)Thom Yorke of Radiohead
Thom Yorke famously called Spotify “the last desperate fart of a dying corpse,” so it raised eyebrows when Radiohead’s back catalog arrived on the streaming platform last year and Yorke followed suit with his solo discography earlier this month. Despite these recent developments, it doesn’t appear Yorke has changed his opinion of Spotify.
This evening, Yorke cosigned a critical tweet from Portishead’s Geoff Barrow about Spotify’s compensation rates. “Ok quick question for musicians… How many of you have personally made more than £500 from Spotify?” Barrow asked. Yorke quoted Barrow’s tweet and directed his followers to read the comments he had received in response. “I refer you, ladies and gentlemen, to the comments below … without further comment,” Yorke wrote.
Of the respones received by Barrow, one was from hip-hop producer Dan Le Sac, who noted he had made £100 from 20,000 streams. “A lot more than YouTube plays but a lot less than record sales,” responded Stones Throw founder Peanut Butter Wolf. UK singer-songwriter Lone Lady replied to Barrow’s tweet by simply writing, “Nope.”
Ok quick question for musicians
How many of you have personally made more than £500 from @Spotify — Geoff Barrow (@jetfury) December 27, 2017
i refer you, ladies and gentlemen, to the comments below …. without further comment 🙏😔 https://t.co/rw3mNt9epG — Thom Yorke (@thomyorke) December 28, 2017
It’s roughly 20000 streams to pay £100 to the rights holder. Make of that what you will. — dan le sac (@danlesac) December 27, 2017
A lot more than YouTube plays but a lot less than record sales — Peanut Butter Wolf (@pbwolf) December 27, 2017
The first half of 2017 saw a 50% increase in paid streaming subscriptions, accounting for $2.5 billion of music industry’s overall $4 billion in revenue. Despite this, Spotify is still in the red, according to Jimmy Iovine.Wedding rule number one for Warwick’s and my wedding:
If it comes to a choice between X wedding expense, and inviting more people, we invite more people.
It was decided in one of the first conversations we had about what our wedding should be. Rule number two is “If it doesn’t sound like fun we don’t do it,” which is also a good rule, but this post is about coming to terms with rule number one.
I thought the people first rule was great. I have a huge family, (eighteen first cousins, most of them married at this point, fifteen aunts and uncles, and none that I don’t see regularly and get along with), we have a ton of friends (high school, a super close-knit college family, and every theatre either of us has worked at in the last five years), and a sizable number of family friends. All of these people are special, fabulous, and fun.
About a month after getting engaged I decided to start some solid concrete planning. Step one was to find a venue, and in order to do that I needed a rough guesstimate of the number of guests. I entered in everyone I initially thought of on a spreadsheet (along with how we knew them, and where they were located, since I’m type A like that). I had Warwick add his list, then his mom, then my parents. Finally I went back through and added “and guest” to each person on the list whose significant other wasn’t already included. At the end, I looked at my list and had a panic attack.
374 people.
And this was after I had already talked my mom out of inviting all of her cousins, my great aunts and uncles, and several of her friends who I don’t know as well.
I shut down. This all happened in early Febuary. I announced to Warwick, my family, and my bridesmaids that I was giving up the wedding for Lent. I would not answer any questions about it, I would not be reading any wedding blogs and I would not be dealing with this list. Maybe a slight overreaction, but as it turns out a pretty good one. It gave me a chance and back up and get some perspective.
Forty days later, I reapproached everything with a clearer head. I’m smart, I’m good at making things, I don’t need all the bells and whistles, not all of those people would be able to come; this would be fine. I told everyone involved that none of us were allowed to make any more friends for the next year, and Warwick and I started on a mission to start hooking up friends so that they would be each other’s dates and we could cut some of those “and guest”s. Those last two are mostly meant jokingingly, though not entirely.
Late this summer, with everyone in the same place, I had everyone go through the list together, and we divided it into an A, B, and C list using these rules.
A = I can’t imagine my wedding day without them there.
B = They won’t make or break the day, but if they are not there, they will be missed.
C = I probably won’t miss them if they aren’t there, but they will add to the fun of the day if they are.
A list people were untouchable. No one else is allowed to argue with someone on the A list. B list people are likely going to get an invite, but those are the people who are up for debate if we need to cut. C list people do not get invites unless enough people on the A and B list RSVP no.
Suddenly our list was a much more manageable 312, and that included a sizable number of people who needed an invite but likely wouldn’t be able to come. Now I was looking for a venue that could hold around 250 instead of 350.
250 people is still a huge wedding (especially when I come here to APW and read about all of you who have weddings of 30 or 50) but I was sure that I could handle it. After all I was going to find some crazy awesome venue no one had ever thought to have a wedding at, it would be unique and quirky and cheap.
Nope.
I turns out that there is a downside to practical, off-beat, unique personal weddings becoming more accepted and popular. I discovered that all of those quirky unique venues either knew how cool they were and were therefore WAY out of our price range, or they didn’t hold 250 people.
We went on a trip to St. Louis this July to visit venues and after the day was over we had found one place that we had a good feeling about. They were in our price range, the people were incredibly helpful and pleasant, the room was beautiful, there was a giant dance floor (super bonus), a big parking lot for our guests and easy access to all the hotels in downtown St. Louis. There was just one problem. It was a banquet hall. Just a banquet hall. Not a reclaimed warehouse, not a hip art gallery, not a cool museum or an abandoned theatre. How was I going to have the unique quirky wedding that I imagined in such a generic traditional WIC venue?
In late September we had our annual beermas party. Its a huge party we’ve been having every year since college and it gets bigger and bigger every year. I’d guess there were almost 100 people at my house that night and we partied from nine at night until four in the morning. The next day, I realized the people first rule is rule number one for a reason. I don’t need a quirky unique venue to have an awesome party. It doesn’t matter what room we put our friends in, they are going to be their quirky unique selves. We bring the awesome with us wherever we go.
So I booked the banquet hall, and I am feeling good about it.House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., talks with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Unfortunately, and I am including Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals and independents, political dialogue in America has deteriorated to the point of resembling a playground argument among second graders.
He said, she said,
“You jumped in line in front of me!” “Oh yeah? What about last week when you jumped in line in front of me?” “You called me a pouty baby!” “Well, what about the time you called me a cry baby?” “You told the teacher on me!” “Well, you told the teacher on me yesterday!”
And on it goes. Grown men and women, charged with running the business of this nation acting like a gaggle of elementary school children engaged in a game of one-upsmanship and gotcha.
You didn't vote for our guy, so I'm not gonna vote for your guy. You defeated our bill, so we're going to defeat your bill.
It would be so great to see the body of men and women who hold a large percentage of ours and our children's future in their hands actually act like adults, forget about their blind party loyalty and do something because it’s good for the country for a change.
The Supreme Court – at least in my view – should be made up of four conservatives, four liberals and one totally fair-minded, independent thinking constitutionalist who would land on whichever side of the argument he or she truly felt was best for the present and future of America.
Of course, everybody tries to pack the court. It's the source of last resort, and if one side or the other can achieve a lopsided court, a panel of ideologues and rubber stamps like Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagen who are predictable and can be taken for granted, what you fail to achieve by legislation can be accomplished by a court decision.
And of course, it could work the other way too. Many conservative justices could swing the pendulum too far to the right, and in fairness, results could be just as disastrous.
But do the folks in the Senate ever take that into consideration? No, it basically depends on whether there's an “R” or a “D” behind their names, and the result is that sometimes in the process, bad people are exalted and good people are destroyed, the welfare of the nation be damned.
Most of President Trump's cabinet will most likely be confirmed – and the Democrats know it – but for some reason, political I'm sure, Chuck Schumer seems to think it would be beneficial – not to the country but to the Democratic Party – to hold up confirmation as long as possible, while in the process holding up the business, security and efficiency of the country.
Now if the roles were reversed, I think the Republicans would do the same thing, the result being that the kids in Congress are willing to inhibit the efficient operation of the executive branch of government just to inconvenience the opposition party, in the process inconveniencing the citizens of the United States of America they are sworn to serve.
And no, I am not naive enough to think that this will change any time soon, but one thing that could change it – term limits.
It takes years to put together the influential groups in D.C. who wield the purse and the power, who can keep congressmen and senators in line with threats of denying reelection support and nixing any legislation they initiate.
It takes time to put together these alliances, and a rotating membership would go a long way in tearing them apart.
I know I sound like a broken record on this subject, but it’s just because of the passion with which I believe it.
What this country needs:
Two four-year terms for president.
Two four-year terms for Senate.
Four two-year terms for House of Representatives.
We now have a president with the audacity to actually attempt implementing term limits.
I, for one, sincerely hope he does.
What do you think?
Pray for our troops our police and the peace of Jerusalem.
God Bless America
Charlie Daniels
Charlie Daniels is a legendary American singer, song writer, guitarist, and fiddler famous for his contributions to country and southern rock music. Daniels has been active as a singer since the early 1950s. He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 24, 2008.
DONATEResidential prices for electricity have dropped this year for the first time since 2002, despite worries that shutting down coal-fired power plants and relying more on wind and solar would ruin the economy, according the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Prices are down 0.7 percent this year, the EIA said Thursday. That's a reversal of the last five years, when electricity costs rose on average 1.9 percent annually.
This it not what the defenders of burning coal said would happen. Placing new emissions regulations on coal-fired plants would drive up costs, they said, as generators had to build new natural gas plants and rely on renewable sources, which in most cases cost more than coal.
The cost of natural gas and renewable resources, though, are going down fast and all forecasts show wind and solar becoming cheaper. Burning natural gas in place of coal has also lowered U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, a key greenhouse gas.
RELATED: Must the U.S. lead the world towards a cleaner way to burn coal?
Meanwhile, coal producers are going out of business with no apparent harm to the national economy, though causing devastation in coal communities.
The United States is not the only country weaning itself off dirty coal. The United Kingdom from March to September produced more electricity from solar panels than from coal, an achievement once thought unthinkable.
"The first ever day when solar produced more than coal was only on 9 April – when there was no coal-fired electricity for the first time since 1882," The Independent newspaper reported. "But then May became the first ever month when this happened."
China announced Thursday that the government had cancelled the construction of 15 coal-fired power plants, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
RELATED: Houston company brings 'cleaner coal' technology to China
"China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has pledged to bring its emissions to a peak by around 2030, as part of its commitments to a global climate change pact signed in Paris last year," Reuters reported.
All of this points to progress toward meeting the world's obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement, which will go into force Nov. 4, after a group of nations ratified the agreement this week.
While there will always be some uses for coal, the era of the world burning rocks for electricity is coming to an end. And it is not going to cost us as much as we'd thought.Off the coast of Catalonia, an intriguing experiment in the circular economy is taking place. Dozens of fishing vessels are heading out to sea and bringing back tonnes of plastic waste alongside their usual haul.
The plastic is then used as the raw material to make recycled designer sunglasses for Barcelona-based company, Sea2see.
Thanks to agreements with Catalonian port authorities covering 22 ports, the company helps fishermen across the region bring in around a tonne of plastic waste every three days.
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.
About 10kg of waste is collected for each pair of glasses it sells. Sea2see separates what it can use for the glasses and the rest is sold off to other companies for use in different processes such as manufacturing nylon thread.
More than 90 per cent of the material the fishermen collect can be recycled, though items such as metallic ship ropes prove difficult, the company’s founder Francois Van den Abeele says. Usable plastic is reformed into pellets, which are then melted and used to make the glasses by Sea2see’s partner in Italy.
“Fishermen have had a bad reputation for contributing to ocean pollution by discarding their nets, so they are really proud to be a part of what we are doing,” Van den Abeele tells The Independent. “The aim is that everything that goes out to sea comes back to shore, which has not always happened before.”
The nets that trawling boats frequently leave in the sea act as magnets for the 8 million tonnes of plastic detritus estimated to be thrown into the world’s oceans each year. They create islands of waste that trap hundreds of thousands of sea mammals and fish. Plastic is also ingested by aquatic animals, such as sea turtles, who mistake it for viable food.
“I’ve lived a lot of my life by the sea, around the oceans,” Van den Abeele says. “So I’ve been aware of the problem for some time.”
Van den Abeele worked for many years making documentaries in places such as Angola, which at the time had just exited 30 years of civil war. “We went to places that had experienced really difficult times and tried to show the positive stories,” he says.
As a filmmaker by trade, he admits that just a couple of years ago he “didn’t have a clue” about the eyewear industry, but he knew he wanted to create a brand that had a social impact.
“I’ve got two kids and I see what’s happening to the planet,” he says. “Eyewear is a €100bn-plus industry with big profit margins. The whole product is made of plastic, which can take hundreds of years to biodegrade, and yet almost nothing is being done about sustainability.
“Fashion is the second most polluting industry in the world after oil and gas, but a lot of fashion companies’ sustainability efforts are just greenwash,” he says.
Ellen MacArthur’s stark warning that by 2050 there could be more plastic in the oceans than fish, particularly stuck in Van Den Abeele’s mind. He read up on brands trying to implement the circular economy and developed the idea for Sea2see.
Then he went out on trawling vessels to work with fishermen and figure out what they needed in order to transform his plan into a reality. After agreements with the ports, Sea2see put in place collection points across Catalonia and began processing the plastic.
Van Den Abeele also saw sunglasses as a good way to spread a sustainable message via social media, while at the same time promoting his product.
“We have a society moved by ego; it’s propelled by the number of likes you get. Our product is quite literally in the middle of your face and it’s making a really clear statement.”
It hasn’t been easy convincing people that the idea would work, however. “When I started, people thought I was crazy,” he says. “Ten months ago the industry was laughing at me.”
But he proved them wrong. Now Sea2see glasses are on sale in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium. Van Den Abeele is also in negotiations with Australian and US distributors, and Sea2see recently made it into the final rounds of the Chivas Venture awards, which seek to highlight new businesses making a positive social impact.
His sunglasses also recently made an appearance at a UN conference, courtesy of the Belgian deputy prime minister, who wore them on stage and urged delegates to support firms like Sea2see.
Looking ahead, Van den Abeele wants to expand the company’s product range into areas like goggles for skiing, snowboarding and other action sports – markets he believes have a natural affinity with his company’s story.
At a “cautious” estimate Van den Abeele hopes to sell 25,000 pieces this year, which would mean turnover of around €2m, but any new deals in Australia or the US could double this, he says.
In the year ahead he wants to expand the company’s waste-collection efforts beyond Spain and has spoken with authorities in Senegal about helping local fisherman there collect plastic, which would be processed and sold locally. The company’s business model is circular in other ways as well – a percentage of sales will go back to the local community. And fishermen, naturally, get free pairs of glasses.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
Subscribe nowM.D. Anderson doctor accused of poisoning lover Cancer specialist allegedly laced coffee with toxic chemical, gave colleague 2 cups
Ana Maria Gonzalez-Angulo, a breast cancer oncologist at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, was charged last week with aggravated assault against Dr. George Blumenschein, a specialist in lung and head and neck cancers at the institution. less Ana Maria Gonzalez-Angulo, a breast cancer oncologist at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, was charged last week with aggravated assault against Dr. George Blumenschein, a specialist in lung... more Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close M.D. Anderson doctor accused of poisoning lover 1 / 4 Back to Gallery
The doctor liked his coffee black.
So when it was sweet, he asked his lady friend, also a cancer physician and researcher, for another cup. She urged him to drink up anyway.
The coffee tasted sweet because it was laced with a sweet-tasting toxic chemical used in antifreeze and medical research, ethylene glycol, according to a criminal complaint filed with the Harris County District Attorney's Office. The complaint referred to the chemical as "a deadly weapon."
Ana Maria Gonzalez-Angulo, a breast cancer oncologist at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, was charged last week with aggravated assault against Dr. George Blumenschein, a specialist in lung and head and neck cancers at the institution.
The pair were in "a casual sexual relationship," according to the complaint filed May 29, when Gonzalez-Angulo gave Blumenschein not just one cup of poisoned coffee, but two.
Sixteen hours later, he was taken to an emergency center, where he was found to have central nervous system depression, cardiopulmonary complications and renal failure. He subsequently had to undergo dialysis.
Allegations denied
Lawyers for Gonzalez-Angulo denied the charge.
"Dr. Gonzalez-Angulo is completely innocent," Derek Hollingsworth, a partner in Rusty Hardin & Associates, said in a statement. "She is a distinguished citizen and scientist, and these allegations are totally inconsistent with her personal and professional life."
The statement added that the UT Police Department "jumped the gun in this case and filed charges that should never have been filed."
Hollingsworth's statement said his team has met with the Harris County District Attorney's Office and have been assured they are going to "take a fresh and careful look at this case."
Gonzalez-Angulo was booked May 30 and released on $50,000 bail.
According to court documents, she was ordered to surrender her passport and not to go within 200 feet of Blumenschein's residence or place of employment.
M.D. Anderson officials |
f, DFL-Plummer.
• 15: There are two Republican and two Democrats trying to fill the open seat after the retirement of Sen. David Brown, R-Becker.
• 32 Sen. Sean Nienow, R-Cambridge, is trying to keep seat after losing GOP endorsement to Mark Koran of North Branch.
• 59: Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis, is being challenged by Patwin Lawrence.
• 62: Sen. Jeff Hayden, DFL-Minneapolis, is facing a challenge from Mohamoud Hassan.
(Champion and Hayden are the only African-American members of the Senate. Both are facing voters for the first time since Republican filed ethics complaints against them.)
Minnesota Supreme Court
Incumbent Natalie Hudson faces two challengers, "attorney Craig Foss, who says he's running because he can't find a job, and attorney Michelle MacDonald, who ran an unsuccessful bid for the state's highest court in 2014 that MinnPost's Doug Grow called 'one of the most bizarre campaigns in state history,'" writes Greta Saul in MinnPost.
Correction (Aug. 9, 2016): Paula Overby's name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story. It has been corrected.The proposal for a Continental Partnership (CP) between the UK and the EU has received a great deal of attention. Two of the authors, André Sapir and Guntram Wolff, clarify some misunderstandings and respond to five key criticisms. They argue that the CP does not offer a way for EU members to restrict freedom of movement, nor is there a great risk of “political contagion”. Indeed, a CP arrangement could be the best route for the remaining EU members to maintain strong economic and security cooperation with the UK, while defending themselves against dumping and vetoes.
As Europe comes to terms with the UK electorate’s decision to leave the EU, there is great deal of debate about the future of EU-UK relations. In this context, together with three colleagues, we recently proposed the creation of a Continental Partnership (CP) to structure the relationship between the UK and the EU after Brexit. The CP offers a relationship considerably less deep than EU membership but much closer than a free-trade agreement (FTA). So far, a FTA has been considered the default option for post-Brexit relations, even though it would also require considerable negotiation. We argued that deep economic integration between the EU and the UK could continue even without the full freedom of movement of workers, as long as a single set of rules and laws was respected and enforced in the other three dimensions of the EU single market (the free movement of goods, services and capital). We also proposed that the UK should be given a consultative role in single-market policymaking, although the EU would keep ultimate authority over the law-making process.
The CP would therefore consist of two groups of countries. On the one side are the EU member states, which share supranational institutions and participate fully in all EU policies, including the single market’s four freedoms. On the other side are those outside the EU, like the UK and possibly other European countries such as Norway, Switzerland, Turkey or Ukraine, which would not join supranational institutions and would not participate in all EU policies, especially the freedom of movement for workers. The CP would be governed by a new inter-governmental system. Its aim would be to seek not only deep economic integration (with limited labour mobility) between all the participating countries, but also potentially close cooperation in matters of foreign policy, security and defence.
Our proposal should be viewed as dealing not just with the EU-UK relationship, but with the organisation of Europe over a longer time horizon
Thus, although motivated by Brexit in the short term, our proposal should be viewed as dealing not just with the EU-UK relationship, but with the organisation of Europe over a longer time horizon. In the next 15-20 years, the balance of economic and geopolitical power in the world will alter significantly in favour of countries outside Europe. If our part of the world is to keep a seat at the new top table, it will have to find ways to create a partnership between the EU and non-EU states.
Our proposal for a two-tier or two-circle Europe – with the EU as the inner circle and the other European countries as the outer one – has generated a lot of interest throughout Europe. Reactions have generally been either strongly positive or strongly negative. Among our defenders, some saw a possibility to transform the inner circle, the EU, into a closer grouping of countries sharing a political project. Meanwhile, others saw the possibility to dissociate economic integration, to which they generally subscribe, from political integration, which they reject. Many also saw our proposal as useful for dealing with countries like Turkey and Ukraine, which do not belong to the EU but are seeking deeper economic ties with it. There is widespread recognition that EU enlargement has largely run its course and that another approach will be needed to deal with the EU’s neighbours.
We believe that the EU and the UK share common interests, in particular in the longer term. The two sides need to define a common vision at the start of a negotiation
There was, however, much less consensus when it comes to the idea of applying this looser organisation of Europe to the relationship between the EU and the UK. On the EU side there are basically two objections to our proposal as far as applying it to the UK is concerned. One is mainly tactical: the timing of our proposal is considered to be wrong. By offering the UK access to the single market on terms that reflect some of the red lines of those who voted for Brexit, it is argued that we weaken the hand of the EU side at the start of a difficult negotiation. We will not discuss this issue in this blog post. Suffice it to say that our intention was not tactical but strategic: we believe that the EU and the UK share common interests, in particular in the longer term. The two sides need to define a common vision at the start of a negotiation which risks being not only difficult but also acrimonious if there is no such shared perspective.
The other, more fundamental objection concerns the substance of our proposal. Commentators on the EU side worried that its two core principles could be perilous for the functioning of the EU. These are:
allowing countries in the outer circle not to participate in the freedom of movement of workers while enjoying the other three single market freedoms giving non-EU members a voice, though not a final say, in single-market policymaking.
The four freedoms are at the core of the EU political project and are not negotiable for countries wanting to be part of the EU
Before we respond to five main arguments against our proposal, we will first make one overarching clarification. We are not suggesting that EU members could be given the possibility to opt out of freedom of movement for workers – one of the four single market freedoms. This is a misunderstanding of our proposal, in which all the countries belonging to the EU would continue to be bound by the entire acquis. Thus they would still have to abide by all four freedoms without any restrictions, including the free mobility of workers. The four freedoms are at the core of the EU political project and are not negotiable for countries wanting to be part of the EU. In addition, the free movement of workers is economically indispensable for countries in the euro area, where the exchange rate is no longer available as an adjustment mechanism.
Besides this misunderstanding, there are five main criticisms which have been directed towards our proposal from the EU perspective. (This blog does not deal with reactions on the UK side.)
1. Does a soft Brexit risk political contagion?
Some commentators have feared that our proposal would lead to “political contagion”, with some EU countries demanding the same treatment as those in the outer circle. For example, Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the ALDE group in the European Parliament (EP) who was recently appointed as EP negotiator on Brexit, has said that the UK cannot get a deal on free movement because other EU countries may follow. (Please note this was not said in reaction to our proposal.) Likewise, the official position of the European Commission, endorsed by EU heads of state or government in Bratislava last week (without the UK), is also that the four freedoms are inseparable. So, since the UK seems unwilling to accept completely unrestricted labour mobility, the “political contagion” argument is de facto driving the UK to a hard Brexit.
We disagree with this “political contagion” view about a compromise on freedom of movement. It seems to ignore the fact that limits on the free movement of workers would only be an option for countries that are outside the EU, as explained above. Thus our proposal does not offer a way for the UK to first negotiate with its EU partners the right to limit the free circulation of workers and then to decide to remain a member of the EU. This is a legitimate concern on the EU side, but it would not be possible within the Continental Partnership framework.
There is no question in our mind that the UK would only be able to give up on the complete adherence to the four freedoms by losing its status as an EU member. This would mean losing the right to vote on EU laws but having to obey them, and also an obligation to continue paying into the EU budget. This situation of having to leave the EU to be able to limit labour mobility does not strike us as particularly attractive for most current EU members.
We believe that few, if any, EU countries would want to follow the UK’s lead
The crucial point is the difference between belonging to the inner circle of the CP (the EU) and being in the outer circle of the CP (outside the EU). This is not just about whether countries have to abide by all four freedoms or can introduce limits on the free circulation of labour. The countries in the outer circle also have fewer rights than those inside the EU since they cannot vote on EU legislation which applies to all CP countries. We believe that few, if any, EU countries would want to follow the UK’s lead and lose their member of the European Commission, where EU legislation originates, and their seats at the Council and the European Parliament, where EU legislation is adopted, simply because they would want to limit labour mobility with other EU countries. Therefore, in our view the risk of “political contagion” is small.
Consider the 27 current EU members besides the UK. Nineteen already belong to the euro area, which is a clear sign of their commitment to the EU as a political project. Among the remaining eight countries, all but one (Denmark) are committed to joining the euro when they can and the vast majority seem to be committed to the EU as a political project. It is therefore difficult to see how they would benefit from a status where they have less access to EU labour markets and no decision-making power. Nonetheless, there may be a few non-euro area countries which, like the UK, are only interested in economic integration and in fact reject the EU as a political project and the free movement of workers. Perhaps these countries joined the EU only because there was no alternative way to participate in the EU single market at the time. If an alternative like the CP were to exist, these countries may prefer to leave the EU and join its outer circle. However, in our view this would not amount to “political contagion” but instead to “political clarification”.
We do not see the negotiation with the UK as a substitute for reforming the EU to make it more attractive and resilient
More profoundly, we disagree with the view that pushing for a deal that is very disadvantageous for the UK will be a way to guarantee political consensus for political integration in the remainder of the EU. On the contrary, a political union needs to be based on the free choice of its member nations to stay. It needs shared political goals and clear benefits from membership. To put it another way, we do not see the negotiation with the UK as a substitute for reforming the EU to make it more attractive and resilient.
2. Would the UK gain at some EU members’ expense?
Many workers from Central and Eastern Europe have moved to other EU countries, including the UK, to take up employment. For these countries, the deal we propose may entail a cost. They might understandably consider it a bad deal to continue granting the UK free access to their markets for goods, services and capital while their citizens lose free access to the UK labour market. This is one of the reasons why our proposal indicated that participation in the EU budget would be vital for countries in the outer circle.
As far as the UK is concerned, it would be perfectly legitimate that it made a special budgetary contribution earmarked for low-income EU countries as a compensation for their reduced emigration possibilities and the entailed loss in economic wellbeing. Such a contribution could sway the Visegrad Four (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), whose governments have recently declared their opposition to allowing the UK access to the single market without free labour mobility. In addition, these and other EU countries from Central and Eastern Europe would probably wish to maintain close ties with the UK on security grounds.
3. Could the UK engage in regulatory and social dumping?
Some critics feared that the UK and other countries belonging to the outer circle of the CP would gain free access to the EU market for goods, services and capital without being bound by EU regulation. Could they therefore undertake regulatory competition? Again this is a misunderstanding of our proposal. All countries in the CP, whether they are inside or outside the EU, would have to abide by all existing EU single market regulation. We also discussed the need to enforce regulation throughout the entire area in a homogenous way.
All countries in the CP, whether they are inside or outside the EU, would have to abide by all existing EU single market regulation
We would argue that for the EU it is actually beneficial that the UK remains inside the EU’s regulatory framework. If that was not the case, the possibilities for “dumping” policies may actually be larger, which could come at the expense of some EU countries. Regulatory competition could, however, take place in areas where there is no EU regulation (as is already the case for all EU countries).
This raises questions about the possibility of future EU regulation in areas that are not currently subject to EU rules, or future regulation that is stricter than current regulation. How would the UK would react to such a possibility as a CP member? In keeping with the spirit of our CP proposal, we would envisage that upon leaving the EU the UK remains in the integrated market, except as far as the free movement of workers is concerned. This means that it would retain all EU single market legislation. Over time, as the EU and the euro area deepen and additional single market legislation is introduced, the UK would have to make a decision. Does it want to retain its CP status and apply all EU legislation, or does it want a looser relationship with the EU? If it decided to depart, the UK would lose all its privileged access to the EU single market.
4. Does the Continental Partnership offer a viable governance structure?
Other criticisms of our proposal worried about its governance. We admit that our envisaged CP council, where the UK and other non-EU CP members would be consulted on EU legislation, creates a new layer in the EU legislative process, which is already cumbersome. We are open to other forms of organisation but would insist that some form of a relatively close consultation is necessary among CP countries. However, this right to consultation should never mean having voting rights in the EU legislative process.
5. Do we believe that Brexit will really happen?
A final criticism is that we do not seem to believe that this divorce is actually happening. On the contrary, we take Brexit as a given. But we argue for a soft rather than a hard Brexit, for partnership rather than mutual ignorance. The immediate reaction when a partner tells you that he or she wants to leave is usually denial and anger. With time, the focus normally shift to finding an arrangement that limits the damage for the children. After Brexit as well, the focus should be on establishing a framework to manage mutual interests between the EU and the UK, and possibly other non-EU countries in Europe.
We take Brexit as a given. But we argue for a soft rather than a hard Brexit, for partnership rather than mutual ignorance
We believe that our CP proposal provides such a framework. The UK would need to continue to pay into the EU budget and it would need to accept all EU laws concerning the economy without having a vote on them. Both are necessary. Without contributing to the budget, no access to the single market can be granted and without a fair application of all laws, an integrated market cannot function. Reduced political influence is the price to be paid for being outside of the core club. In our view, it makes more sense to define the price in this sense than through an approach to economic access that would hurt the economy on both sides.
Finally, our proposal should not be read as meaning that we rejoice at Brexit or at limiting the free movement of workers. It is the British voters who have made this choice. They have effectively called for a new relationship between the UK and the EU, though they were not asked whether they wanted a soft or hard Brexit. This is the choice that the UK government and its EU partners are now facing.
This post represents the views of the authors and not those of the Brexit blog, nor the LSE. It was first published at Bruegel.
Guntram Wolff is Director of Bruegel.
André Sapir is Professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles and Senior Fellow at Bruegel.Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems (Original)
Conservative design
Even pressure
Controlled tightening
Resilience to errors in tying
Image credit: David J. Fred/Wikimedia Commons (Original)
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Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems (Original)
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Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems (Original)
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Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems (Original)
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Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems (Original)
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Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems (Original)
(NOTE: All photographic images below can be clicked to view at higher resolution.)In the last few days some of the first high resolution color images of Mars Rover Curiosity's deck have been taken. These included some of the best images yet showing the knots visible on the exposed wire and cable bundles.While a few of the folks here are no doubt aware, it might surprise most people to learn that knots tied in cords and thin ribbons have probably traveled on every interplanetary mission ever flown. If human civilization ends tomorrow, interplanetary landers, orbiters, and deep space probes will preserve evidence of both the oldest and newest of human technologies for millions of years..Knots are still used in this high-tech arena because cable lacing has long been the preferred cable management technique in aerospace applications. That it remains so to this day is a testament to the effectiveness of properly chosen knots tied by skilled craftspeople. It also no doubt has a bit to do with the conservative nature of aerospace design and engineering practices. Proven technologies are rarely cast aside unless they no longer fulfill requirements or there is something substantially better available.While the knots used for cable lacing in general can be quite varied -- in some cases even a bit idiosyncratic -- NASA has in-house standards for the knots and methods used on their spacecraft. These are specified in NASA Technical Standard NASA-STD-8739.4 -- Crimping, Interconnecting Cables, Harnesses, and Wiring. As far as I've been able to identify in the rover images below, all of the lacings shown are one of two of the several patterns specified in the standard.The above illustration shows the so-called "Spot Tie". It is a clove hitch topped by two half-knots in the form of a reef (square) knot. In addition to its pure binding role, it is also used to affix cable bundles to tie-down points, as can be seen in many of the Curiosity rover images below.Knot history buffs might find it interesting that a "Spot Tie"-like knot, with opposite Clove Hitch end orientation and topped only with a single half-knot was illustrated in 1917 by A. Hyatt Verrill under the name "Gunner's Knot". This was seemingly due to Verrill copying from J.T. Burgess, who had oversimplified "Bowling's" description of what possibly was the first known textual description of the Constrictor knot. But that's a whole different can of worms!So why has NASA standardized on this knot instead others which might serve the purpose? The following reasons are merely my own musings. I'd be interested to hear others' comments on this knot's strengths and weaknesses.The Reef Knot and Clove Hitch are extremely ancient. Both were discussed in detail as surgical and orthopedic knots and slings by Greek physician Heraklas in the 1st Century AD. The Reef Knot is depicted with varying degrees of realism in ancient Egyptian statuary and hieroglyphics as far back as 4000-5000 years ago. I presume there would be little disagreement here that these two knots must be among the oldest of the purposeful, standardized knots used by humans. You simply cannot get more field-tested than this!But why combine these two well-known old knots in a somewhat novel way that, at first, might seem a bit "belt-and-suspenders"?The inner profile of the clove hitch is smooth. Both turns bear on the bound object evenly throughout their contact. The contact area is increased by having two turns. When the reef knot is added, the ends are pulled up and away from the object. There is some extra pressure exerted by the reef knot on the riding turn, but this is distributed onto the two underlying turns. Evenness of pressure is important for the same reasons as the next item.Overtightening of cable management bindings can cause conductor breakage, insulation damage, excessive chafing, and deformations between the conductive, dielectric, and shield parts of a cable, and no doubt a host of other issues. It is one of the classic problems with ratcheting plastic cable ties (i.e. "zipties") that they only have quantized adjustment steps and cannot be easily loosened. While zipties with a metal tooth insert do allow for smoother tightening, the possibility of this tiny metal part coming loose near electronics generally excludes their use. That zipties cannot easily be loosened or adjusted during tightening makes them more prone to being left in an overtightened state. Difficulty of adjustment might also be considered a possible strike against using the Constrictor Knot (and similar knots) for this application.The clove hitch is not known as a particularly good binder alone, but that may be an advantage in this application. If the clove is initially made too tight it is easily loosened and readjusted. Once the proper snugness is achieved the addition of the first half-knot produces only a small and predictable amount of additional tightening. One thing I did notice in my tests is that if the first half-knot is made in the opposite orientation than shown in the standard, it tends to produce more tightening and also separates the underlying turns of the clove hitch.As mentioned above, I did some tests tying the knot incorrectly in different ways. While these forms generally seemed inferior to the specified knot, they were not obviously destined to fail. Using these two basic knots in a compound form seems to be a reasonable way to make errors of tying less detrimental to the resulting knot.Above is a high resolution photo taken of these Spot Ties made in Gudebrod Nomex lacing tape. These types of lacing tapes are often coated or impregnated with materials (e.g. synthetic rubbers) to increase their knot-holding properties. I'm not sure what the tapes visible on the rover are made of, but I'd suspect the material was chosen for its behavior at extremely low temperatures and pressures as well as very good UV resistance.The keen observer may note that some of the Spot Ties in the rover images show the ends perpendicular to the cable bundle and some parallel. Based on general experience with reef and granny knots, one might be tempted to assume the parallel examples are improperly finished with granny knots. Experimentation with Nomex lacing tape seems to show that it's more a matter of the knot preserving the orientation of the ends as the reef knot was tightened. I found that when the Spot Tie is finished improperly in the granny form but with the ends kept perpendicular to the wire bundle they tend to stay that way. While these experiments are hardly definitive, it doesn't seem to me that one can tell from orientation of the ends whether the knot was properly tied or not.There is also the issue of the handedness of the first half-knot with respect the ends emerging from the Clove Hitch portion. The relative orientation shown in the NASA spec does appear to be preferable to the alternative.I won't go into much discussion about these stiches for the moment, but I believe the one on the left (the running clove hitches) appears on the extreme right edge of detail image "1" below.And now for the pretty pictures...Multi-image panorama giving context of rover, deck, and its suroundings. The rim of Gale Crater is visible in the distance.Annotated context image showing locations of following five detailed images. Outlines do not quite align to following image borders due to panorama projection.Examples of one of the flat stitching methods (shown above) appear on the extreme right edge of this image.[Edited 2013-09-11 to move images back from AWS S3]KABUL (Reuters) - The political uproar over the prisoner swap that won the release of U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl from Taliban captivity intensified on Wednesday when his hometown canceled plans for a rally celebrating his return amid allegations that he deserted.
The Taliban released video of their handover of Bergdahl to U.S. special operations forces in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border on Saturday, showing the U.S. soldier seemingly dazed and anxious about the unfolding events.
Bergdahl’s release after being held for nearly five years in Afghanistan provoked an angry backlash in Congress among lawmakers over the Obama administration’s failure to notify them in advance. Some of Bergdahl’s former comrades have charged that he was captured after deserting.
Heather Dawson, the city administrator of Hailey, Idaho, said that town officials had called off their June 28 rally to celebrate Bergdahl’s release because they would be “unable to safely manage the number of people expected.”
The small mountain community had been under pressure to cancel after claims by some of Bergdahl’s former Army comrades that he had deliberately abandoned his post.
That anger helped fuel congressional criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of the deal to free Bergdahl in exchange for the transfer of five senior Taliban members from Guantanamo prison in Cuba to Qatar, where they were to remain for a year.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused critics of the agreement of seizing upon what should be a moment of unity to “play political games,” but Senator John McCain, a top Republican who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, condemned the deal.
“This was clearly a terrible idea,” he said. “These are the hardest of the hard core.”
TALIBAN RETURNING TO FIGHT?
U.S. lawmakers complained that the Obama administration did not give Congress 30 days notice required by law before transferring Guantanamo prisoners. They also expressed concern that the five were senior leaders who may return to the fight.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called Bergdahl’s family on Wednesday for the first time since his release, speaking with them for about 10 minutes. He assured them the Pentagon’s focus was on their son’s health and return to his family, a senior official said.
The White House, surprised by the angry backlash, has taken steps to try to address congressional ire over its failure to give lawmakers proper notice, offering apologies and briefings. But they have also expressed frustration over the reaction.
“It’s been disappointing to see the politicization of the United States military’s mission to leave no man left behind,” one Obama administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl waits in a pick-up truck before he is freed at the Afghan border, in this still image from video released June 4, 2014. REUTERS/Al-Emara via Reuters TV
Hagel said critics should wait for all the facts to be known before rushing to judgment on Bergdahl.
The administration arranged briefings for members of Congress on Wednesday and next week. The White House did not inform members of Congress, except for Reid, before the prisoner swap because they were concerned about leaks.
“We have no idea what they were thinking,” one Democratic lawmaker said.
Administration officials said they decided the notification issue did not apply in Bergdahl’s case because of the need to act quickly because of his deteriorating health, the suddenness with which the deal came together and the need for secrecy.
DETERIORATING HEALTH
A U.S. intelligence analysis of videos of Bergdahl during his captivity taken in 2011 and 2013, and other intelligence, indicated that his health had deteriorated substantially over that period, one U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
The official said that was one of the drivers of the decision to push ahead with an exchange.
It also followed Obama’s announcement last week that virtually all U.S. forces would be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2016, ending more than a decade of engagement prompted by the al Qaeda-led Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
The Taliban video showed a Blackhawk helicopter landing in a barren valley in eastern Afghanistan. As a handful of U.S. special operations troops got out, two Taliban approached, one holding a makeshift white flag of truce and the other leading Bergdahl.
The American team stepped briefly forward, exchanged a greeting and then led Bergdahl back to the helicopter, quickly searching him before putting him aboard, the video showed. The transaction lasted less than a minute.
Bergdahl disappeared from his outpost in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009, leaving behind some of his gear.
One person familiar with the U.S. military’s investigation of his disappearance said it concluded he walked off the base, but it was not able to determine with certainty that he deserted.
General Raymond Odierno, the Army chief of staff, said on Wednesday the Army would conduct a full review of his capture at the appropriate time.
Slideshow (5 Images)
The State Department said it would look into reports by the Associated Press that the family of an American woman who disappeared in Afghanistan in 2012 with her Canadian husband had received two videos of the couple last year asking the U.S. government to help win their release from the Taliban.
Caitlan Coleman was pregnant at the time of her disappearance along with her husband Joshua Boyle, the AP said. The family decided to make the videos public in light of the publicity surrounding Bergdahl’s release.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Amateur sculptor Emanuel Santos says he feels sad when he hears criticism of his work
Football fans have been questioning the resemblance of a statue of Cristiano Ronaldo unveiled on the Portuguese island of Madeira.
Many on social media say the work looks more like former Republic of Ireland captain Niall Quinn than Ronaldo.
The statue was revealed at a ceremony to name the island's airport after him.
Portugal's president and the prime minister flew to the island to unveil the tribute to the player outside the terminal entrance.
Image caption Some said the statue looked more like former Republic of Ireland captain Niall Quinn
Image copyright @mrdanwalker
President Rebelo de Sousa said Ronaldo "projects Madeira and Portugal across the world far more than anybody else".
The 32-year-old is a local hero in Madeira, where he is seen as a rags-to-riches success. He already has a museum about him in his hometown of Funchal.
The player later said on Twitter: "Happy and honored to have my name given to the Madeira airport!"
Ronaldo is not the first footballer to have an airport named after him. Belfast airport was named after former Manchester United player George Best in 2006, a year after he died.The leader of a minor Lebanese political party told a local television station that Palestinian teens who carry out stabbing attacks against Israelis are “suicide seekers.”
Roger Edde, a Maronite Christian who is the founder and head of the Lebanese Peace Party (Assalam), also said in the January 20 TV interview that Iran poses a larger problem for the Arab world than Israel does.
“All the people who today call to fight Israel while downplaying concerns about Iran have a problem,” he told the Hezbollah-affiliated al-Mayadeen channel, according to a translation of his comments on Monday by MEMRI, an NGO monitoring Middle Eastern news.
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Edde also said he wanted Iran to give Lebanon “reassurances” following its agreement with world powers over its nuclear program.
Lebanon, Edde said, wanted Iran to “benefit from the normalized ties that have begun with the international community.”
“I don’t want it to ‘export’ the [Islamic] revolution in an effort to sow civil strife in the Levant and in the rest of the Arab World,” Edde added, apparently referring to the influence of the Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah.
When asked about the “132 young Palestinians” who, according to the TV host, “have been killed in cold blood by Israel in the past two months,” Edde replied that “Israel must not accept this under any circumstances, because anybody who tries to carry out any operation knows that he is heading toward his death.”
He added: “If he grabs a knife in order to attack a woman, he knows that this is suicide — because somebody will shoot him.”
The host, seemingly surprised by Edde’s response, asked: “Do you consider Israel to be your enemy?”
Edde answered: “Yes, of course. Why? Because we do not have peace with it, we are in a state of war. [But] we have a truce with Israel and we are committed to that truce.”
The Assalam party, part of the moderate March 14 Coalition in Lebanon, currently has no seats in the Lebanese parliament.Frank Sinatra had some frank words for a young, fame-weary George Michael back in 1990: “Loosen up. Swing, man.”
Known more for his quips on the joys of drinking than salient career advice, Sinatra’s input on Michael’s nascent celebrity was equal parts pep-talk and fatherly chiding. “Dust off those gossamer wings and fly yourself to the moon of your choice,” he wrote, “and be grateful to carry the baggage we’ve all had to carry since those lean nights of sleeping on buses and helping the driver unload the instruments.”
At the time, Michael was suffering from sophomore-album cold feet. In the lead up to the release of the Wham! singer’s sophomore album, “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1,” he had become media shy, perhaps because he had a lot to live up to: His 1987 solo debut three years earlier, “Faith,” had won a Grammy, spawned six top-five singles, and went on to sell more than 25 million records.
In comparison, his second record was a comparative flop in the US, selling only 2 million copies. (It had a better reception in his native UK, but total sales were less than a third of “Faith.”) During this time, Michael eschewed the spotlight, gave very few interviews, and didn’t tour the album—all equivalents of PR suicide.
In Sept. 1990, the LA Times’ Calendar Magazine published an article, “George Michael’s Case Against Fame,” which didn’t cast the singer in a particularly glowing light. ”To a cynical pop world that has heard everyone from Frank Sinatra to David Bowie threaten to say goodby [sic] to the microphone,” reads the article, “the latest vows of George Michael may seem like little more than a calculated publicity move. After all, he’s obviously still doing interviews.”
Likely stirred by the reference to his own moments of professional introversion—Sinatra had his own bouts of self-doubt, announcing his retirement in 1971 before going on to play a further 1,000 shows—he published an open letter to Michael in the same magazine the following week, imploring him to pull his head out:
In it, he instructs Michael to understand the importance of heeding the audience’s wishes, telling him that to have such an ability is a curse that must be shared, not squandered: “Talent must not be wasted… those who have talent must hug it, embrace it, nurture it and share it lest it be taken away from you as fast as it was loaned to you.”
“Trust me. I’ve been there.”
The full transcript follows:
FRANK SINATRA September 9, 1990 Dear Friends, When I saw your Calendar cover today about George Michael, “the reluctant pop star,” my first reaction was he should thank the good Lord every morning when he wakes up to have all that he has., And that’ll make two of us thanking God every morning for all that we have. I don’t understand a guy who lives “in hopes of reducing the strain of his celebrity status.” Here’s a kid who “wanted to be a pop star since I was about 7 years old.” And now that he’s a smash performer and songwriter at 27 he wants to quit doing what tons of gifted youngsters all over the world would shoot grandma for – just one crack at what he’s complaining about. Come on George, Loosen up. Swing, man, Dust off those gossamer wings and fly yourself to the moon of your choice and be grateful to carry the baggage we’ve all had to carry since those lean nights of sleeping on buses and helping the driver unload the instruments And no more of that talk about “the tragedy of fame.” The tragedy of fame is when no one shows up and you’re singing to the cleaning lady in some empty joint that hasn’t seen a paying customer since Saint Swithin’s day. And you’re nowhere near that; you’re top dog on the top rung of a tall ladder called Stardom, which in latin means thanks-to-the-fans who were there when it was lonely. Talent must not be wasted. Those who have it – and you obviously do or today’s Calendar cover article would have been about Rudy Vallee – those who have talent must hug it, embrace it, nurture it and share it lest it be taken away from you as fast as it was loaned to you. Trust me. I’ve been there. (Signed, ‘Frank Sinatra’)
This article is part of Quartz Ideas, our home for bold arguments and big thinkers.Originally published at alexjoverm.github.io on August 7, 2017.
One day I wanted to learn about PWA (Progressive Web App), so I though: What's better than doing it with my own blog?
I think that's something developers do: when we wanna learn something, we go and get our hands dirty, right?
The first thing I wanted was to get metrics and insights on the blog at that point. For that I used Lighthouse in its Chrome extension version.
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are to ride and how to use them.
And while we might be used to them now, there is still something oddly enjoyable about the hire scheme itself. I personally think its the docking stations. None of the faffing about with chains and keys, or having to remember where the bike is in order to come back to it later. Just drop off and wander off.
I’ve also noted elsewhere how the bikes seem to have changed how cycling looks in London. Far less dominated by lycra and far more by suits and normal clothing. Apparently a couple arrived at Waterloo recently in a ballgown and blacktie, by hire bike. And it wasn’t a publicity stunt.
But, there is a curious thing about the bikes, and the staff who manage them commented on this. People really like the cycle hire scheme. I mean, really like it. So much so that the distribution staff go back to the office and not that infrequently mention how users have chatted to them and thanked them for dropping off bikes or similar.
No one really knows why the bikes generate this. You just cant quite imagine a commuter thanking a bus or train driver. Yet, there is something about the bikes than brings out the smiles in people.
If they achieve nothing else in life other than encouraging curmudgeonly Londoners to smile and say thank you, then they will have been worth every penny invested in them.
Thanks to TfL, Serco and the staff at the depot for the chance to see behind the bike shed.
Yes, they are still trying to work out how that bike got to Gambia.DNA seen through the eyes of a coder or If you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail
`This is one of the coolest things I've read in a while.' -- jwz
This is just some rambling by a computer programmer about DNA. I'm not a molecular geneticist. If you spot the inevitable mistakes, please mail me (bert hubert, @PowerDNS_Bert) at bert@hubertnet.nl.
I'm not trying to force my view unto the DNA - each observation here is quite 'uncramped'. To see where I got all this from, head to the bibliography.
Quick links: The source code, Position Independent Code, Conditional compilation, Epigenetics, Dead code, bloat, comments ('junk dna'), fork() and fork bombs ('tumors'), Mirroring, failover, Cluttered APIs, dependency hell, Viruses, worms, Central Dogma, Binary patching aka 'Gene therapy', Bug Regression, Reed-Solomon codes: 'Forward Error Correction', Holy Code, Framing errors: start and stop bits, Massive multiprocessing: each cell is a universe, Self hosting & bootstrapping, The Makefile, Plugins, Further reading.
Updates
20th of January 2016:
Added a section on Plugins, or Plasmids.
3rd of January 2008:
A lot of updates are arriving since this page was linked on Reddit.com, I'm currently evaluating and merging the suggested changes. Please do keep sending updates!
23rd of September 2006:
Small update on the number of genes. Some other updates have been sent to me over the past four years, and I'll try to work them in to the page.
The source code
DNA is not like C source but more like byte-compiled code for a virtual machine called 'the nucleus'. It is very doubtful that there is a source to this byte compilation - what you see is all you get.
The language of DNA is digital, but not binary. Where binary encoding has 0 and 1 to work with (2 - hence the 'bi'nary), DNA has 4 positions, T, C, G and A. Whereas a digital byte is mostly 8 binary digits, a DNA 'byte' (called a 'codon') has three digits. Because each digit can have 4 values instead of 2, an DNA codon has 64 possible values, compared to a binary byte which has 256.
A typical example of a DNA codon is 'GCC', which encodes the amino acid Alanine. A larger number of these amino acids combined are called a 'polypeptide' or 'protein', and these are chemically active in making a living being.
See also http://www.ultranet.com/~jkimball/BiologyPages/C/Codons.html.
Position Independent Code
Nearly half of the human genome is composed of transposable elements or jumping DNA. First recognized in the 1940s by Dr. Barbara McClintock in studies of peculiar inheritance patterns found in the colors of Indian corn, jumping DNA refers to the idea that some stretches of DNA are unstable and "transposable," ie., they can move around -- on and between chromosomes. http://www.ornl.gov/hgmis/resource/people.html
Conditional compilation
Of the 20,000 to 30,000 genes now thought to be in the human genome, most cells express only a very small part - which makes sense, a liver cell has little need for the DNA code that makes neurons. But as almost all cells carry around a full copy ('distribution') of the genome, a system is needed to #ifdef out stuff not needed. And that is just how it works. The genetic code is full of #if/#endif statements. This is why'stem cells' are so hot right now - these cells have the ability to differentiate into everything. The code hasn't been #ifdeffed out yet, so to speak. Stated more exactly, stem cells do not have everything turned on - they are not at once liver cells and neurons. Cells can be likened to state machines, starting out as a stem cell. Over the lifetime of the cell, during which time it may clone ('fork()') many times, it specializes. Each specialization can be regarded as choosing a branch in a tree. Each cell can make (or be induced to make) decisions about its future, which each make it more specialized. These decisions are persistent over cloning using transcription factors and by modifying the way DNA is stored spacially ('steric effects'). A liver cell, although it carries the genes to do so, will generally not be able to function as a skin cell. There are some indications out there that it is possible to 'breed' cells 'upwards' into the hierarchy, making them pluripotent. See also this article.
Epigenetics & imprinting: runtime binary patching
This can be compared to the Linux kernel, which at boot time discovers what CPU it is running on, and actually disables parts of its binary code in case (for example) it is running on a single CPU system. This goes beyond something like if(numcpus > 1), it is the actual nopping out of locking. Crucially, this nopping occurs in memory and not on the disk based image.
Similarly, as an embryo develops in the mother's womb, its DNA is edited substantially to reduce its growth rate, and the size of the placenta. In such a way, the competing interests of the father ('large strong children') and the mother ('survive pregnancy') are balanced. Such 'imprinting' can only happen within the mother, since the father's genome doesn't know anything about the size of the mother.
Recently, it is also becoming clear that the metabolic status of the parents influences the chances of long life, cancer and diabetes in their grandchildren. This also makes sense, as surviving in a food poor climate may require a different metabolic strategy than in one where food is abundantly available.
Mechanisms behind epigenetics and imprinting are'methylation', which attaches methyl groups to DNA to 'flip' their activation status, but also histone modification, which can curl up DNA so it is not activated.
Some of these DNA edits are heritable and passed on to children, other forms may only impact one animal.
This field is still developing rapidly, and it may be that our DNA is much more dynamic than originally thought.
Dead code, bloat, comments ('junk dna')
The genome is littered with old copies of genes and experiments that went wrong somewhere in the recent past - say, the last half a million years. This code is there but inactive. These are called the 'pseudo genes'. Furthermore, 97% of your DNA is commented out. DNA is linear and read from start to end. The parts that should not be decoded are marked very clearly, much like C comments. The 3% that is used directly form the so called 'exons'. The comments, that come 'inbetween' are called 'introns'. These comments are fascinating in their own right. Like C comments they have a start marker, like /*, and a stop marker, like */. But they have some more structure. Remember that DNA is like a tape - the comments need to be snipped out physically! The start of a comment is almost always indicated by the letters 'GT', which thus corresponds to /*, the end is signalled by 'AG', which is then like */. However because of the snipping, some glue is needed to connect the code before the comment to the code after, which makes the comments more like html comments, which are longer: '<!--' signifies the start, '-->' the end.
So an actual stretch of DNA with exons and introns might look like this:
ACTUAL CODE<!-- blah blah blah blah ---- blah -->ACTUAL CODE | | | | | | exon 1 donor intron 1 branch acceptor exon 2 (start of comment) (end of comment)
The actual cutting of the comments happens after the DNA has been transcribed into RNA and is performed by looping the comment and bringing the pieces of actual code close together. Then the RNA is cut at the 'branch site' near the end of the comment, after which the 'donor' (comment start) and 'acceptor' (comment end) are connected to each other.
Now, what are these comments good for? That discussion is part of a holy war that can rival the vi/emacs one. When comparing different species, we know that some introns show fewer code changes than the neighboring exons. This suggests that the comments are doing something important.
There are lots of possible explanations for the massive amount of non-coding DNA - one of the most appealing (to a coder) has to do with 'folding propensity'. DNA needs to be stored in a highly coiled form, but not all DNA codes lend themselves well to this.
This may remind you of RLL or MFM coding. On a hard disk, a bit is encoded by a polarity transition or the lack thereof. A naive encoding would encode a 0 as 'no transition' and 1 as 'a transition'.
Encoding 000000 is easy - just keep the magnetic phase unchanged for a few micrometers. However, when decoding, uncertainty creaps in - how many micrometers did we read? Does this correspond to 6 zeroes or 5? To prevent this problem, data is treated such that these long stretches of no transitions do not occur.
If we see 'no transition,no transition,transition,transition' on disk, we can be sure that this corresponds to '0011' - it is exceedingly unlikely that our reading process is so imprecise that this might correspond to '00011' or '00111'. So we need to insert spacers so as to prevent too little transitions. This is called 'Run Length Limiting' on magnetic media.
The thing to note is that sometimes, transitions need to be inserted to make sure that the data can be stored reliably. Introns may do much the same thing by making sure that the resulting code can be coiled properly.
However, this area of molecular biology is a minefield! Huge diatribes rage about variants with exciting names like 'introns early' or 'introns late', and massive words like 'folding propensity' and'stem-loop potential'. I think it best to let this discussion rage on a bit.
A fascinating link of uncertain scientific value is http://post.queensu.ca/~forsdyke/introns.htm.
2013 Update: ten years on, the debate still hasn't settled! It is very clear that 'junk dna' is a misnommer, but as to its immediate function, there is no consensus. Check out Fighting about ENCODE and junk for a discussion of where we stand.
fork() and fork bombs ('tumors')
As with unix, great problems arise when cells keep on forking. They quickly exhaust resources, sometimes leading to death. This is called a tumor. The cell is riddled with 'ulimits' and 'watchdogs' to prevent this sort of thing from happening. The number of divisions is limited by Telomere shortening, for example.
A cell cannot clone unless very stringent conditions are met - a'secure by default' configuration. It is only when these safeguards fail that tumors can grow. Like with computer security, it is hard to strike a balance between security ('no cells can divide') and usability.
Compare this to the well known Halting Problem, first described by the founder of Computer Science, Alan Turing. Perhaps it is as impossible to predict if a program will ever finish as it is to create a functional genome that cannot get cancer?
Mirroring, failover Each DNA Helix is redundant in itself - you can see the genome as a twisted ladder whereby each spoke contains two bases - hence the word 'basepair'. If one of these bases is missing, it can be derived from the one on the other side. T always binds to A, C always to G. So, we can state that the genome is mirrored within the helix. 'RAID-1' so to speak. Furthermore, there are two copies of each chromosome present - one from each parent, with the notable exception of the Y chromosome, which is only present in males. The actual details are complicated - but most genes are thus present twice. In case one is broken or unusefully mutated, the other independent copy is still there. This is what we would normally call 'failover'. Cluttered APIs, dependency hell As proteins interact in the cell, they rely on each others' characteristics. It has just been shown that proteins that interact with a lot of other proteins cannot evolve, or at least, only do so at a very slow rate. See Nature, 28 June 2001, and M. Kimura, T. Ohta, Science, 26 April 2002. They propose that this is because of great internal dependencies which inhibit the changing of the 'contract' of the protein. It is also noted that evolution does take place, but very slowly as both parts of the dependency need to evolve in a compatible way at the same time. Viruses, worms Somebody recently proposed in a discussion that it would be really cool to hack the genome and compromise it so as to insert code that would copy itself to other genomes, using the host-body as its vehicle. 'Just like the nimda worm!'
He shortly thereafter realised that this is exactly what biological viruses have been doing for millions of years. And they are exceedingly good at it.
A lot of these viruses have become a fixed part of our genome and hitch a ride with all of us. To do so, they have to hide from the virus scanner which tries to detect foreign code and prevent it from getting into the DNA.
The Central Dogma:.c ->.o -> a.out/.exe
This dogma tells us that DNA is used to make RNA and that RNA is used to make proteins, which is like saying that from a.c file comes a.o object file, which can be compiled into an executable (a.out/exe). It also tells us that this is the only order in which information flows.
Now, the Central Dogma has recenly been tarnished somewhat. Like any billion year old coding project, a lot of hacking has been going on, and sometimes information flows the other way. Sometimes RNA patches the DNA and at other times, the DNA is modified by proteines created earlier.
But generally, the dependencies are clear, so the Central Dogma remains important.
Binary patching aka 'Gene therapy'
We can fiddle easily enough with DNA. There are companies to which you can send an ASCII file with DNA characters, and they will synthesise the corresponding 'output' for you. We can also splice DNA into developing animals and plants. It is far harder to 'patch the running executable', as any programmer can attest. It is just like that with the genome. To change a running copy ('a human'), you need to edit each and every relevant copy of the gene you want to patch. For many years, medical science has tried to patch people with SCID, or 'Severe Combined Immunodefeciency', which is a very nasty disease which in effect disables the immune system - leading to very ill patients. It has been clear for quite a while now which letters in the DNA need to be fixed in order to cure these people. Many attempts where made to patch running people, using viruses that insert new DNA into living organisms, but this proved to be very hard. The genome is guarded far too well for such a simple approach to work - cells guard their code better than Microsoft! However, recently the right virus was found which was able to breach the protection of the genome and fix the broken characters, leading to apparently healthy people.
Bug Regression
In tropical regions of the world where the parasite-borne disease malaria is prevalent, people with a single copy of a particular genetic mutation have a survival advantage.
...
While inheriting one copy of the mutation confers a benefit, inheriting two copies is a tragedy. Children born with two copies of the genetic mutation have sickle cell anemia, a painful disease that affects the red blood cells. http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/496_sick.html
There are quite a few examples of this happening. See also the wonderful book 'Genome' by Matt Ridley.
Reed-Solomon codes: 'Forward Error Correction'
6 bits could conceivably map to 64 amino acids, yet there are only 20 in use. For example, UCU, UCC, UCA and UCG all encode for 'Serine', whereas only UGG maps to 'Tryptophan'.
Now, it turns out that some likely 'typos' (UCU -> UCC) in the encoding lead to an identical amino acid being expressed. For more about this fascinating phenomenon, read 'Metamagical Themas' by Douglas Hofstadter.
DNA knows the concept of the'molecular clock'. Some parts of the genome are actively changing and some parts are sacrosanct. A good example of the latter are the Histone genes H3 and H4.
These genes are fundamental to the actual storage of the genome and are thus of paramount importance. Any failure in this code rapidly leads to a non-functioning organism.
So it is to be expected that this code isn't tinkered with and that turns out the case. The H3 an H4 genes have a *zero* effective mutation rate in humans. But it goes far beyond that. You share almost the exact same code with anything from chickens to grass or moulds.
RATES OF NUCLEOTIDE SUBSTITUTION PER SITE PER 1000 MILLION YEARS BETWEEN VARIOUS HUMAN AND RODENT PROTEINS-CODING GENES WITH DIVERGENCE SET AT 80 MILLION YEARS BASED ON FOSSIL EVIDENCE: gene Number of codons Effective rate histone 3 135 0.00 histone 4 101 0.00 insulin 51 0.13 gamma interferon 136 2.79 http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/sciences/biology/Handbooks/evolseqphylo.htm
Now, it does appear that there are two ways the genome can make sure that code does not mutate. The first way is described above: use amino acids that are highly degenerate and making sure that those typos that DO occur result in the same output.
Furthermore, genes can be copied earlier or later in the cell's reproductive process, leading to more or less favourable copying conditions. Many more of such conditions apply.
It appears as if H3 and H4 were authored very carefully as they do have a lot of'synonymous changes', which through the clever techniques described above do not lead to changes in the output.
Framing errors: start and stop bits
...0 0000 0001 0000 0010 0000 0011 0...
...00 0000 0010 000 00100 000 00110...
Each way a strand of DNA can be read is called an Open Reading Frame and there are generally 6, 3 each way.
Massive multiprocessing: each cell is a universe
If a cell needs to do something ('call a function'), it whips up the right piece of the genome and transcribes it into RNA. The RNA is then translated into a sequence of amino acids, which together make up a protein the DNA coded for. Now for the really cool bit :-) This protein is tagged with a shipping address. This is a marker consisting of several amino acids which tell the rest of the cell where this protein needs to go. There is machinery which acts on these instructions, and delivers the protein, which is potentially on the outside of the cell. The delivery instruction is then stripped off and several post processing steps may be performed, possibly activating the protein - which is good, because you may not want to transport an active protein through places where it should not do work.
A Cell
Self hosting & bootstrapping
In actual fact, this was solved by not writing the first C compiler in C (duh), but in a language that was available already: B. See here for details about 'bootstrapping'.
The same holds for the genome. To create a new 'binary' of a specimen, a *living* copy is required. The genome needs an elaborate toolchain in order to deliver a living thing. The code itself is impotent. This toolchain is commonly called 'your parents'.
Update: Recently, it has become possible to 'bootstrap' life with very little actually living source material. The dictum "every cell comes from a cell" is becoming less true. See for example Mycoplasma laboratorium.
It appears that RNA, which is an intermediate code between DNA and a protein, may have been the 'B' for DNA. Which begs the question where RNA came from. It is very interesting to note that extra-terrestial objects often contain amino acids! See http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=amino+acids+meteorites
The Makefile
Organisms typically start out as a single cell, which as said before contains two entire copies of the genome. The big tarfile so to speak, with all files extracted, ready to go. Now what? Enter the Homeobox genes. Cells must be copied and assigned a purpose. The Homeobox genes start out by laying a 'top to bottom' dependency which reads'start with the head'. In order to make this happen, a chemical gradient is created by which cells can sense where they are, and decide if they need to do things useful for building a head, or for building a primordial notochord. Only discovered in 1983, the Homeobox genes are a very exciting area of research right now. It is interesting to note that like a Makefile, 'HOX' genes only trigger things in other genes and don't materially build things themselves. The homeobox'syntax' appears to be very 'holy' in the sense described above. What happens if you copy paste the 'legs selector' part of a mouse HOX gene into the fruitfly Homeobox: 'In fact, when the mouse Hox-B6 gene is inserted in Drosophila, it can substitute for Antennapedia and produce legs in place of antennae' http://www.ultranet.com/~jkimball/BiologyPages/H/HomeoboxGenes.html The fruitfly and human genomes did not branch just millions of years ago but hundreds of millions of years ago. And you can copy paste parts ('Selectors' in the genetic language) of the Makefile and it still clicks. Please note that the 'build a leg' routine in a fruitfly is of course radically different from that in a mouse, but the'selector' correctly triggers the right instructions.
Plugins: Plasmids
All living organisms have DNA, sometimes organized into multiple chromosomes ('libraries'), sometimes in only one, typically circular in that case. This goes for most bacteria. Next to this large main genome, such bacteria frequently also host 'plasmids': tiny circles of DNA with specific functions.
Such plasmids are somewhat portable between species, and through a variety of mechanisms they do indeed get transferred horizontally. By this way even non-identical bacteria can 'learn' antibiotic resistance from each other, for example.
Compared to the programming world, a plasmid is not voluntary, and is like LD_PRELOADing a.so or the equivalent on other platforms. And in fact, plasmids are frequently injected for research purposes. They can easily be injected in all kinds of bacteria, and immediately get to work.
Plasmids copy themselves independently from the main chromosome, and are thus a permanent fixture of bacteria. To make this happen, a plasmid features the magnificently named 'Origin of Replication' gene which gets triggered when the cell wants to divide.
Further readingIf you do a lot of online shopping, one of the easiest ways to save money is by using promo codes. These special codes, which are published by retailers, are designed to provide a discount on your online order. Typically, all that you have to do to take advantage of one of these codes is to enter it into the correct box during the checkout process. Once the code has been applied to your order, the site will automatically calculate your discount. From there, it is simply a matter of continuing the checkout process like normal.
Of course, before you can use promo codes, you first need to figure out how to find them. One of the easiest ways and most straightforward ways is by searching for the name of the store where you are shopping along with the phrase “promo code” in your favorite browser so let’s say you are searching for Purple Mattress Coupon you would search that exsact phrase. By browsing the sites that come up after your search, you should be able to find a variety of different codes for that particular store.
Apart from that, however, there are some more unique ways to find promo codes online. One option is to use a browser extension. There are quite a few of these add-ons available for free. All that you have to do is install them, and you can instantly begin using them.
Depending on the design of the plug-in, they usually work in one of two different ways. Some extensions show you the available promo codes the minute that you land on the website of an online retailer. Others try out different promo codes automatically during the checkout process to see which one will give you the greatest discount. Either way, having the process automated can save you a lot of time by eliminating the need to search for codes manually.
Another unique way to find promo codes is by signing up for mailing lists. Chances are, most of your favorite online retailers have mailing lists that you can join for free. Often, these companies will send out special promo codes to their subscribers. In some cases, you may even qualify for a special promo code simply for signing up.
Of course, you should use this option judiciously so that you don’t wind up getting email messages from too many companies. However, it is worth considering if there are certain retailers that you buy from on a regular basis.
The last option that you may want to try is searching for promo codes on forums. There are a lot of different forums out there that are dedicated to frugal living. Often, members of these forums will share promo codes with one another. If you can’t find a code for the retailer you are interested in, you may even be able to put out a request to see if any other members have a code that you can use.
These are some of the unique ways to find promo codes online. To maximize your savings, experiment with all of these methods to see which ones work the best for you.
Also, you should know that this about new furniture:
Buying new furniture is a fantastic way to update your home and give it an awesome makeover. Many homeowners wait for furniture stores to do promotions and offer coupon codes online to make their purchases. This not only gets you a better deal, but it also saves you money or does it? You will find that no promotions are created equal, and often, there’s a catch that comes with furniture promos. Here are three sneaky things brands will do when offering promotions:
1. Coupons Aren’t Always A Good Deal
You read that correctly! It’s a shame that many shoppers fall for the coupons gimmick as often, they end up purchasing furniture they wouldn’t have even considered if it weren’t for the coupons. You need to ask yourself, are you really getting a good deal, or is the coupon making it seem that way?
2. Promotions May Include Bundled Purchases
Bundling is a common term that many stores use to sell items. For example, buying an end table may get you a free lamp or another accessory. By bundling items, companies push you to purchase products you aren’t always sure about.
3. Multiple Purchase Discounts
You’re probably aware of the tactic that furniture stores employ when they give you discounts on multiple purchases. Meaning, if you purchase a bed frame, you may get a discount on a mattress. You may end up purchasing something you had no intention to while also pushing the boundaries of your budget. If you wanted a bed frame, why would you need to spend more on a new mattress?Hannity And Limbaugh Bitch, Bitch, Bitch About The State Of The Union
Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh threw a pity party for themselves on last night's (1/22/09) Hannity. The rest of the country may be feeling good about its new president but those two “patriots” couldn't seem to find a kind word to say about Republicans, Democrats, and liberals. The only person praised was “good man” George W. Bush whose reverence for the office of the presidency kept him above partisan politics (Yes, Limbaugh actually said that, in Part 2). Methinks the two outsized egos were really whining about their own waned influence in national politics. With video.
Some of the “highlights:”
Democrats are “the party of abortion.”
Democrats and liberals “are always angry about things.”
Republicans have a “defeatist inferiority complex” and “want to be accepted by the people who despise them.”
Limbaugh and Hannity were clearly put out that “real conservatives” like themselves were not included in the dinner party Obama attended at the home of George Will.
Limbaugh railed against “the Republican elites” who, he claimed are “embarrassed” to be seen with “hicks and hayseeds” from the south who make up a large portion of their party.
Liberalism “cannot deal with the light of truth.”
“The Democrat Party has never claimed to have standards. Only once in my memory have they claimed to have ethics.” (when Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House and proclaimed that she would have the most ethical Congress.)
According to Limbaugh, the only reason Blagojevich is in trouble is because he was “foolish enough” to be taped, “acting as Democrats do, selling the Senate seat in Illinois.”
George Bush had a reverence for the office of the presidency. “That's why he didn't get partisan.” It would have been “irreverent” to turn the Oval Office partisan. (Yeah, that's why he hired Karl Rove to work in the White House.)
Bush “is a good man. He's not hated.”BALTIMORE -- There is a Biblical verse -- Proverbs 27:17 -- that Ravens coach John Harbaugh frequently references in team meetings. He loves the imagery of it, the larger meaning, and so he repeats it almost daily. It's a way of summarizing much of what he believes and loves about the game of football, about the devotion and fellowship a team must possess in order to be successful.
Ravens coach John Harbaugh says Torrey Smith is a "rare player" who displays no agenda. Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun/MCT/Getty Images
As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
Repeating that line of scripture is also the easiest way for Harbaugh to explain how Torrey Smith, a quiet, sensitive, second-year wide receiver from Colonial Beach, Va., became one of most important players on a team that is stuffed with Pro Bowlers and at least two future Hall of Famers.
"We talk a lot about the cauldron of competition, and the fire that refines us, that forges us," Harbaugh said. "We talk about whether you're the type of person that will sharpen the next guy or dull the next guy, because that's how teams are made. To me, no championship team will ever be divided. And to me, Torrey is the perfect example of how the right kind of person is made of the right kind of stuff."
Smith's impact on the franchise this season goes well beyond his 31 catches for 548 yards and seven touchdowns. Though the strides he has made as a wide receiver since the Ravens drafted him in the second round out of the University of Maryland in 2011 have been significant, his emergence as a unifying force in the locker room is a big reason why Baltimore, which visits Pittsburgh on Sunday night, is on track to be the only franchise in the NFL to make the playoffs for a fifth consecutive season.
"He's one of those rare players where there is no agenda," Harbaugh said. "He just wants to know what's expected of him, so he can do the best he possibly can. He's not trying to fool you, he's not trying to impress you, he's just trying to be himself."
Linebacker Ray Lewis hugs Smith after the Ravens beat the Patriots on Sept. 23. Patrick Smith/Getty Images
Smith's journey to this point in his NFL career is a story of perseverance and loyalty, but also one of great sadness. On Sept. 23, Smith's younger brother Tevin Jones was killed in a motorcycle accident in Montross, Va., less than 24 hours before the Ravens were scheduled to host the New England Patriots. Smith left the team hotel in the middle of the night to be with his family, and the Ravens prepared to face the Patriots the next day without him.
"I got a call from our security guy at 1:30 a.m. telling me what had happened, and at that point you're like a parent," Harbaugh said. "It was just shock. I felt sad of course. But just shocked. You're trying to make heads or tails of it. Our team got wind of it in the morning, and you could just see it on their faces. The guys came in and they were almost ashen."
One of two touchdowns Smith caught in the Ravens' 31-30 win over New England on Sept. 23. Zuma Press/Icon SMI
What happened next was as moving as it was surreal. Smith returned to the team, having slept little more than an hour. He attended the team chapel, decided his brother would have wanted him to play, and then he went out and caught six passes for 127 yards and two touchdowns in a dramatic 31-30 win. When he caught his first touchdown, a leaping 25-yard catch, he pointed toward the heavens and jogged to the sideline with tears in his eyes.
"My teammates, I love them to death, and they helped me get through this," Smith said after the game.
More than a month later, Ravens players and coaches still talk about what took place that night in M&T Bank Stadium. When they talk about Smith's character, they use a tone that closely resembles awe.
"It was unbelievable," said Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco. "I just don't even think we can imagine what that was like for him. For him to play that kind of game under those circumstances is pretty special. I don't even think I would be able to function if I were in his shoes."
"That was his way of relieving his pain for a few hours," said Ravens wide receiver LaQuan Williams, who was also a teammate of Smith's at Maryland. "Football was his outlet."
It's still a difficult subject for Smith to discuss publicly. He has asked the Ravens' media relations staff to politely decline all interview requests that focus on what happened to his brother. It's too soon, too raw. But he understands why people found his performance so inspiring.
"Football is one of those games that definitely relates to life in a lot of ways," Smith said. "Everything can be going good, and just like that, you have a turnover. Things are going south, you're going the opposite direction.
How are you going to recover from it? That's the beauty in this game. It brings a lot of people together, and you can also learn a lot of life lessons. For me, I've been through a lot before, so there is nothing that this game can throw at me that I can't handle."
Smith and his teammates celebrate beating the Patriots. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
Smith's wisdom and maturity were forged, at least in part, by his atypical childhood growing up in Virginia. The oldest of seven siblings, Smith spent many of his formative years changing diapers, preparing meals and getting his siblings ready for school while his mother, Monica Jenkins, worked multiple jobs and attended night school. By the time he was 7, he was practically an adult.
"He's been like the dad of his family for quite a while," said Williams.
His position coach at Maryland, Lee Hull, used to joke that after a big victory, the whole football team would be out celebrating on the College Park social scene, all except for Smith, who would be bunkered down in his dorm room, hoping to finish his homework. It's one of the reasons Smith was able graduate with a degree in criminology and criminal justice even though he left Maryland with a year of eligibility remaining.
Harbaugh says the Ravens took all that into account when they drafted Smith in the second round of the 2011 NFL draft, ignoring the skeptics who thought that he was stiff getting in and out of routes, that he didn't have great hands, and that he'd never develop into a starting NFL wide receiver. He was viewed as a speed guy, but not a complete wideout. A number of Ravens fans, having been burned by wide receiver busts like Travis Taylor and Mark Clayton, were among his biggest critics, especially after Smith dropped a litany of passes in the preseason. Few people seemed to remember the lockout erased an entire offseason of organized team activities, and Smith was scrambling to digest a new style of route running and a new playbook.
"It was crazy, man," Smith said. "I guess it just comes with being a high draft pick. I was kind of behind the eight ball anyway. Everyone assumes that [general manager] Ozzie [Newsome] can |
The president’s targeting of opposition parties has shattered any illusions that Turkey is a western-style democracy
Any chance Turkey could join the EU by 2020, as Brexit campaigners have asserted, went up in smoke on Wednesday after the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, signed a draconian new law that in effect demolishes any notion that his country is a fully functioning, western-style democracy.
EU rules dating to 1993, known as the Copenhagen criteria, insist all applicant states must adhere to a system of democratic governance and uphold other basic principles, such as the rule of law, human rights, freedom of speech, and protection of minorities. Turkey is struggling to meet these standards.
Erdoğan lifts Turkish MPs' immunity in bid to kick out pro-Kurdish parties Read more
The new measures make EU membership even more of a chimera. They are expected to eviscerate parliamentary opposition to Erdoğan’s ruling neo-Islamist Justice and Development party (AKP) by allowing politically inspired, criminal prosecutions of anti-government MPs.
The main target is the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP), which Erdoğan accuses of complicity in terrorism, although other opposition parties are also affected.
By signing the new law, Erdoğan, who has dubbed the EU a “Christian club”, has signalled the end of any realistic chance of Turkey joining the union for the foreseeable future. Critics say he may also have sounded the death knell for Turkey’s secular democracy and set the stage for intensified armed conflict with Kurdish groups.
Erdoğan’s move comes against a backdrop of heightened violence between Turkey’s security forces and militants belonging to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) and its radical offshoots.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The scene of a car bomb attack in Istanbul that killed 11 people on Tuesday. Photograph: Sedat Suna/EPA
In the latest of a series of attacks, 11 people died and many more were badly injured on Tuesday when a car bomb exploded in central Istanbul. On Wednesday, the PKK was blamed for another lethal bombing in Mardin province.
Yet the new law, while officially justified as vital for the fight against terrorism, is widely seen as opening the way for Erdoğan’s contentious proposal to amend Turkey’s constitution and create a powerful executive presidency, which he will hold. The changes require a two-thirds parliamentary majority in favour.
The HDP, which denies any ties to the PKK, is the third-largest party in parliament with 59 MPs. Its surprise success in the first of two general elections last year caused the AKP to briefly lose overall parliamentary control. The unexpected setback infuriated Erdoğan and led him to escalate the confrontation with the PKK.
Leading HDP members and supporters have frequently faced police intimidation and prosecutions, and some have been jailed over their verbal support for Kurdish rights. At present, 101 MPs from the HDP and the main opposition party, the Republican People’s party (CHP), are under investigation.
HDP leaders believe most if not all the MPs under investigation could end up in jail now their immunity has been lifted. Given the president’s track record, additional charges are likely to be brought against other MPs and parties, thereby emasculating the parliamentary opposition to Erdoğan and destroying what remains of Turkey’s system of democratic checks and balances.
The HDP co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, both accused of supporting terrorism, have vowed to fight on in parliament “till the end”.
Turkey’s media faces 'unprecedented crisis', says English PEN Read more
Coming on top of Erdoğan’s controversial military crackdown on Kurdish areas in the east and south-east of the country, newspaper and other media closures, prosecutions of leading editors and journalists, and his recent remarks urging Muslim women to forsake careers and have more children, the new law may result in a permanent freezing of Turkey’s already mostly moribund EU accession talks.
The European parliament recently expressed serious concern about “serious backsliding” in Turkey over rights and press freedom, part of a perceived anti-democratic trend under Erdoğan’s presidency. EU governments, backed by the US, have pressed Erdoğan to de-escalate his campaign against the Kurds.
Merkel lets comedian face prosecution for Erdoğan poem Read more
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who helped forge a deal with Ankara over Syrian migrants last autumn, faced sharp criticism at home after she acquiesced in Erdoğan’s prosecution of a German comedian for allegedly insulting remarks. Another row over a satirical German song ensued.
Erdoğan’s latest actions place more pressure on the already shaky migrant deal. If it collapses – and Turkey is threatening to scrap it – the EU will have even less incentive to advance accession negotiations. Leading EU countries such as France and Germany strongly oppose Turkish membership and have in any case indicated they could ultimately use their veto, if necessary, to prevent it.
Last winter’s promise, part of the Merkel-Erdoğan deal, to extend visa-free travel for Turks in Europe – a pet hate of the leave campaign in Britain – has not been implemented because of EU objections to Erdoğan’s draconian anti-terror laws.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kurdish supporters of the HDP party shout anti-government slogans during a rally in Istanbul. Photograph: Sedat Suna/EPA
The HDP and CHP parties oppose Erdoğan’s plan for an executive presidency. They see it as part of the president’s attempt to acquire quasi-dictatorial powers at the expense of parliament and representative democracy. His political trajectory over the past 15 years is often likened to that of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s authoritarian president.
They point to Erdoğan’s unchallenged control over the armed forces, purged through a series of trials of alleged coup plotters, his control of state media, his manipulation of the judiciary, and his recent sacking of Ahmet Davutoğlu, the moderate AKP prime minister who was critical of the proposed constitutional changes.
Meral Danış Beştaş of the HDP said a new government administrative decree further compromised the independence of the judiciary. “Judges and prosecutors who are known to make decisions for the government have been promoted and those who have made decisions against the AKP have been exiled,” Beştaş said.
Opposition groups are also critical of draft measures introduced into parliament this week that would extend the legal immunities of members of the armed forces participating in anti-terror operations. Turkish security forces have been accused of illegal killings and other abuses in the south-east where thousands of PKK militants and civilians have died or been displaced since October last year. Critics say the new army protections amount to impunity.The N-word on the 4th of July The flight home to see my family for the holiday was a tearful, shameful affair. I had to say something. But what?
I hopped on a plane Wednesday morning so I could attempt a mad dash from Jersey to Louisiana to be with my family for the Fourth of July. I am well aware of the myriad contradictions of a radical black feminist chick being gung-ho about this holiday. Less invested in America’s ever-unfulfilled narrative of liberty and justice for all, the Fourth is a time that my family comes together to enjoy each other’s presence, to grill out in the heat of a Louisiana summer, and -- through our practice of unapologetic, unadulterated joy and celebration -- offer a small but meaningful counter-narrative about how we got over.
But the complicated nature of such reverse migrations usually shows up right around the time that the TSA officer decides that she must run her fingers through my Afro-Puff, in search of as yet unnamed “weapons.” Surprisingly that didn’t happen this time, and I let out a sigh of relief that the journey through security was uneventful.
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Standing just ahead of me to board was a handsome, traditional nuclear family. The mom was tall and striking and she had two beautiful boys roughly around the ages of 10 and 7. For some reason, they became the intent subjects of my usual people-watching, as I boarded the flight. The mother was gently nagging the older boy about doing his summer reading and making sure his exercises were accessible on the flight.
As we boarded, I noticed that this mom and I would be sitting in the same row, I in the window seat, she in the center. As we sat awaiting takeoff, I finished a text conversation and signaled to the flight attendant for a seat-belt extender, a fat passenger’s best friend. Then just as the call came to shut our phones off, I glanced over at her, and she was still texting, rapidly. I caught a few words of the end of her text that made me look more intently: “on the plane, sitting thigh to thigh with a big fat nigger. Lucky me.”
My breath caught in my chest.
And then there was pain. Humiliation. Embarrassment. Anger.
I still remember the very first time I was called the N-word. It was 1988 or so, and I was in third grade. My classmate, a poor white girl named Vicki, chose to punctuate the end of a childhood spat by yelling, “You DIRTY NIGGER!” Seven- or 8-year-old me was bewildered. And silent. I had never heard that word used that way before. I didn’t know what it meant. Yet I felt its force and its vitriolic intent viscerally.
Later that evening, I inched close to my mom in the kitchen as she was putting dinner on, and asked, “What does the word 'nigger' mean?” Before she answered with words, I simply registered pain on her face. In hindsight, I understand that pain to be the pain of a parent confronting the inevitable reach of other people’s issues from which you cannot protect your child. It was also the pain of a black parent confronting the inevitability of a child’s first encounter with racism. After asking why I wanted to know, she told me simply, “It means an ignorant person.”
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When I got called it today, some part of me felt like that little girl again. I felt the slur just as viscerally, the foreboding sense that something was wrong not with anything I had said or done, but simply with me. Immediately I was hyper-aware -- looking around, feeling marked, wondering if others find my large, dark-skinned body as distasteful as my seatmate did.
I know I am fat. And I am most self-conscious of being so on planes, as I worry about taking up too much space. In my head, I always think people will dread to see me coming because Americans are great believers in personal space. I am no exception.
Even so, I was acutely aware, at least intellectually, that the problem lay with her and not me. But what would my recourse be. Though she was no toothpick herself, she is a white lady, a mom, with children and a husband – all the trappings of American middle-class respectability. Moreover, she sent those words in a private text communication. I am a fat, dark-skinned black woman. Had I gone off and set it off as she deserved, in all probability I would have been seen as the terrorist threat. Especially on the eve of the Fourth of July.
And that is the thing about American holidays: All too frequently they misdirect the focus and confuse the narrative, so that the villains are seen as benevolent and the victims are seen as the aggressors. Thanksgiving, the day that the nation memorializes the genocide of Natives, while giving thanks for generations of wealth built on the plunder of their lands, is a case in point. The ways that American holidays normalize the kinds of routine violence that have given birth to this republic make counter holidays like Juneteenth, the day we commemorate the actual end of all U.S. slavery, so necessary.
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What, then, could I say? Something. I had to say something. But what?
I started by sharing her words in a status update on Facebook -- in part because in recent days, I have seen one too many friends, both black and white, readily defending Paula Deen, and arguing that her use of the N-word was an understandable byproduct of her Southern roots and most assuredly a relic of a bygone era.
However, as far as I could tell, this young family, in which the parents looked to be mid- to late 30s, were Northerners. So after waiting awhile and getting a handle on the tears that started coming steadily after I saw her words, I simply got her attention and asked her to read the Facebook status from my smartphone.
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She saw it, kind of grunted her assent, and then said nothing. So I pressed forward, in a low voice: “I just want to let you know that your words were hurtful. And I hope you don’t pass that kind of ignorance down to your beautiful boys.” She replied curtly, “I don’t.”
And then we rode the rest of the way south together, her being a mother hen to her boys, me praying that the seeds of hate she’s planting would not fall on fertile soil.Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
BOSTON – As a swarm of media enclosed Cole Aldrich, the playful calls began from his teammates in the less-crowded areas of the New York Knicks locker room.
“Cole Stoudemire!”
“Cole Chandler!”
Aldrich could hardly contain his smile as he discussed his first career start with larger-than-usual-for-him audience. Without the Knicks’ highly paid big men, Amar’e Stoudemire (personal reasons) and Tyson Chandler) (recovery), Aldrich posted 12 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks in New York’s 116-92 win over the Boston Celtics on Wednesday.
Just four years ago, Aldrich was the No. 11 pick in the 2010 NBA Draft. After being acquired by the Thunder on draft night, Oklahoma City threw him into the James Harden trade before last season began. A few months later, the Rockets pawned him off to the Kings in the Thomas Robinson trade. Before this season, he signed an unguaranteed contract with the Knicks.
Wednesday, he got the game ball.
“We know how much work guys like that put in, guys like Cole put in,” said Carmelo Anthony, who scored 34 points. “We’re with him every day. We know how hard he works. And for him to have this opportunity tonight and be a big part of our team’s success tonight, it’s a good thing to see.”
Like Melo, Knicks coach Mike Woodson made no effort to hide his delight in the big man’s big night.
“Guys want to play. They complain they don’t get minutes and don’t get shots. I think, when you’re trying to build a team, guys have got to understand it’s not about who’s getting all the shots. It’s not about who’s playing all the minutes. It’s what you do with the minutes and what you’re doing when you’re in there,” Woodson said. “…I’m just happy for him, because he’s patiently waited all season and never once complained and just went about his business. And it paid off for him.”
When Aldrich made a free throw fewer than five minutes into the game, that eclipsed what was his season-long scoring average (0.9). He probably stretched the limits of his offensive game against Boston.
But his impressive rebounding could be sustainable.
Entering Wednesday, nobody had posted a higher rebounding percentage (23.9) in as many minutes (139). Though that’s a small sample, it matches his coach’s eye test.
“He can rebound out of his space, in his space. He takes up space,” Woodson said. “He’s got great hands.”
For Aldrich, there’s no secret formula to rebounding.
“I’ve always been a big kid when I was little, and that was kind of my job as a big kid, just having that hard-headed desire to come out and snag those,” Aldrich said.
Perhaps, Aldrich has an opportunity to get his wayward NBA career back on track. Will he snag that, too?NIN Live: 2008
October 18, 2008, Mexico City, Mexico, Motrokr Festival, Foro Sol
Setlist
999,999
1,000,000
Letting You
Discipline
March of the Pigs
The Frail
Closer
Gave Up
The Warning
Vessel
Ghosts 5
Ghosts 25
Ghosts 19
Piggy
The Greater Good
Pinion
Wish
Terrible Lie
Survivalism
The Big Come Down
Only
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like a Hole
Echoplex
Hurt
In This Twilight
Show Memorabilia
Known Recordings
Source 1: Audio - AUD (SP-CMC-2 + SP-SPSB-9 + Sony MZ-M200)
Taper: Migmanson
Time: 110 minutes
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Hear a Sample: Echoplex, 2 Minutes
Download the Full Show:.Zip File FLAC, 602.3 MB
Added to Archive: March 06th, 2010
Comments:
There is some phasing going on during the recording because of how windy it was that night. A fanstastic recording regardless.Atlanta Public Schools will close two elementary schools next school year as part of a broader effort to address declining student populations and save money.
The Atlanta Board of Education today voted 7-2 to approve Superintendent Meria Carstarphen's recommendations, which will close Whitefoord Elementary School and Adamsville Primary School. The plan also restructures Miles Intermediate School into a PreK-5 school.
“Not everyone will be happy, but I believe our kids will benefit, receive a better education, and be better prepared for college and career,” said Board Chair Courtney English.
The closed schools were significantly underenrolled. Whitefoord is currently at 48 percent capacity, and Adamsville was at 58 percent. Whitefoord has only 272 students, making it one of the smallest schools in APS. The schools are indicative of a district that at one point had capacity for 100,000 students but now has a student population of 51,000.
Before voting, the board offered an extended time for public comment, and they got an earful. Almost 40 people addressed the board, most urging it to reject the closures due to concerns about empty buildings in their neighborhoods, increased transportation costs, uprooted students and lost staff positions. Teachers in closed and restructured schools must reapply for positions in newly structured schools, with priority status but no guarantee of employment.
Parents say they plan to fight the decision to close and consolidate schools.
Others worried the board was cutting spending at the expense of education.
“This is about money. This is not about students,” said Phyllis Almond, a grandmother of a student at Towns Elementary School. Almond’s grandson has improved from C’s to A’s since coming to Atlanta and made it to the state spelling bee this year, which she sees as a sign that schools are on track.
Carstarphen responded to those who suggested the district, which is largely funded by Atlanta property taxes, was flush with cash.
“Our city brings it in. Thank you, taxpayers, but we don’t get it all,” she said, noting that the state has withheld $1.6 billion since 2003 that the district should have received according to a funding formula. “We’re not rolling in the dough.”
Board members pressed Carstarphen about class sizes and empty buildings.
“I do not think merging two struggling schools into one larger school is what’s best for children,” said Steven Lee, who represents District 5. Lee and Byron Amos, District 2, voted against the proposal.
Carstarphen assured the board that she was working to find uses for the buildings and expressed her belief that streamlining schools would make it easier to focus on programs, planning and teacher quality.
Parents packed two rooms at APS headquarters to address their concerns about the plan.
Carstarphen proposed merging Benteen and D.H. Stanton elementary schools at a meeting Wednesday but reversed course at the school board meeting Monday. Though many parents voiced support for this change, Alicia DeCristio, a mother in the Jackson Cluster of schools was disappointed.
“Does this mean that next year we’ll be having the same conversation?” she said, noting that the district did not change its criteria for school closures. DeCristio had hoped the merger would provide more resources for students.
Closing schools was a hard decision for Carstarphen, but the board ultimately sided with her.
“I don’t ever want to close schools or consolidate, but we’re in a special situation,” she said. “I’m hopeful that these changes are going to make a difference for our district.”
In other news: 5 things to know today, March 7Cellphone bills may be the most hated piece of mail Canadians open every month and regulators and elected officials across the country are taking pains to reassure citizens they’re taking action to change that, but don’t look for a break on prices to come out of it.
Ontario is the latest province to float the idea of legislation around how wireless providers deal with their customers and the federal telecommunications regulator is in the process of developing a code with national application.
This is about clarity of the contracts, it’s about strong enforcement measures, it’s about transparency
While provincial and federal codes target issues such as contract clarity and cancellation fees, neither the provinces nor the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission are looking to regulate the prices the industry charges.
Ontario’s minority Liberal government said Thursday it plans to table legislation aimed at helping consumers understand cellphone contracts and make cancellation easy and straightforward.
“This is about clarity of the contracts, it’s about strong enforcement measures, it’s about transparency,” Liberal Minister of Consumer Services Tracy MacCharles said during a news conference in Toronto.
“We’re not here to manage the business of the telecoms. We just want consumers to have clarity in those contracts and know what their rights are and for the telecoms to have certain responsibilities to make those contracts more transparent,” she added.
Marc Choma, spokesman for the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, said in an email that the industry supports national consumer protection measures and most of what the Ontario government is proposing, “is already common practice by wireless service providers.”
“We would encourage the Ontario government to first wait to review the new code from the CRTC before moving ahead with its own regulations,” he added.
The CRTC held public hearings on the provisions of a proposed national code in February and a final version is expected in the coming months.
Complaints about telecommunications services have increased by more than 250% over the past four years, according to the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services, which is an independent federal body established in 2008 to deal with complaints around phone and Internet services.
During the wireless code hearings in February, the CCTS — which tracks complaints for the whole country — said 60% of the complaints it receives are about wireless services.
Ms. MacCharles said her ministry was prompted in part by those numbers as well as the results of a survey from consumer advocacy group OpenMedia.ca that found widespread displeasure with cellphone contracts.
Complaints about telecommunications services have increased by more than 250% over the past four years
The legislation, if passed, would mandate consumer consent if the provisions of a fixed-term contract are changed and require wireless providers to make the all-in price of agreements more evident in advertising.
Among other things, consumers would also have the right to cancel their cellphone services at any time and cancellation fees would be capped at $50 (plus the remaining value of any subsidized device the customer had not yet repaid).
Like a draft version of the national code, the proposed provincial act is not expected to put a cap on contract lengths.
Three-year terms, which regularly draw consumer ire, are uncommon in other parts of the world but are a typical feature of cellphone contracts in Canada.
Yet, telecom providers say customers like the option of a long contract because it takes the sting out of the upfront cost of pricey handsets. They say they have already reduced cancellation fees and consumers can simply pay off the balance of any device subsidy remaining and leave at any time.
As for overlap with the expected national code, Ms. MacCharles said the provincial act, if passed, would enable greater enforcement mechanisms by relying on the province’s Consumer Protection Act.
The CCTS is expected to administer the national code but said at the February hearings that it is not equipped to take on an enforcement role or dole out punitive measures against service providers.
The Ontario government has introduced similar legislation in the past but it has died on the order paper. Ms. MacCharles, who took on the consumer services portfolio when Kathleen Wynne became premier, said she plans to introduce the proposed bill in the legislature next week.
If the legislation is passed, Ontario would be the fifth province with a provincial code on cellphone contracts.Russia’s accident-prone aircraft carrier is set to be put to the test — if it gets there. Its history of embarrassing breakdowns may see an anticipated mission to Syria backfire.
The aircraft carrier is the largest leftover of the Soviet era’s Cold War still active in the Russian navy. Now Russian government news agency Tass has declared the warship will be sent into the Mediterranean to conduct air strikes against insurgents and Islamic State in Syria between October and January.
It would be the first time a Russian aircraft carrier has ever engaged in combat.
But Moscow has also given itself some wiggle-room if the troubled 55,000-ton warship can’t put to sea or launch attacks: the government news agency quotes just one ‘anonymous’ source for the report.
Late last year Moscow sent the anti-aircraft cruiser Moskova to the northern borders of Syria after one of Russia’s combat jets was shot down for violating Turkish air space. Moscow has also repeatedly voiced its concerns at a recent build-up of US naval forces in the Mediterranean - including two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers - as part of its ongoing operations against Islamic State.
The waterways and airspace in the eastern Mediterranean is about to get crowded.
The Admiral Kuznetsov carries far fewer aircraft than its US counterparts. About 15 in total. But the ship was designed with a different purpose in mind — to carry a large number of long-range anti-ship missiles while providing air cover for its fleet.
Times have changed since the Cold War, and now the idea of power-projection through forward deployed strike fighters is much more appealing.
Click for more from News.com.auDana Altman and the Oregon basketball coaching staff put together a strong 2017 recruiting class coming off of the program's first Final Four appearance in 78 years.
Following Oregon's historic NCAA tournament run, three Ducks were selected in the two-round NBA draft for the first time in program history. Former Oregon forward Jordan Bell was selected 38th overall by the Golden State Warriors, guard Tyler Dorsey was picked 41st by the Atlanta Hawks and forward Dillon Brooks was taken 45th by the Houston Rockets.
Forward Chris Boucher and guard Dylan Ennis later signed with Golden State and Oklahoma City as undrafted free agents.
Former Duck forward, Kavell Bigby-Williams, requested his release from Oregon to seek transfer on April 20 and announced via Twitter that he is transferring to LSU. Senior guard Casey Benson decided to transfer to Grand Canyon, leaving sophomore Payton Pritchard as the only returning starter from the 2016-17 season.
With seven departures from last year's Final Four run, there will be several new faces on the Ducks' roster next season. In the video above, get to know the new members of the Oregon Ducks 2017-18 basketball team.
--Jen Beyrle
jbeyrle@oregonian.com
@JenBeyrleTwo new species of marsupials that have sex until they are dead have been discovered in Australia – but experts have warned they are under threat of extinction.
The suicide sex marsupials – antechinus – have made headlines across the globe for their strange mating habits.
Once a year the testosterone-fuelled males spend weeks furiously mating with every female they can, sometimes for up to 14 hours at a time. At the end, the increase in stress hormones makes their immune systems collapse and they die, ABC's Radio Australia reports.
"They'll bleed internally, they have ulcers, their fur falls off in patches, sometimes they're stumbling around blind and still trying to mate," Queensland University of Technology mammal expert Andrew Baker told the radio channel.
"It's just this absolutely primal urge," he said. There's orgies of violence and sex and, in antechinus, it happens every year.
The two new species of antechinus were found living in the south east of Australia and scientists are now applying to have them and several other species listed as endangered before they disappear because of their deadly sex.
Tasman Peninsula dusky antechinus (Antechinus vandycki), was discovered near Port Arthur in Tasmania, while the mainland dusky antechinus (Antechinus swainsonii mimetes) inhabits south-eastern Australia.
The latter is at risk of losing its habitat, Baker said. "This rare species is just sitting down there as we speak, in the middle of a small state forest that's being logged. Its precious old-growth forest habitat is rapidly being removed.
"It rings alarm bells because while it's exciting we're finding new mammal species, at the same time we might lose some of them almost as soon as they are discovered," Baker said.
"Who knows how many species we are losing right now that we will never discover. For the rarest species, there may only be hundreds of individuals or less."
Currently researchers believe 15 antechinus species are under threat of extinction from habitat loss, climate change and pests.
Along with these threats, the mating ritual halves the population of antechinus every year. Thomas Mutton, who is working to conserve the creature, said: "You kind of get to know some of them and then the males don't even get to live a year, they only live about 11 months before they all die. It's kind of sad. I think their sex life is quite interesting to humans, it's certainly a bit different to how we do it."Should patrons be allowed to watch Internet pornography on city library computers? The Los Angeles City Council is trying to sort out the issue after it received complaints about pornography on library computers where anyone could see it. The complaints started in Chinatown.
The City Council has asked the City Attorney to come up with a plan to balance keeping children away from the porn sites but yet allow adults their First Amendment rights to view them.
In January a homeless man logged onto a pornography website in one of the computers at the Chinatown branch of the L.A. Public Library System.
After complaints from library users about the site being in plain sight, an L.A. City Council committee is looking into what it could do to limit porn access at public library computers.
So far, it's the only incident reported.
City Councilman Ed Reyes heads up the committee looking into the First Amendment issue.
"We want to maintain the sanctuary for our children and our families in the library without violating First Amendment rights. So how does that get accomplished?" said Reyes.
According to L.A. City Librarian Martin Gomez, there are approximately 2,400 computers within the library system that are publically accessible. What they've done at branches, he says, is to have separate children and adult computer areas.
"We have what we call 'privacy screens,' which are actually put over the screens of the computers to basically have whatever the person is doing on the computer as a private session," said Gomez.
L.A. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has been given the task to come up with a plan to protect children and First Amendment rights of adults.
Angelenos voiced strong opinions on not allowing any access to pornographic material at public library computers.
"I think it would be good for the kids if it's more for education. But anything else I disagree with," said L.A. resident Mike Austin.
"I don't think it should be in a public library because you have children, adults -- I just don't think it's a good thing," said L.A. resident Pearlie Davis.
Trutanich is due back to report to the City Council in a couple weeks with a plan.Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
BIRMINGHAM, England — Nine months after announcing that she is creating the world’s first vagina museum, Florence Schechter is confident that she has heard every joke on the subject.
Schechter, a Jewish comedian and communications professional in her 20s, is preparing to open the museum in Brighton, 50 miles south of London. When the news broke in the spring, it caught the attention of Conan O’Brien, who quipped: It will be “the first museum where you enter through the gift shop.”
The idea also blew up on social media. Twitter users advised Schechter to put up a sign saying “caution, slippery when wet” or install a knocker on the door because “no man will find the buzzer.”Even her father, the Russia-born klezmer musician Gregori Schechter, got in on the act: He complimented her on “hitting the G-spot” after The Independent profiled her efforts in March, she proudly told JTA.But Schechter, who is currently recruiting trustees and scouting a location for the museum, is dead serious about her plan, she told the 30 or so people who came to see her talk about it on Wednesday at the Limmud Festival of Jewish learning in Birmingham. Schechter said she started working on the museum after learning, in March, that Iceland has the world’s only penis museum. She calls this a case of “inequality.”Now, the museum is “my whole life,” she said. “I am now the vagina lady.”The denigrating jokes she’s heard since announcing her plan in March have only strengthened her resolve. “They’re funny until you realize the point is that vaginas are bad, which is pretty horrible,” she said.“The world absolutely needs a vagina museum,” she added.For now, though, the museum is little more than idea that is being promoted, albeit with considerable success. There is a web site through which UK residents can purchase buttons sporting the museum’s logo, and Schechter has been busy hosting events and giving talks. But she admits she is nowhere near collecting the necessary funds for opening a physical space, and doesn’t imagine opening one before 2020.When asked where she would find the funding, Schechter replied: “Oh, man, I wish I knew.”She quickly corrected herself — “Oh, woman, I wish I knew” — before settling on “person.”For now, though, she’s thinking big. In the museum, Schechter plans to explore various perceived inequalities that are connected to vaginas. First among those themes is female genital mutilation, or FGM — a custom prevalent in some Muslim communities, which has affected 200 million women, according to the United Nations.“I want the museum to be part of fighting that,” said Schechter.She also noted that sex trafficking, sexual assault, gay rights and shaming campaigns online could be part of the museum.“I want people to come in, see these issues and say, ‘I have to do something, I’ve got to change this,’” she said.Instead of looking to open the museum in the UK’s capital, Schechter has her sights on Brighton, a seaside town about 50 miles south of London. It’s a “very progressive place,” she noted. (In the June general elections, the local parliamentary candidate for the Green Party won slightly more than half the 57,687 votes cast at Brighton. Nationwide, the party won 1.6 percent of the vote.)“People think that London is quite progressive, but because it’s so multicultural, that means that there are certain communities that can really take offense at a Vagina Museum, and I don’t want to, like, offend anyone when we’re in the really early stages,” she said.Another hot-button issue that Schechter intends to tackle in the museum: The elevated exposure to sexual diseases that affects women and girls from faith communities who engage in anal sex to in order preserve their hymen, Schechter said.“These girls put themselves at risk without realizing it,” she aid. “Those are just the facts and we will make them known for them to make a decision.”The museum will also promote gay rights, said Schechter, who added that if she were living in one of the world’s 12 countries with death penalties for gay people, “I too would have been sentenced to death.”Other exhibits at the museum are less controversial. Anatomical charts will be on display, to help fight widespread ignorance about the female reproductive organ. (In a 2014 survey in the United Kingdom, half of 1,000 women aged 26-35 couldn’t point out the vagina on a medical drawing of the reproductive system. Half of 2,000 men couldn’t find it either in a 2017 follow-up survey.) Other sections will be devoted to childbirth and contraception.There will be touches of whimsy as well. For example, the café will feature vulva cupcakes — or cleft pastries with pink cream in the groove. An art section will feature a sculpture made from plaster casts of 400 women’s vulvas (it’s a 2008 installation titled “The Great Wall of Vagina” and its aim is to start a debate on labial beauty standards dominated by the pornographic industry) and Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1926 “Black Iris” painting.O’Keeffe had consistently denied that her series of flower paintings, with deep and dark crevices, were in fact subversive vaginal artworks.“I would love to have been there in the room when she denied this,” Schechter said during her Limmud talk. “Do you think she was winking?”
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>Cutting the Cord With Playstation Vue
We just cut the cord, and glory is ours. I thought I would share how we did it to provide food for thought for those of you sick of cable (and maybe so people can stop bickering on my DirecTV blog post from years back).
I will walk through the requirements we had, what we used to have, and what the new setup looks like.
Requirements
The requirements for us are fairly simple:
We want access to a core set of channels: Comedy Central CNN Food Network HGTV Local Channels (e.g. CBS, NBC, ABC).
Be able to favorite shows and replay them after they have aired |
at the last minute — with the help of the State Department — to persuade President Clinton himself to write a letter to Mr. Hastert saying a vote on the resolution would cause strategic damage to U.S. interests.
The last-minute push worked. Mr. Hastert removed the resolution from the floor, and the full Congress has yet to take up the matter to this day.
But the American Jewish community is no longer helping Turkey, after a tumultuous deterioration of ties between Israel and Turkey in the past four years. The government in Ankara last week decried a botched Israeli raid on a Turkish aid flotilla, which claimed at least nine lives, as an act of “state terror.”
In some ways, the Memorial Day flotilla affair marks an end of Israel’s more than 20-year strategic alliance with Turkey, and the resulting support from the pro-Israel lobby in Washington.
Turkey, which has a secular constitution, was the first Muslim state to recognize Israel, in 1949. Israel has historically sought to form alliances with countries on the periphery of the Arab world such as Turkey, Iran and Ethiopia.
In 1982, when Israel invaded southern Lebanon, its army destroyed training camps affiliated with the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, a terrorist organization responsible for the slayings of Turkish diplomats.
Turkey rewarded Israel’s counterterrorism operations with increased intelligence ties. The intelligence relationship soon blossomed into full ambassadorial relations, and increased commercial trade and closer military cooperation. In exchange for arms sales from Israel, Turkey allowed the Israeli air force to use Anatolian airspace for training purposes.
The relationship began to sour in the early 2000s with the election of the Justice and Development Party (AKP in Turkish), which is based on elements of parties that had been banned for Islamism.
Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said, “It’s not completely over. There are still close ties between many in Turkey and the community and there are still a lot of common interests.”
But Mr. Hoenlein added, “The Turks happen to have a government that is extremist, that has chosen a path that is violative of the past relationship. It has been a steady process, not just related to the most recent incident. This began with the election of this Islamist government in 2002.”
Barry Jacobs, the American Jewish Committee’s former director of strategic studies in the office of government and international affairs, also noted Turkey’s critical stance toward Israel’s 2006 invasion of southern Lebanon to root out Hezbollah terrorists attacking the Jewish state.
“This started in 2006 when I remember one Israeli diplomat complained that Turkish support for Hezbollah had ‘out-Arabed the Arabs,’” Mr. Jacobs said, adding that Turkey’s unconditional support for Hamas since 2007, combined with Jewish discomfort with defending the Turks on the Armenian issue, led to a dampening of support.
“The major Jewish organizations decided in 2008 that the question of the Armenian genocide resolution was so sensitive we would no longer take public and private positions to oppose it,” Mr. Jacobs said.
Abe Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said he thinks the Turks made a strategic decision to break with Israel during the Gaza war. He pointed to a heated exchange in 2009 at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked out of a session with Israeli President Shimon Peres, telling him: “When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill.”
“We saw things deteriorating but it did not surface publicly until Davos,” Mr. Foxman said. “Until then, the trade continued, the military continued. It did not happen till the Gaza war. My feeling is that Turkey made a geopolitical decision before, but it needed an excuse to turn so dramatically.”
Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Weissman were in some ways the architects of the Jewish community’s support for Turkey in Washington that began at the end of the Cold War. Both men led delegations of Jewish community leaders to Istanbul and Ankara. Mr. Weissman said AIPAC’s leaders even offered training to Turkish Americans on how to establish a successful lobby.
In Congress, the Jewish organizations lobbied for an oil pipeline from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, a pipeline that bypasses Turkey’s rival Armenia entirely. The Jewish lobby in Washington helped protect U.S. arms sales to Turkey, on which the Greek lobby often tried to block or impose conditions.
Henri Barkey, a former State Department Turkey analyst and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said, “The most important element of the relationship with Israel for the Turks in the late 1980s was improving relations with the United States through the American Jewish community.”
In the 1980s, Turkey often lost major fights in Congress to the Greek and Armenian lobbies.
“It made Turkey’s strategic value to the United States more visible and understandable when supporters of Israel would go to bat for them,” said Douglas J. Feith, a former undersecretary of defense for policy who represented Turkey when he was out of government in the early 1990s. “All of the sudden, you not only had strong support for Turkey in elements of the executive branch, you also had then some serious debate on [Capitol Hill] in favor of Turkey as well.”
Today, far from being an asset for Turkey, the American Jewish community appears to becoming a potent foe of Turkish interests in Washington.
On Tuesday for example, the Anti-Defamation League issued a press release calling on the State Department to designate the IHH, the Turkish charity that helped organize the free-Gaza flotilla as a foreign terrorist organization. In Turkey, the IHH has been praised as a group of peace activists and humanitarians.
“In terms of the Jewish community and Israel, neither one of us wants to throw it away and hope it is not over,” Mr. Foxman said. “But every day there is another provocation. Every day the Turkish government goes out of its way to be insulting to Israel and another link is broken.”
Morris Amitay, a former executive director of AIPAC who has also represented Turkey, was more blunt.
“If someone asked me now if I would try to protect Turkey in Congress, my response would be, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’” he said.
The liberal Jewish organizations J Street and Americans for Peace Now declined to comment on the deterioration of Israeli-Turkish ties in Washington.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.The new Minneapolis minimum wage will start going into effect Jan. 1 as scheduled, after a judge denied a request for a temporary injunction against the ordinance and dealt a blow to the key lawsuit challenging the municipal wage hike.
The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit challenging the ordinance in November, and asked Judge Susan Burke to block the city from phasing in the $15 minimum wage starting next month, arguing the ordinance conflicts with the state minimum wage and would cause harm to businesses.
But Burke denied the injunction, citing "plaintiffs' failure to show a likelihood of success on the merits and their failure to show that they are likely to suffer more harm if an injunction is denied than the public and the City will suffer if an injunction is granted."
Susan Segal, the Minneapolis city attorney, said she was "very pleased" with Burke's decision.
"She straight out ruled, and correctly, that they are not likely to succeed on the merits," Segal said. "She found that there is no conflict between the city ordinance and state law, and that there was no evidence of an intent by the legislature for the state minimum wage to be the exclusive law on this issue."
Wage increases will start in Minneapolis for large employers on New Year's Day, when they must pay at least $10 an hour. The wage for all businesses will rise each year on July 1.
Large businesses — those with 100 or more employees — will have to pay the $15 per hour minimum by summer 2022. Small businesses have until 2024. Employers outside the city who send people into Minneapolis for work will also be required to pay those workers the Minneapolis minimum wage.
The chamber's lawsuit will go forward, despite the judge's ruling on the injunction. Co-plaintiffs include Graco, Inc., the Minnesota Recruiting and Staffing Association, and TwinWest Chamber of Commerce, which represents several western suburbs.
Businesses in the suburbs are paying as much attention as those in Minneapolis, said Jonathan Weinhagen, president of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce. Employers in the west metro already complain of worker shortages, he said, and they are worried it will be harder to find people when Minneapolis businesses are paying dramatically more than they do.
"We're not going to understand the impacts until the ordinance is well into its phase-in period," Weinhagen said.
Debate shifts to St. Paul
Minneapolis was the first big city in the Midwest to pass a $15 minimum wage, joining Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
Now attention shifts to St. Paul, where the City Council is expected to take up a municipal minimum wage by summer's end and Mayor-elect Melvin Carter has advocated for $15 per hour with no exemption for tipped workers.
Jennifer Schellenberg, a bartender now working at Northbound Smokehouse & Brewpub who campaigned unsuccessfully for tips to count toward the minimum wage in Minneapolis, said she thinks the public debate is shifting in favor of a tip carveout, even though the minimum wage passed in June without it.
"It wasn't given thoughtful scrutiny," she said. "Now that the dust is settling, people are listening more."
One Minneapolis establishment, rock and blues club Whiskey Junction, closed in November and blamed the minimum wage ordinance, especially the absence of an exemption for tipped workers.
Schellenberg said without the tip credit, restaurants will start switching to counter service or charging customers a service fee rather than accepting tips when they have to pay around $12 per hour plus tips.
"I'm really counting on St. Paul to take a more pragmatic look at the minimum wage," she said. "Then Minneapolis will have made itself an island and will have to reassess."
Weinhagen, who represents businesses all over the metropolitan area, said he is watching St. Paul closely, too, and believes the city will address the issue in its own way. Businesses who operate in both cities won't relish the task of complying with two different minimum wages.
"It could be a challenge if the ordinances are different," Weinhagen said.Here's another reason to consider going the unlocked route with the Nexus One, in addition to having the AT&T (non-3G) and international GSM option. As a number of people have noticed, Google's got its own Early Termination Fee (ETF) equivalent, here called the Equipment Recovery Fee, in the terms of sale, to the tune of $350 if you cancel within the first 120 days. Sound familiar? It's because we saw it in a leak just before the new year. Here's the kicker, though: this is in addition to any fees imposed by the carrier -- not necessarily a problem on its own, but we just glanced at T-Mobile's terms of sale, and sure enough, there's an associated ETF up to $200. If we're reading this right, Nexus One owners who decide to end their service after the 14-day trial period is over but before four months have passed will be hit with upwards of $550 in fees -- more than if you bought the phone outright from the start, especially when you factor in the upfront $180. There hasn't been enough time for someone to tempt fate, but who knows -- come January 20th when early adopters' trial period ends, there might be some interesting stories abound.Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder Sleep talking in a person with RBD Specialty Psychiatry, Sleep medicine
Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is a sleep disorder (more specifically a parasomnia) in which people act out their dreams. It involves abnormal behavior during the sleep phase with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. The major feature of RBD is loss of muscle atonia (i.e., the loss of paralysis) during otherwise intact REM sleep (during which paralysis is not only normal but necessary). REM sleep is the stage of sleep in which most vivid dreaming occurs. The loss of motor inhibition leads to a wide spectrum of behavioral release during sleep. This extends from simple limb twitches to more complex integrated movement. These behaviors can be violent in nature and in some cases will result in injury to either the individual or their bed partner.[1][2]
RBD is a very strong predictor of progression to a synucleinopathy (usually Parkinson's disease or dementia with Lewy bodies).[3][4] Melatonin is useful in the treatment of RBD.[3] RBD was first described in 1986.
Symptoms [ edit ]
RBD is characterized by the dreamer acting out his or her dreams, with complex behaviors.[2] These dreams often involve screaming, shouting, laughing, crying, arm flailing, kicking, punching, choking, and even jumping out of bed. The actions in an episode can result in injuries to oneself or one's bed partner.[2][1] The sleeping person may be unaware of these movements.[2][1] Dreams often involve violent or aggressive actions, and an attack theme like being chased by people or animals. Because violence in dreams is more likely to be recalled, this could be an artifact of recall bias or selection bias.[1] The individual with RBD may not be aware of having it.[4]
In a normal sleep cycle, REM sleep may be experienced at intervals of between 90 minutes and two hours every night, which means RBD episodes may occur up to four times a night. In a rare case, they may only happen once a week or once a month.[medical citation needed] Episodes occur more towards the morning hours because that is when REM sleep is more frequent. When awakened, people can usually recall the dream they were having, which will match the actions they were performing.[medical citation needed]
As the first indication of an underlying neurodegenerative disorder, symptoms of RBD may begin years or decades before other the onset of another condition.[2]
Almost half of those with Parkinson's, at least 88% of those with multiple system atrophy, and about 80% of people with Lewy body dementia have RBD.[1] RBD is a very strong predictor of progression to a synucleinopathy (for example, the Lewy body dementias).[3] On autopsy, up to 98% of individuals with polysomnography-confirmed RBD are found to have a synucleinopathy.[3]
Symptomatic RBD can also be associated with narcolepsy, Guillain Barre syndrome, limbic encephalitis, and Morvan's syndrome.[4]
Other symptoms found in patients with RBD are reduced motor abilities, posture and gait changes, mild cognitive impairment, alterations in the sense of smell, impairments in color vision, autonomic dysfunction (orthostatic hypotension, constipation, urinary problems and sexual dysfunction), and depression.[4]
Causes [ edit ]
Rapid eye movement behavior disorder occurs when there is a loss of normal voluntary muscle atonia during REM sleep resulting in motor behavior in response to dream content. It can be caused by adverse reactions to certain drugs or during drug withdrawal; however, it is most often associated with the elderly and in those with neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson disease and other neurodegenerative diseases, for example multiple system atrophy and the Lewy body dementias.[1][2]
The underlying cause of RBD is not well understood,[2] but it is likely that RBD is an early symptom of synucleinopathy rather than a separate disorder.[5] Brainstem circuits that control atonia during REM sleep may be damaged,[5] including those in the pontomedullary brainstem.[4] REM sleep circuits are located in caudal brainstem structures—the same structures that are known to lead to be implicated in the synucleinopathies.[5] Motor deficits like those seen in RBD are known to result from lesions in those circuits.[5]
Risk factors for developing IRBD are a family history of acting out dreams, prior head injury, farming, exposure to pesticides, low education level, depression, and use of antidepressants.[4]
RBD has also been reported following cerebrovascular accident and neurinoma (tumor), indicating that damage to the brain stem area may precipitate RBD.[medical citation needed] RBD is usually chronic. However, it may be acute and sudden in onset if associated with drug treatment or withdrawal (particularly with alcohol withdrawal). Monoamine oxidase inhibitors, tricyclic antidepressants, Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and noradrenergic antagonists can induce or aggravate RBD symptoms and should be avoided in individuals with RBD.[medical citation needed]
Diagnosis [ edit ]
There are two ways to diagnose RBD: by documenting a history of complex, dream-enactment sleep behaviors, or by polysomnography recording of these behaviors along with REM sleep atonia loss.[2]
RBD may be established from clinical interview as well as several validated questionnaires, when sleep studies cannot be performed.[2][5] Questionnaires such as the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep Behavior Disorder Screening Questionnaire (RBDSQ), the REM Sleep Behavior Questionnaires – Hong-Kong (RBD-HK), the Mayo Sleep Questionnaire (MSQ) and the Innsbruck REM Sleep Behavior Disorder Inventory are well-validated.[2]
Individuals with RBD may not be able to provide a history of dream enactment behavior, so bed partners are also consulted.[1][6] The REM Sleep Behavior Disorder Single-Question Screen offers diagnostic sensitivity and specificity in the absence of polysomnography with one question:[2]
"Have you ever been told, or suspected yourself, that you seem to 'act out your dreams' while asleep (for example, punching, flailing your arms in the air, making running movements, etc.)?"[7]
Differential [ edit ]
Other conditions are similar to RBD in that individuals exhibit excessive sleep movement and potentially violent behavior. Such disorders include non-REM parasomnias (sleepwalking, sleep terrors), periodic limb movement disorder, severe obstructive sleep apnea, and disassociative disorders.[4] Because of the similarities between the conditions, polysomnography plays an important role in confirming RBD diagnosis.
Classification [ edit ]
RBD is a parasomnia. It is categorized as either idiopathic or symptomatic.[1] Idiopathic RBD is the term used when RBD is not associated with another ongoing neurological condition.[4] When it results from an identifiable underlying etiology, RBD is referred to as symptomatic RBD (and considered a symptom of the underlying disorder). Up to almost 92% of patients with idiopathic RBD will go on to develop a neurodegenerative disorder. The disorders most strongly associated with RBD are the synucleinopathies, particularly Parkinson disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, and to a lesser extent, multiple system atrophy.[2][4]
Treatment [ edit ]
RBD is treatable (even when the underlying synucleinopathies are not). Melatonin and clonazepam are the most frequently used,[2] and are comparably effective,[8] but melatonin offers a safer alternative, because clonazepam can produce undesirable side effects.[6] Other medications and treatments are available, but have only anecdotal evidence.[9]
Medications that may worsen RBD and should be stopped if possible are tramadol, mirtazapine, antidepressants, and beta blockers.[2]
In addition to medication, it is wise to secure the sleeper's environment by removing potentially dangerous objects from the bedroom and either place a cushion round the bed or move the mattress to the floor for added protection against injuries.[2] Some extreme sufferers sleep in a sleeping bag zipped up to their neck, and wear mittens so they can't unzip it until they awake in the morning.[10][11]
Patients are advised to maintain a normal sleep schedule, avoid sleep deprivation, and keep track of any sleepiness they may have. Treatment includes regulating neurologic symptoms and treating any other sleep disorders that might interfere with sleep. Sleep deprivation, alcohol, certain medications, and other sleep disorders can all increase RBD and should be avoided if possible.[12]
Prognosis [ edit ]
Most people with RBD will convert to a synucleinopathy—usually Parkinson's disease or dementia with Lewy bodies—within 4 to 9 years from diagnosis of RBD, and 11 to 16 years from onset of symptoms.[4]
Epidemiology [ edit ]
RBD prevalence as of 2017 is estimated to be 0.5–2% overall, and 5–13% of those aged 60 to 99.[1] It is more common in males overall, but equally frequent among men and women below the age of 50.[2] This may partially be due to a referral bias, as violent activity carried out by men is more likely to result in harm and injury and is more likely to be reported than injury to male bed partners by women, or it may reflect a true difference in prevalence as a result of genetic or androgenic factors. Typical onset is in the 50s or 60s.[2]
History [ edit ]
In the 1960s and 1970s, Michel Jouvet described brain lesions in cats that led to loss of atonia in REM sleep.[2][13][14] Carlos Schenck and Mark Mahowald and their team in Minnesota first described RBD in 1986.[2][15]
In animals [ edit ]
RBD has also been diagnosed in animals; specifically dogs.[16]
See also [ edit ]The biggest surprise this week, for me, is seeing Bear Republic showing back up on approvals. Bear Republic pulled out of Texas as some point last year due to the California drought, or so they say. These are the first approvals since that pull out which makes me think that they are planning on showing back up in Texas.
Other notes are the Independence plans to make a Cucumber Redbud. Their original Redbud was good enough, so I am curious how this one turns out. I believe this will be the first cucumber beer that I have seen made in Austin.
Oil Horse is a new brewery out of Longview. They also have received their first approvals this week for a couple of kegs.
This week’s TABC Label Approvals:
K = Keg
B = Large format bottle
bb = 16oz format bottle
b = Small format bottle
c = Small format (12oz) can
cc = 16oz format can
C = Larger format can
Abita – Harvest Blueberry Wheat (b, K)
Abita – Bourbon Street Barleywine (K)
Abita – Bourbon Street Chocolate Stout (B, K)
Abita – Bourbon Street Belgian Style Golden (K)
Arborways Imports – Clown Shoes Whammy Bar (c, K)
Bear Republic – Tribute Ale Peter Brown (b)
Bear Republic – Mach 10 Double IPA (B)
Boulevard – Love Child No 7 (B, K)
Braindead – We Own the Night Stout (K)
Braindead – Secret Church Dubbel Ale (K)
Braindead – Fruhlingzeit Alt (K)
Braindead – Cask Ale (K)
Bridgetport – Stumpton Tart Cherry Saison (B, K)
Destihl – Wild Sour Series Sour Cherry Stout (K)
Destihl – Privyet Russian Imperial Stout (B, K)
Dogfish Head – Alternate Takes 1 (K)
Epic – Los Locos (c)
Freetail – Hopothesis Imperial IPA (B)
Friends and Allies – Noise Cricket Session IPA (c)
Funkwerks – Dry Hopped Provincial (b, K)
Hofbrauhaus – Colbitzer Schwarz (cc)
Hops and Grain – Belgian Style Pale Ale (K)
Hops and Grain – Czech Style Pilsner (K)
Hops and Grain – Volumes of Funk – Dry Hopped Sour Ale (K)
Hops and Grain – Maibock (K)
Hops and Grain – Vienna Style Lager (K)
Hops and Grain – Volumes of Oak – Oak Aged Scotch Ale (K)
Hops and Grain – Belgian Style Tripel Ale (K)
Independence – Cucumber Redbed Berliner Weisse (K)
Independence – Airyeght Airyeght Airyeght (K)
Jester King – Feral Dampf (B)
Jester King – 2016 Hibernal Dichotomous (B)
Krebs – Prairie Artisan Vous Francais (B, K)
Lagunitas – Aunt Sally Ale (b, K)
Nine Band – Independence Ale (K)
Oak Highlands – White Wine Barrel Aged Freaky Deaky (K)
Oak Highlands – Red Wine Barrel Aged Freaky Deaky (K)
Oak Highlands – Freaky Tiki Belgian Tripel Ale (K)
Oasis – London Homesick Ale (c)
Odell – Golden Ale (K)
Oil Horse – 1877 Ale (K)
Oil Horse – Nodding Donkey Ale (K)
Rahr and Sons – Visionary Brew 2016 (B)
Real Ale – Fireman’s #4 ACL 2016 (cc)
Red Horn – Roadwork Rye Ale (K)
Red Horn – Unoversary Smash IPA (K)
Red Horn – Hairy Man English Strong Ale (K)
Redhook – KCCO Gold Lager (b)
Redhook – KCCO White Wheat Ale (b)
Steven’s Point – Smiley Blue Pilsner (b)
Steven’s Point – Oktoberfest Marzen Style (b)
Steven’s Point – Special Lager (b, c)
Steven’s Point – Beyond the Pale IPA (b, c)
Steven’s Point – Onyx Black Ale (b, c)
Steven’s Point – Amber Classic Lager (b)
Steven’s Point – Benedict’s Winter Ale (b, c)
Brewery Approvals:
Note: I have only been putting new brewery approvals here – anything that is just getting reapproved, I do not list. Along with this, any macro brewery that is approved, I do not put. An example of this would be things like a South Korean macro brewery.
(For TX breweries: B = Brewery, BP = Brewpub)
None this week.
Select Labels
TABC Label and Brewery Approvals May 6 2016Paul Cornell has a lot going on these days. Really, he’s had a lot going on for quite some time. Cornell’s narrative contributions to Doctor Who fandom can be traced back to the 80s, writing fiction for Doctor Who fanzines and penning comics for Doctor Who Magazine in the early 90s. Following his well-known Hugo-nominated television episodes for the reboot of Doctor Who, Cornell returned to comic writing and has worked steadily on comic titles for the last decade. His credits are as high-profile as they are prolific: Young Avengers, Captain Britain, Fantastic Four, and Wolverine to name a few.
Last week Dark Horse Comics released his 70s pastiche book This Damned Band, and tomorrow his hotly anticipated Doctor Who crossover event from Titan Comics, The Four Doctors, will be released in connection with the second annual Doctor Who Comic Day on Saturday. As if that’s not enough: just a few weeks ago, Legendary Comics announced that Cornell would write a graphic novel titled Warcraft: Bonds of Brotherhood, to be released in May 2016 immediately preceding the June 10 release of the film Warcraft, both based on the genre-defining MMORPG video game franchise.
I recently met with Cornell to discuss the Four Doctors series along with his other recent projects. There was much ground to cover, and I could barely get the tape going before he began telling me what World of Warcraft fans could expect from his forthcoming graphic novel…
Paul Cornell: If you’re a Warcraft fan, You’re gonna really like [the graphic novel] because it’s absolutely true to the material, and there’s a few in-jokes in there, and you’ll recognize your favorite characters and settings and creatures. But at the same time, like the movie, it’s completely friendly to people who are encountering this stuff for the first time, and it’s a very mainstream relatable fantasy with lots of emotions and big characters. Lots of fun. You haven’t seen that in fantasy much lately.
Edie Nugent: You started out in Doctor Who fandom and fan fiction, and it seems that much of the rebirth of NuWho has been authored by fans who were active in that community. In terms of fan-content creators turned actual content creators, how do you think this has affected the way that Doctor Who stories are told?
Cornell: I think that every big franchise should go and lie fallow for several years [laughs] and that’s what we did very successfully in the 15 years between the old show and the new. Fan creators flood in, put it into dry-dock, do a lot of the work, change it, and break it, allow it to change with the times. I think a lot of that is the reason, when NuWho came back, it had been re-tooled and refitted for a new age, led by Russell [T. Davies]. Loads of us had been active in the fan community. And that continues to this day.
I think the relationship between Doctor Who and it’s audience is different to any other genre show, because we are not a cult show. We’re the second biggest drama in Britain. I say we, I haven’t worked on it for 7 years.
Nugent: Well, you’re part of the family now.
Cornell: Well, I like to think I still am. We’re a mainstream fantasy show, not a cult show.
Nugent: Not niche.
Cornell: Yeah, and so everybody in Britain knows what Doctor Who is. And we’re all inured to some extent.
Nugent: How does the medium you’re working in, say radio versus comics versus television, affect the kinds of Doctor stories you tell?
Cornell: That’s interesting. I think we’re led by the TV show, the shape of which is determined by budget as much as anything else— or was back in the day. That is to say, if you’re writing a comic strip for the Second Doctor I think it’s almost cheating to give him enormous space and lots of aliens and things like that. I think, to retain the feel of his era, you need three men in rubber suits and a base under siege. I think, actually, because the imagination was needed to conquer that back then, you need to use the same limitations in the form. And not everybody believes that, but that’s how I think. These days of, course, they can show virtually anything in modern Doctor Who.
Nugent: So if you’re doing pastiche you’re saying: older Doctors, smaller, newer Doctors bigger?
Cornell: Right. To make sure they’ve got the world right. For instance, the guy who’s writing the Eleventh Doctor comic has thought a lot about “timey wimey-ness.” On the other hand, a Ninth Doctor comic is much more of a straight-forward adventure.
So, for Four Doctors, what’s most important is getting the voices of the doctors right and finding intuitively an idea of how they’d react to each other. For instance, I think [Peter] Capaldi and David Tennant— the Tenth and Twelfth Doctors— would be at each other’s throats. Because the Tenth, still full of guilt, doesn’t even see how the Twelfth can exist. And thinks some dirty deed has been done, some dodgyness. The Twelfth won’t and can’t tell them how he came to be. And Eleven is busy holding them both back going “can’t we all get along?” The Twelfth refers to them both as Manic Pixie Dream Doctors.
Nugent: The four-Doctor crossover requires you to manage some really diverse personalities, and not just the four—there’s a rumored extra doctor appearance. Was writing that a bit like managing a family christmas? Balancing the opposing forces?
Cornell: [Laughing] very much. I think what fans are after more than anything else is for the companions and the Doctors to be together and interacting for most of the story. I think that’s the heart and soul of something like this. So, initially, it’s about Clara contacting Alice and Gabby and trying desperately to liaise with them to stop a multi-Doctor crossover event happening because there’s danger in such an event.
Nugent: Cloister bell ringing…
Cornell: Thankfully, she fails in that endeavor, and actually— Clara, Gabby and Alice is also really interesting because they don’t fight each other. They look for each other’s credentials. They check out if they really are who they seem to be, and having established that they realize that they’re very much a part of the same professional team. People who are affected by…people who have ‘Doctor issues’ in their lives [laughs].
Nugent: A support group, a professional courtesy?
Cornell: Absolutely. And they kind of solve it, because the multi-Doctor crossover is as pummeling and difficult and dangerous as Clara has envisaged it will be, and she having set up that support group at the start actually is what helps…anyway…I’m getting— spoilers!
Nugent: What comics inspired you as a kid? What work do you follow now that pushes you artistically?
Cornell: I was a Bronze-Age Marvel kid. My dad brought home the English edition of Avengers weekly with scary Doctor Strange in the back, and off I went! I liked a lot of British humor comics before that— Sparky, Beano, Dandy. I also very much got into everything Marvel. The era of Marvel to which I feel most connected is Bronze-Age. I worship people like Steve Gerber— so many good writers back then, writing effortlessly adult mature comics for an all-ages audience.
Nugent: Do you follow anything current that informs your work?
Cornell: Hugely Bandette, The work of Greg Rucka, Gail Simone…
Nugent: What about those appeal to you?
Cornell: Various different things. In terms of Bandette, I love the classic clear line artwork of Colleen Coover, I love Rucka’s attention to detail and research and real-world issues. We’re in a bit of a golden age right now. It’s just gone boom. The word I can never say is digital. In my business it’s a really bad thing that I can’t say digital [laughs]. But that has changed everything. And I think the fact that Marvel and DC and everyone else is now looking for more of a wide, mainstream audience through the electronic comic channels. [laughs] I can say electronic!
Nugent: Just in terms of distribution and ease of reading.
Cornell: Absolutely. It’s changes the audience completely. When I say mainstream I’m talking about women, basically, and all-ages audiences to some extent as well. Because I’ve always wanted to be able to write comics for everybody. For a mainstream audience. That’s coming from the Doctor Who thing: Doctor Who is for everyone as well. I think the distribution we had in the past really limited the range of things one could write about. And I’m taking advantage of this now myself, which is lovely.
Nugent: What do you think it is about Doctor Who that has allowed it to bridge countries, ages, nationalities and capture imaginations for over 50 years?
Cornell: I think it’s got an amazingly versatile format, while having a really specific set of ethics. It’s a continuing anti-weapon, anti-gun, anti-war stance. And the fact that the Doctor is an explorer. Somebody who just wants to go and look at things. And who gets into adventures, not because it’s his job, but because he’s tripped across them. And his aims are always humane: that I think is really appealing.
And also what’s really appealing is the nature of the format. You can watch one and it’s a one-and-done adventure like The Lone Ranger: he’s gone into town, he’s sorted something out, he rides off again. But then, maybe there’s a trialing reference you don’t understand or a joke, you look at the history of it and suddenly you’ve got a Hitchcock-zoom at 50 years of continuity that’s not actually something that looks scary and huge, because you’ve seen clearly small and individual adventures, and how easily taste-able…and that it’s all there if you want to explore it. I think that combination is delicious.
Nugent: How has it been branching out into superhero comic writing with books like Captain Britain, Young Avengers? How does the approach to telling those stories differ from how you tell Doctor Who stories?
Cornell: I’d always wanted to tell superhero stories. I think for superheroes, there’s obviously more of an emphasis on the battling, on the fighting. That comes with the territory. However, there’s certainly a lot of the ethos of [Doctor] Who in terms of storytelling you can pull straight in there. There isn’t a lot of difference between Four Doctors and a superheroes team book in that it’s all about character interaction. I’ve always loved team books especially because of all that character interaction.
The thing I really like about superhero comics: I remember the X-Men, Chris Claremont’s X-Men, which I worship and adore. That man was so ahead of his time. It got me through school — the Paul Smith era of Claremont X-Men. One can identify with these relatively simple powered characters with specific characteristics, can really tap into something in people who need a bit of support; people who need to find a hero.
My favorite moments in comics are always the ‘oh Batman would do that’ sort of moments where we learn something new that really chimes with how we feel about the archetype. I think those are the hardest to write, and those are the ones that really make me go: “Wow.” Like when Frank Miller said Batman’s got some Kryptonite, and we all went: ‘Oh yes. Batman would do that.’
Nugent: Yeah! Just, like ‘You never know.’ He’s always prepared. So what do you think of the new Midnighter series having worked on Stormwatch?
Cornell: I haven’t read it. But I’m glad there is one. I have this thing, after I’ve worked on a series, I give it a few years before I go back to the characters. Because whoever is doing it, they’re going to do something of their own— of course they should. I don’t necessarily have to be around to watch that. It’s like, you don’t want to go with your ex on the next date, do you? [laughs]
I thought I really messed up Stormwatch. I just think I never got it. I didn’t have to insist on anything: DC |
lubricant of the economic machinery that increasingly
surveys and oppresses the multitudes and our shared habitats, how could
May 1st become the turning point to intensify a process not only of
withdrawal or a symbolic act but a call for the infinite strike, the
closest we can get of doing nothing, how actively we envision and realize
our lives without capitalism.
We are interested in continuing this discussion not only on theoretical
grounds but through proposals for specific actions online and in the city.
We would like to propose meeting at Central Park on Tuesday early evening
for a walk and informal assembly.
The walking assembly will be unfacilitated by the Central Park Exploratory
Committee, an ungroup attempting to reassert the park as a commons, and as
potential site of convergence on the day of the General Strike, resulting
in a meshwork of refusal, food, music, pleasure, sensuality, resistance,
communization. The group is interested in weaving together with others
great fictions and believes strongly that such visions or horizons will
resonate with multitudes not only on May Day but also for the days
after.
Come join us and bring things to share: proposals,
food, drink.
___________________________________________________
2. Background
A general strike has been called for May Day, first by Occupy Los Angeles
on November 15th, and locally by Occupy Wall Street on February 14th. In
the time between and since many other city and neighborhood assemblies
have taken up the call, and a number of other coalitions, collectives, and
committees have started to agitate and organize for a general strike in
2012.
These recent calls for a May Day general strike have taken inspiration
from Occupy Oaklands wildcat general strike of November 2nd, 2011, and
the struggles in Wisconsin last Spring which first reignited interest in
the concept. In the months since the Occupy movement began we have seen
general strikes called in Belgium, Egypt, Greece, India, Israel, Italy,
Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, and the United
Kingdom.
The general assembly of Occupy Los Angeles committed to the general strike
on December 19th; Occupy Boston on January 7th; Occupy Tampa on January
7th; Occupy Pasadena on January 8th; Occupy Phoenix on January 10th;
Occupy Williamsburg and Occupy Long Beach on January 17th; Occupy Brooklyn
on January 19th; Occupy Oakland on January 29th; Occupy Ventura on
February 7th; New York City on February 14th; Occupy Sydney on February
18th; Occupy Detroit on February 21st; Occupy Seattle on February 26th;
and Occupy Bushwick on March 1st. In the weeks between and since many
other cities, assemblies, and organizations have also called for the May
Day General Strike, and we expect more to follow suit in the next five
weeks.
___________________________________________________
3. Some Online Resources
NEW YORK CITY LINKS
http://da.nycga.net/mayday/
http://da.nycga.net/category/subgroups/may-day/
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/strikeeverywhere
http://maydaynyc.org/
http://www.nycga.net/
http://occuprint.org/Category/MayDay
http://occupybk.org/
http://occupybk.org/groups/organize-bushwick-1128840377/
http://occupywilliamsburg.org/
http://strikeeverywhere.net/
http://university.nycga.net/our-courses/studying-may-day/
http://university.nycga.net/our-courses/studying-may-day/recommended-readings/
http://wiki.occupy.net/wiki/May_Day
ONLINE RESOURCES
http://www.gstrike.org/
http://insurrectiondays.noblogs.org/
http://interoccupy.org/may1call/
http://libcom.org/gallery/may-1st-2012-posters-graphics
http://www.occupymay1st.org/
http://www.occupymay1st.org/groups/occupation-coordination/
http://www.occupymay1st.org/resources/imagery/
https://www.facebook.com/events/337068492974144/
https://www.facebook.com/events/307864259256522/
https://www.facebook.com/events/119235331529404/
https://www.facebook.com/events/367411923279181/
https://www.facebook.com/events/185740101536525/
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyGeneralStrike
https://www.facebook.com/occupym1
https://www.facebook.com/occupymayfirst
https://www.facebook.com/strikeeverywhere
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-May-1st-General-Strike/160023040772206
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Resources-for-the-worldwide-general-strike-May-1st/354855194534813
https://twitter.com/global_strike
https://twitter.com/May1StreetTeam
https://twitter.com/Maydaystrike
https://twitter.com/nycgenstrike
https://twitter.com/OccupyGenStrike
https://twitter.com/OccupyGenStrk
https://twitter.com/occupym1
https://twitter.com/OWSGenStrike
https://twitter.com/OWSMayDay
https://twitter.com/StrikeEverywher
https://twitter.com/USGeneralStrike
https://twitter.com/WorldStrikeMay1
___________________________________________________
4. Readings
[unsorted]
--The Social General Strike - Stephen Naft, 1905:
http://www.mediafire.com/?t37d5nxsvshzdcr
--The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions - Rosa
Luxemburg, 1906:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1906/mass-strike/index.htm
--Reflections on Violence - George Sorel, 1908:
http://ifile.it/wpclbh/__Sorel__Reflections_on_Violence__Cambridge_Texts_in_the_
History_of_Political_Thought_.l_ntx2j6721x3xo9.pdf
--"The General Strike" - Bill Haywood, 1911:
http://www.iww.org/en/history/library/Haywood/GeneralStrike
--"Critique of Violence" - Walter Benjamin, 1921:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ew0x25f2guv
--The General Strike - Ralph Chaplin, 1933:
http://libcom.org/library/general-strike-ralph-chaplin
--"The General Strike" - W.E.B. Du Bois, 1935:
http://townsendlab.berkeley.edu/sites/all/files/The%20General%20Strike.pdf
--Kill the Bill: The Power of a General Strike - Madison IWW, 2011:
http://libcom.org/library/iww-general-strike-pamphlet
--"To All the Working People: Call for De-Nuke General Strike" - Committee
for De-nuke General Strike, 2011:
http://jfissures.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/to-all-the-working-people-%E2%80%93-call-
for-de-nuke-general-strike/
--"Wisconsin's Lost Strike Moment" - Nicolas Lampert & Dan S. Wang, 2011:
http://www.justseeds.org/blog/2011/04/wisconsins_lost_strike_moment_1.html
--"What Chance a General Strike in Manhattan?" - Nikolas Kozloff, 2011:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/10/2011107135115719238.html
--"A Message to the Partisans, in Advance of the General Strike" - Society
of Enemies, 2011: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/11/01/18696540.php
--"Blockading the Port is Only the First of Many Last Resorts" - Society
of Enemies, 2011:
http://www.bayofrage.com/from-the-bay/blockading-the-port-is-only-the-first-of-many-last-resorts/
--"General Strike" - Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, 2011:
http://occupytheory.org/Tidal_5.html
--"What are the Origins of May Day?" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1894:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1894/02/may-day.htm
--"The Idea of May Day on the March" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1913:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/04/30.htm
--"May Day in the West and the East" - Leon Trotsky, 1923:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/04/mayday.htm
--"The First of May: Symbol of a New Era in the Life and Struggle of the
Toilers" - Nestor Makhno, 1928:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/makhno-nestor/works/1928/05_01.htm
--The History of Mayday - Alexander Trachtenberg, 1932:
http://www.marxists.org/subject/mayday/articles/tracht.html
--"A General Strike" - Mariarosa Dall Costa, 1974:
http://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/mariarosa-dalla-costa-a-general-strike/
--"What do we mean by The General Strike?" - Chris Harman, 1985:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/harman/1985/01/genstrike.htm
--The Incomplete, True, Authentic and Wonderful History of May Day - Peter
Linebaugh, 1986
--"Birth of a Holiday: The First of May" - Eric Hobsbawm, 1994:
http://libcom.org/history/birth-holiday-first-may
--"Infinite Strike" - Anonymous, 2010:
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Anonymous__Infinite_Strike.html
--"Which Way Forward for the 99%?" - Occupy May 1st, 2012:
http://libcom.org/library/which-way-forward-99-build-power-show-power-through-
mass-participatory-bold-action
___________________________________________________
5. NYC Links
Brooklyn General Assembly: http://occupybk.org/
Bushwick General Assembly: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Bushwick.GA/
New York City General Assembly: http://www.nycga.net/
Strike Everywhere: http://strikeeverywhere.net/
Williamsburg General Assembly: http://occupywilliamsburg.org/
___________________________________________________
6. Precarious & Service Worker Assembly
Start:
03/28/2012 19:30
Category:
Precarious/Service Worker Assembly
Address:
360 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
Tired of being treated like a servant by your customers? Tired of
management demanding more and more for less and less? Feeling alone or
frustrated? Come to the first Precarious and Service Worker Assembly to
network with others who share your interests!
As service workers, we are often both overworked and underpaid; with
Management forcing workers to work ever faster in an ever shorter amount
of time. Productivity and speed-of-service requirements increase while
hours per week are slashed. Its clear: The harder we work, the less we
get paid, and the richer they get!
Many of us are already in tough situations as parents, immigrants, young
people, and students. Racism is blatantly apparent at many of our
workplaces, with Latino and immigrant workers confined to back-of-house
positions, maintaining a racial hierarchy to keep us separated. For some,
a job at a restaurant or a cafe is a 2nd or even 3rd job, a result of the
declining wages for other careers. Even worse, we often find ourselves
forced into student loan and credit card debt because of low pay. All the
while, rent, food, and transportation costs climb through the roof.
Solidarity and support among local service workers can be empowering for
all of us. Remember, they cant run these places without us. Bosses thrive
by pitting us against one another, but if not for us, Management wouldnt
make a dime. So lets take whats ours!
Bring some goods to share from your place of employment if youd like, and
feel free to bring a friend or two as long as theyre not the boss! Well
be discussing how we can make our collective situation much more
interesting and how we can engage together in upcoming actions like the
May Day General Strike.
__________________________________________________
16 Beaver Group
16 Beaver Street, 4th fl.
New York, NY 10004
for directions/subscriptions/info visit:
http://www.16beavergroup.org
TRAINS:
4,5 -- Bowling Green
2,3 -- Wall Street
J,Z -- Broad Street
R -- Whitehall
1 -- South FerryCeladet Bedir Khan (Kurdish: Celadet Alî Bedirxan; 26 April 1893 – 1951), also known as Mîr Celadet, was a Kurdish diplomat, writer, linguist, journalist and political activist. He held a master's degree in law from Istanbul University, completed his studies in Munich, and spoke several languages including Arabic, Kurdish, Russian, German, Turkish, Persian and French. He left Turkey in 1923 when the Kemalists declared a new republic. In 1927, at a conference of Kurdish nationalists held in Beirut, a committee was formed, the Xoybûn. He is known for having been the first modern linguist to compile and organise the grammar of the modern form of the Northern Kurdish language, Kurmanji, and having designed the Latin-based Hawar alphabet, which is now the formal alphabet of Kurmanji and is also frequently used for the other dialects of the Kurdish Language, having replaced the Arabic-based, Cyrillic-based, Persian-based and Armenian-based alphabets formerly used for Kurmanji.
Life [ edit ]
Celadet was born to Mir Ali Bedir Khan, son of the last emir of the Bohtan Bedir Khan Beg, and Circassian Senihe Hanım. Sources differ as to his birthplace: according to Kurdish sources he was born in a suburb of Istanbul, Turkey; however, according to Encyclopædia Britannica, he was born in Syria. He held a master's degree in law from Istanbul University, completed his studies in Munich, and spoke several foreign languages including Arabic, Kurdish, Russian, German, Turkish, Persian and French.
In 1919, Celadet and his brother Kamuran Ali Bedirxan accompanied British officer Edward Noel in his travels through Iraq. Noel was assessing the possibility of the creation of an official nation of Kurdistan.[1]
Bedir Khan brothers: Kamuran (1895– 1978), Sureyya (1883–1938), and Celadet
Ali Badirkhan left Turkey for Egypt in 1923 when the Ankara Government declared the new republic. In 1927, at a conference of Kurdish nationalists held in Beirut, a committee was formed, the Xoybûn, to coordinate the movement. Jaladat Ali Badirkhan was elected as the first president of this committee. Three years later, the Xoybûn became involved in the Kurdish independence movement in Ağrı Province, called Republic of Ararat. After the defeat of the Ararat movement, he moved to Iran. Reza Shah Pahlavi, King of Iran, tried to persuade him to stay away from Kurdish nationalist movement, and offered him a consulate job, but had him expelled from the country when he did not agree. Then he moved to Iraq, but the British did not want him to stay, and he finally moved to Syria in 1931, where he lived his remaining two decades in exile.
After the defeat of Kurdish nationalist movements in Turkey, Iraq and Iran, he devoted himself to the Kurdish cultural issues. In 1935 he married his cousin, Rewşen Xanim. He had two children from this marriage, Cemşîd and Sînemxan. During his last years, he faced severe economic problems, and worked as a farmer. In July 1951, he fell into a well during an incident[clarification needed] and died.
His daughter Sînemxan, lives as of 2005 in Baghdad; she has written several books on Kurdistan's history.
Work [ edit ]
His work in exile concentrated on a Latin alphabet for the Kurdish language. In 1931, he published the Kurdish grammar book Bingehên rêzimana Kurdî (or Bingehên gramera kurdmancî). The French authorities in Syria permitted his publishing of a Kurdish-oriented cultural magazine, Hawar, beginning on 15 May 1932. It was initially bi-monthly, and primarily in Kurdish, with three or four pages per issue in French. Although the first 23 issues, from 1932 to 1935, were published using the Arabic alphabet, his principal purpose was the further development and spread of the Latin-based alphabet he had developed for northern Kurdish (i.e., Kurmanji), and issues 24 to 57, from 1941 to 1943 (monthly), were published in the standard Latin-based Kurdish alphabet, also known as the "Bedirxan script". It is still used by Kurds in Turkey and Syria. And it is still used for Zazaki and Kurmanji and partly Sorani in Kurdistan Regional Government. From 1942 until 1945, he published a separate monthly journal named Ronahî, comprising 28 issues. In 1970, the French translation of his book on Kurdish grammar was published in France.
Books [ edit ]
Nivêjên Êzidiyan (The prayers of Yazidis)
Ji Mesela Kurdistanê (About the Kurdistan Problem), in Hawar journal, vol.45
journal, vol.45 Elfabêya Kurdî û Bingehên gramera kurdmancî (Kurdish Alphabet and The Basics of Kurmanji Grammar)
Bedir Khan, Djeladet Ali & Lescot, Roger, Grammaire kurde: (dialect kurmandji), Paris: J. Maisonneuve, (Librairie d'Amerique et d'Orient), 1991 (also Paris: Maisonneuve, 1970).
References [ edit ]HOW people collaborate, in the face of numerous temptations to cheat, is an important field of psychological and economic research. A lot of this research focuses on the “tit-for-tat” theory of co-operation: that humans are disposed, when dealing with another person, to behave in a generous manner until that other person shows himself not to be generous. At this point co-operation is withdrawn. Fool me once, in other words, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
When he encounters such a withdrawal of collaboration, the theory goes, the malefactor will learn the error of his ways and become a more co-operative individual. And there is experimental evidence, based on specially designed games, that tit-for-tat does work for pairs of people. Human societies, though, are more complex than mere dyads. And until recently, it has been difficult to model that complexity in the laboratory. But a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Nicholas Christakis and his colleagues at Harvard has changed that. Dr Christakis arranged for a collaboration-testing game to be played over the web, with many participants. As a result, he and his team have gained a more sophisticated insight into the way co-operation develops.
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Dr Christakis used what is known as a public-goods game for his experiment. At the beginning of such a game, points are doled out to each participant. During every round, players are given the opportunity to donate points to their neighbours. Points so donated are augmented by an equal number from the masters of the game. If everyone co-operates, then, everyone ends up richer. A “defector” who refuses to donate to his co-operating neighbours will, however, benefit at the expense of those neighbours. At the game's end, the points are converted into real money, to ensure that proper incentives are in place.
To play his large-scale public-goods game, Dr Christakis recruited 785 volunteers via Mechanical Turk—a service provided by Amazon, an online retailer, that works by farming out small tasks to an army of individual workers. Each volunteer was randomly assigned links to, on average, eight other players. Together, they played repeated rounds of one of three variations of the game.
In the first, participants always interacted with the same group of people. In the second, the connections were randomly reshuffled after each round. In the final version, one-third of the possible pairings between participants were chosen at random after each round (such pairs may or may not, therefore, have been dealing with each other in the previous round). One player from each pair was first told or reminded of how the other had behaved in the previous round, and was then asked whether he wanted to break his connection with that player, if he already had one, or form a new connection, if he had not.
In all versions of the game, roughly 60% of players started out co-operating. However, in the first two, this decreased over time as the pernicious influence of the freeloaders spread. The larger the fraction of a subject's partners who defected in a given round, the less likely that person was to co-operate in the next—classical tit-for-tat. However, this tit-for-tat retaliation was not enough to save co-operation, and after a dozen rounds only 10-20% of the players were still willing to co-operate.
In the variant where participants had some choice over whom they interacted with, though, the amount of co-operation stayed stable as the rounds progressed. When Dr Christakis and his team looked at how the relationships between players were evolving in this third version, they found that connections between two co-operators were much more likely to be maintained than links that involved a defector. Over time, the co-operators accumulated more social connections than the defectors did.
Furthermore, as they were shunned, the defectors began to change their behaviour. A defector's likelihood of switching to co-operation increased with the number of players who had broken links with him in the previous round. Unlike straightforward tit-for-tat, social retaliation was having a marked effect.
The next question, then, is whether such a mechanism holds outside the laboratory. To find out, Dr Christakis has forged links with some anthropologists. They hope to report the answer soon.Catherine: Full Body Might Be Coming To Nintendo Switch In The West [Update]
By Sato. December 22, 2017. 7:30am
Atlus didn’t announce any platforms with the Western localization of Catherine: Full Body this morning, but an email from the company may have slipped a possible Switch version for the West.
Update: Sega and Atlus USA reached out to say that the info in the email was a copy and paste HTML mistake. However, with the platforms still unannounced for the West we can’t rule out the possibility, so be sure to let Atlus know if you’d like to see the game on Switch!
Upon checking the bottom of Atlus’ email, the trademark info at the bottom shows “Nintendo Switch is a trademark of Nintendo. ©2017 Nintendo.” This could simply be an error from Atlus’ part, so we’ll take it with a grain of salt for now, but it would certainly be cool to see the game get a PS4 and Switch release in the West.
It’s also worth noting that the marker wasn’t on other announcements such as Dragon’s Crown Pro which will release only on PlayStation 4. As for the Japanese release of Catherine: Full Body it’ll be available for PS4 and PS Vita.
Catherine: Full Body releases in Japan next winter for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.Do you know your Litecoin from your Dogecoin? As Bitcoin take a dive we look at the virtual currency rivals waiting in the wings
The doomsayers have been out for Bitcoin after the collapse of one of its biggest exchanges sent the price crashing.
On Monday 3 March the price stood at $590, a recovery from the near $400 it dived to last week, but a long way from the $1,000 mark it hit in November 2013.
The collapse led to questions over the safety and future of the cryptocurrency and the concept itself. But it's not just Bitcoin being touted as the digital future of money, there are a whole host of rival virtual currencies waiting in the wings.
Scroll down for video
Altcoins: Dogecoin, Litecoin and Peercoin are all based on Bitcoins
Bitcoins were launched in 2009, offering a currency free from government interference that could be shared instantly online.
It has grown from a suspicious currency favoured by drug dealers and criminals to a viable future form of payments, with interest being shown on Wall Street, by venture capitalists and regulators.
However, the collapse of one of the biggest exchanges, Mt.Gox, has shown how volatile the currency is and how little protection you have if your Bitcoins suddenly go missing.
Bitcoin supporters will tell you this is not the end. If you search online for crypotocurrencies you will find hundreds, but Bitcoin is by far the biggest by use and price with a market worth more than $7billion.
According to Bitcoin enthusiast Jez San, the internet entrepreneur behind poker site PKR.com, Bitcoin was the original cryptocurrency, while others are based on the same source code so could never really replace it.
He explains: ‘The source code of Bitcoin is available for any programmer to download, change its name and then release it.
‘The main contribution to virtual currency comes from the people using it. So it is simply a majority rules system and most people are already using Bitcoin.
'It is like taking the design of a Ford Focus but making a slight tweak. It is still a Ford.’
However, one area where virtual currencies are challenging Bitcoin is in how they are made.
Bitcoins are created through a complicated system of computer formulas using expensive software and systems known as data mining.
But alternative currencies, known as alt.coins, claim to be made faster and easier which saves money on equipment and energy use.
This makes these currencies a cheaper access point to get into the virtual currency world and eventually use whatever coins you have to buy some Bitcoins.
Andy Schmidt, research director at CEB TowerGroup, which advises business on the use of Bitcoins, explains: ‘Bitcoin is the Paypal of the virtual currency market.
‘There are socially responsible angles that others are taking with coins that take less energy to create.
‘If I had a 100 pennies I would put them in Bitcoins as it works, it has been proven.
‘I would still hedge and look at the smaller players that solve some of the problems like limited supply.’
Many of the virtual currency exchanges will accept different types of ‘cryptocoins' but if you ever really wanted to spend or invest in this area, you would have to eventually convert them to the more commonly used and universally accepted Bitcoins.
Marketcap: Bitcoin is by far the biggest virtual currency
What are the main alternatives to Bitcoin?
Litecoin: Easier to mine then Bitcoins
Litecoin – The easy access coin
Litecoin has a potentially wider circulation than Bitcoin which has a limit of 21m.
Litecoin has a maximum limit of 84m, meaning there is more available to mine and eventually will be more available to trade.
A Litecoin is currently worth around $14, and the virtual currency has a market capitalisation of $381million.
This coin is described by virtual currency website Coindesk as ‘the silver to Bitcoin’s gold.’
The website’s state of Bitcoin report says Litecoin mining is more accessible as it only requires a low-end graphics card
Dogecoin: More social than Bitcoin
Dogecoin – The social media coin
Dogecoin is characterised by a an image of a dog on a gold coin.
It has a market capitalisation of $67million and is among the cheapest virtual currencies at $0.0013
Its low valuation may be down to its high supply of 100billion with a further 5.2billion to be circulated per year.
Members of the Dogecoin community can also reward each other with coins for sharing interesting content on social media.
It has spawned several other animal-themed coins such as the PandaCoin, Cat C oin and Duck Duck Coin.
Peercoin: Nicer to the environment than Bitcoins
Peercoin- The environmentally friendly option
The formula behind Peercoin is quicker and easier to solve by computer geeks.
This means they will use less energy powering equipment, therefore helping the environment.
It has a market capitalisation of $72millon and can be snapped up for $3.41.
Coindesk describes Peercoin as more energy efficient than Bitcoin.
It says there is no limit on the amount that can be created.
The coin is designed to eventually have an inflation rate of 1 per cent.
Marscoin - The interplanetary alternative
This is a coin dedicated to designing a currency fit for use whenever the human race colonises Mars.
The Marscoin has a value of $0.013 and market capitalisation of $50,959. But as there is no guarantee of people living on Mars in our lifetime or at all, mining and investing in this is probably likely to be more of a hobby.
Mintchip
Mintchip is the brainchild of the Canadian Mint, which launched a competition in 2012 to find a viable virtual payment system.
The idea is that transactions would be done through a computer chip attached to devices such as a mobile phone and backed by the Bank of Canada.
The Brixton pound
This isn't technically a virtual currency but the Brixton pound serves a social and decentralised purposes by keeping money in the local Brixton area.
The idea is that people buy vouchers for the equivalent price in pounds, which can then be spent by participating retailers in Brixton.
You can also use the vouchers to pay by text, giving them a virtual element.
And, of course....gold
The one thing that any virtual currency gets compared to is gold. This would seem slightly unfair on the basis that gold has been a store and measure of wealth for thousands of years and so has proven itself to a somewhat higher level than Bitcoin.
However, gold's position as the world's favourite alternative to individual currencies means that it will always be brought into the conversation.
Gold had a tough year last year, as improving economic sentiment encouraged people into more risky assets.
However, the price has been pushed back up in recent weeks as the US Federal Reserve starts withdrawal of its economic stimulus and there have been continuing fears over China's economy and currency concerns in emerging markets.
Goldbugs say it can only look more attractive if investors flock to safety, seeing more volatile markets are ahead.
Gold: The gold price has rebounded despite positive economic sentimentGREEN BAY, Wis. -- As fun-loving and entertainment-oriented as he is, B.J. Raji couldn't fathom it. There would be no Lambeau Leap, not on Sunday or any other day, after Raji scored on a 1-yard touchdown run in the first quarter of the Green Bay Packers' 35-26 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
B.J. Raji celebrates following his 1-yard rushing touchdown for the Packers. Jeffrey Phelps/AP Photo
"I thought about it for, like, less than a split second," Raji said. "Then I used my better judgment."
Listed generously at 337 pounds, Raji is nevertheless one of the Packers' better athletes and an obvious candidate for a backfield power formation. He long ago nicknamed himself "The Freezer" in homage to former Chicago Bears defensive tackle William "The Refrigerator" Perry, but Sunday was the first time he got a chance to emulate Perry as a ball carrier.
The play came at the end of the Packers' first offensive possession, part of a goal-line set that included three tight ends. Raji lined up offset as a fullback, with John Kuhn as the tailback. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers handed it to Raji on dive play behind right guard. It took a while for officials to unpile the players -- "B.J. was lying on top us," said center Scott Wells -- but eventually they awarded him a touchdown.
After passing on the Lambeau Leap, Raji launched into a modified midsection gyration of sorts. But he said he's considered some other touchdown celebrations as well and doesn't think Sunday will be a one-time deal. Asked if he would recommend his pickup to fantasy owners, Raji laughed and said: "I think it would be in their best interest to."Image copyright Facebook/Tung Nguyen Image caption Vietnamese environment officials are trying to trace the animal after images were widely shared on social media
Officials in Vietnam are on the hunt for a mystery amphibian which was apparently captured and then sold in the north of the country, it's reported.
Photos of the metre-long animal were posted on Facebook by a man who says he pulled it from a pond near his home in the Vinh Phuc region, Thanh Nien News website reports. But local environment officials don't know what it is, despite searching records of native species. While it bears some resemblance to a giant salamander, native to neighbouring China, officials say even if it's a related species there is no explanation for how it came to be found hundreds of miles away in northern Vietnam. And tracking it down now could prove tricky - the man who uploaded the images told Thanh Nien News that he has sold it, and won't give any more details.
Officials have now called in the police to try and trace it, the head of the region's forestry department tells the website. "No matter who is keeping it, we will try to bring the animal to Vietnam's Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources, where experts will know what to do with it," says Nguyen Van Tam. The images have been widely shared on social media and have provoked a storm of comments, with many people worried about the creature's fate. "Look at the tray and the chopping board," one user is quoted as saying, before suggesting that it could have ended up on someone's dinner table.
Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.That question has occupied us for a year and a half, since Black Lives Matter - Vancouver first issued their open letter calling for removal of the Vancouver Police Department from the Vancouver Pride Parade.
Since that call was made, many LGBTQAI2+ and community organizations have shared their thoughts on the matter. The response was overwhelming and clear: almost every single major group in our community was calling for no police uniforms in the parade, and in some cases, no VPD or RCMP presence in the parade at all.
These groups included Qmunity, Out on Screen, Trans Alliance Society, Trans March, Gordon Neighbourhood House/Young Ideas, PeerNet, Rainbow Refugee, Salaam Vancouver, Vancouver Dyke March, YouthCo, Denim Vest, Open Relationships, All Bodies Swim, Gays Against Gentrification, Our City of Colours, Love Intersections, Radical Access Mapping Project, Coalition Against Bigotry, No One Is Illegal, Trikone, REVERB, Global Queer Research Group UBC, RAGA Student Networks Collective and the Volunteers of Catherine White Homan Wellness Centre.
We also had several parade entries representing social justice groups and unions withdraw,because they didn't want to march in a parade that ignored voices of our most marginalized community members.
This was not just Black Lives Matter Vancouver or "one group," as many who have reached out to us since our decision on uniforms became public seem to believe. This was a multitude of LGBTQAI2S+ organizations, social justice groups, and our own community partners.
The Vancouver Pride Society has not enjoyed having to "choose" one segment of our community as opposed to another. It's not something we take lightly, and it's not something that gives us satisfaction. After all, every single one of us has suffered.
Some of us were kicked out of our homes. Some of us suffered discrimination at the hands of government, service providers, employment - without any avenue to voice our concerns or have them heard. Some of us spent years in the closet. It may have taken years for us to be comfortable sharing our true selves. And when we did, some of us lost many people close to us. Some of us survived years of being targets for those in authority. Battles were fought, and after many years, some of those battles have been won.
With those victories in mind, it's easy for some us to forget that the battle is not over.
There are many in our community who are still suffering. And sadly, we have been ignoring them.
That is why we embarked on the lengthy consultation process that helped us come to our decision.
So, what happened during the consultations?
Read Consultation Report Here
We heard from many elders in our community. Many of them fought the battles that led to some of the rights and freedoms we enjoy today - marriage equality, adoption rights, decriminalization of our sexual activity, and protections against discrimination. A clear majority of them told us that excluding uniformed police went against everything they believed in. They had worked so hard for police to march in the parade. Why would we undo that?
We also spoke to hundreds of Indigenous Queer and Two-Spirited people, Black members of LGBTQAI2S+ communities, Queer People of Colour, and Trans folks. They told us that they didn't feel the Vancouver Police Department was doing enough. They felt that the VPD had started to take support from Vancouver's LGBTQAI2S+ communities for granted. They were upset some of the recommendations from the Aaron Webster Anti-Violence Project in 2008 did not appear to have been implemented. They were upset it took two years for the VPD to implement changes ordered by the BC Human Rights Tribunal in 2015 when it was found to have discriminated against a trans person in their custody. They were angry that members of the trans community were still being treated badly by individual police officers, in many cases - without real repercussion. They shared personal stories of VPD officers not taking their complaints or reports of assault or harassment seriously. They felt the "pink-washing" of VPD didn't reflect real change to them. Many of them felt unsafe around police, especially in uniform, and they wanted more.
Before this conversation started, we were happy with our relationship with the Vancouver |
, however, as Griff Witte and Luisa Beck write.
A poster of Angela Merkel. (Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters)
Is Merkel to be blamed?
Merkel has frequently and skillfully co-opted rivals' stances, making it harder for others to criticize her along clear ideological lines. The continuation of a Merkel-led status quo “could lead to growing support for left- and right-wing parties in Germany,” said Sebastian Feyock, an analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.
Read Ishaan Tharoor's analysis on why Merkel's reelection may not be good for Germany.
Martin Schulz. (Gregor Fischer/AFP/Getty Images)
What distinguishes Merkel and Schulz?
The two top contenders for the chancellor's office — Merkel and social democratic candidate Martin Schulz — come from vastly different backgrounds. Merkel was shaped by striking family history in the formerly communist east, as Isaac Stanley-Becker and Luisa Beck write.
Meanwhile, Schulz’s background as a school dropout from a working-class family, who has openly discussed his battle with alcoholism, makes him unusual in the relatively elite and highly educated world of German politics, according to Griff Witte.
Four other important stories
1. The Islamic State is on the run in Iraq, but some major battles remain.
Iraqi security forces have freed most of northern Iraq from the grip of the Islamic State. But U.S. and Iraqi officials warn that thousands of militants remain in the country, according to Tamer El-Ghobashy and Mustafa Salim in Irbil, Iraq, and Joby Warrick in Washington.
A victory over the Islamic State would also free slaves believed to be held by the group.
2. There are an estimated 40 million slaves in the world.
A report released this week estimates that 40.3 million people were trapped in slavery around the world on any given day last year. Slavery tends to be a hidden practice — one in which the victim's ability to speak out is limited, writes Adam Taylor.
The vast majority of slaves are believed to live in Asia, where mounting international pressure has brought some other controversial practices to an end.
3. China used to harvest organs from prisoners. Under pressure, that practice is finally ending.
China’s organ-transplant system was once a subject of international scorn and outrage, as doctors harvested organs from prisoners condemned to death by courts and transplanted them into patients, who often paid dearly for the privilege. After years of denials, China now acknowledges that history and has declared that the practice no longer occurs.
Read the full story by Simon Denyer.
4. Should South Korean women be drafted?
South Korean and U.S. troops in the demilitarized zone. (SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg News)
In South Korea, a recent anonymous petition requesting that President Moon Jae-in’s administration expand the draft to women has gone viral, sparking debate over whether requiring women to serve would make the country more prepared — and more equal. Military service is required for most men ages 18 to 35.
Read the full dispatch from Seoul by Michelle Ye Hee Lee.
5. The British gave up their last colonies in Africa about 50 years ago. But they left their wigs behind.
Conscription in Britain ended more than half a century ago at a time when the nation had also just decided to give up its last colonies in Africa. There, the most visible signs of British colonial rule still in place today are wigs, worn by judges and lawyers in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Malawi and elsewhere.
Zimbabwean judges in long red robes and horsehair wigs. (Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP)
They are so old-fashioned and so uncomfortable that even British barristers have stopped wearing them, and they are perhaps the most glaring symbol of colonial inheritance at a time when that history is being dredged up in all sorts of ways, writes Kevin Sieff.
You can find The Washington Post’s international coverage on our website, and on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.It was a welcome sight for Tampa Bay Lightning fans, as captain Steven Stamkos skated in practice Tuesday for the first time since being diagnosed with a blood clot.
The forward wore a red non-contact jersey and looked happy to be back on the ice with teammates. He skated on the fourth line with Brian Boyle and Mike Blunden.
Steven Stamkos all smiles being back with teammates to begin practice #TBLightning pic.twitter.com/sfyW28bcgv — Joe Smith (@TBTimes_JSmith) April 26, 2016
Following practice, Stamkos said his timeline hasn't changed, and he'll remain out as long as he needs to be on blood thinners, according to Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times.
Stamkos said he was playing his best hockey before surgery: "This is the toughest thing I've had to deal with is just the timing of it." — Bryan Burns (@BBurnsNHL) April 26, 2016
The 26-year-old hasn't played since March 31, and was expected to miss one-to-three months while recovering from vascular surgery.
The Lightning begin their second-round series Wednesday against the New York Islanders.Looking for news you can trust?
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The battle between Democratic congressman Bruce Braley and Republican state Sen. Joni Ernst to be Iowa’s next US senator couldn’t be closer. In an effort to fire up voters in a race that could decide which party controls the Senate in 2015, the AFL-CIO—the labor federation representing 56 unions and 12.5 million workers—is blasting out mailers this week attacking Ernst for her membership in the American Legislative Exchange Committee, the so-called bill mill in which corporations and state lawmakers get together in private to draft industry-friendly legislation.
The new mailers, which are going out to tens of thousands of union households in Iowa, say that Ernst, who has been an ALEC member, “works for corporate interests, not yours” and is “already in the pockets of big corporations.” The mailers also criticize Ernst for supporting “huge corporate tax breaks,” refusing to support an increase in the minimum wage, and accepting $200,000 in contributions from donors who’ve supported ALEC, such as the tobacco company Altria, oil companies, and billionaire industrialist Charles Koch and members of Koch’s immediate family. “Hardworking Iowa families are struggling,” the mailer says, “but Joni Ernst just keeps voting with ALEC, the corporate special interest group that is taking over our state by giving free trips and expensive meals to politicians.” (Ernst’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)
Here’s the first anti-Ernst mailer:
Here’s the second anti-Ernst mailer:
Michael Podhorzer, the AFL-CIO’s political director, says the anti-Ernst mailers are intended to hurt Ernst’s image as well as motivate Democratic voters, who tend to be less enthusiastic in non-presidential years. The mailers, in other words, aren’t geared toward swinging undecided voters but rather mobilizing the Democratic base to vote on Election Day. “These mailers are part of an effort to dramatize to people just how stark the choice is and how consequential their vote is,” Podhorzer says. “We hope this will motivate people to turn out and motivate people who are undecided to think about the race in economic terms.”
The AFL-CIO also plans to target two other Republican Senate candidates—Colorado congressman Cory Gardner and Michigan’s Terri Lynn Land—with anti-ALEC mailers. A spokesman says the AFL-CIO will attack Gardner for being an “ALEC alum” (he was a member when he served in the state legislature) and Land for accepting contributions from ALEC donors.
This week, ALEC received some unwelcome news when Google board chairman Eric Schmidt said the company’s decision to fund ALEC was a “mistake.” Schmidt singled out ALEC’s anti-climate-change stance as the reason for Google’s regret over its ties with ALEC. “Everyone understands climate change is occurring and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place,” he said. “And so we should not be aligned with such people—they’re just literally lying.”“More and more members of the law enforcement community are speaking out against failed drug policies, and they don’t give up their right to share their insight and engage in this important debate simply because they receive government paychecks,” said Daniel Pochoda, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, which is handling the Miller case.
Mr. Miller was one of 32 members of LEAP who signed the letter, which expressed support for a California ballot measure that failed last year that would have permitted recreational marijuana use. Most of the signers were retired members of law enforcement agencies, who can speak their minds without fear of action by their bosses. But Mr. Miller and a handful of others who were still on the job — including the district attorney for Humboldt County in California and the Oakland city attorney — signed, too.
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LEAP has seen its membership increase significantly from the time it was founded in 2002 by five disillusioned officers. It now has an e-mail list of 48,000, and its members include 145 judges, prosecutors, police officers, prison guards and other law enforcement officials, most of them retired, who speak on the group’s behalf.
“No one wants to be fired and have to fight for their job in court,” said Neill Franklin, a retired police officer who is LEAP’s executive director. “So most officers are reluctant to sign on board. But we do have some brave souls.”
Mr. Miller was accused of not making clear that he was speaking for himself and not the probation department while advocating the decriminalization of cannabis. His lawsuit, though, points out that the letter he signed said at the bottom, “All agency affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.”
He was also accused of dishonesty for denying that he had given approval for his name to appear on the LEAP letter. In the lawsuit, Mr. Miller said that his wife had given approval without his knowledge, using his e-mail address, but that he had later supported her.
Kip Anderson, the court administrator for the Superior Court in Mohave County, said there was no desire to limit Mr. Miller’s political views.
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“This isn’t about legalization,” Mr. Anderson said. “We’re not taking a stand on that. We just didn’t want people to think he was speaking on behalf of the probation department.”
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Mr. Miller, who is also a retired police officer and Marine, lost an appeal of his dismissal before a hearing officer. But when his application for unemployment benefits was turned down, he appealed that and won. An administrative law judge found that Mr. Miller had not been dishonest with his bosses and that the disclaimer on the letter was sufficient.
In the case of Mr. Gonzalez, the fired Border Patrol agent, he had not joined LEAP but had expressed sympathy with the group’s cause. “It didn’t make sense to me why marijuana is illegal,” he said. “To see that thousands of people are dying, some of whom I know, makes you want to look for a change.”
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Since his firing, Mr. Gonzalez, who filed suit in federal court in Texas in January, has worked as a construction worker, a bouncer and a yard worker. He has also gone back to school, where he is considering a law degree.
“I don’t want to work at a place that says I can’t think,” said Mr. Gonzalez, who grew up in El Paso, just across the border from Ciudad Juárez, which has experienced some of the worst bloodshed in Mexico.
The Justice Department, which is defending the Border Patrol, has sought to have the case thrown out. Mr. Gonzalez lost a discrimination complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which sided with his supervisors’ view that they had lost trust that he would uphold the law.
Those challenging their dismissals are buoyed by the case of Jonathan Wender, who was fired as a police sergeant in Mountlake Terrace, Wash., in 2005, partly as a result of his support for the decriminalization of marijuana. Mr. Wender won a settlement of $815,000 as well as his old job back. But he retired from the department and took up teaching at the University of Washington, where one of his courses is “Drugs and Society.”
Among those not yet ready to publicly urge the legalization of drugs is a veteran Texas police officer who quietly supports LEAP and spoke on the condition that he not be identified. “We all know the drug war is a bad joke,” he said in a telephone interview. “But we also know that you’ll never get promoted if you’re seen as soft on drugs.”
Mr. Franklin, the LEAP official, said it was natural that those on the front lines of enforcing drug laws would have strong views on them, either way. It was the death of a colleague at the hands of a drug dealer in 2000 that prompted Mr. Franklin, a veteran officer, to begin questioning the nation’s drug policies. Some of his colleagues, though, hit the streets even more aggressively, he said.
Mr. Franklin said he got calls all the time from colleagues skeptical about the drug laws as they are written but unwilling to speak out — yet.
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“I was speaking to a guy with the Maryland State Police this past Saturday, and he’s about to retire in January and he’s still reluctant to join us until he leaves,” Mr. Franklin said. “He wants to have a good last couple of months, without any hassle.”Philadelphia Eagles EVP of personnel Howie Roseman and head coach Doug Pederson have addressed the needs of the Eagles roster from top to bottom this offseason. The team was surprisingly active during the free agency period, and were fortunate enough to go into the NFL draft with very few holes on the roster that needed to be addressed.
In fact, many of the Eagles draft picks were chosen to provide depth to the current roster, and become starters and contributors down the road. Just like last year, it seems like the team will once again rely on the defense to be the catalyst for its success. In particular, the play of the linebackers will have a strong correlation with the success of this defense.
As obvious as any football fan may think this is, it actually isn’t.
Questions and expectations regarding this defense will become louder on the road to training camp. Key questions that need to be answered involve the talent at certain defensive positions and the difficult transition to a new scheme (all of which will affect the second level of the defense more than any other). However, with the team switching its base defense to a 4-3, Jim Schwartz will definitely have the play-makers to be successful.
By all accounts, the Eagles defense seems to project well into the 4-3 defense on every level of the defense. Pass rushers like Connor Barwin, Brandon Graham, Vinny Curry, and Fletcher Cox figure to fit perfectly with Schwartz’ attacking scheme.
Newly acquired safety Rodney McLeod should make a formidable duo with Pro Bowler Malcolm Jenkins in the Eagles secondary as well. Linebacker happens to be the level of the defense with the biggest question mark.
Even though, the Eagles’ roster has more 4-3 fit players than it does for the 3-4 base, the team has not run any real 4-3 principles for two years. Former Eagles defensive coordinator Billy Davis installed a hybrid defense in his first season with the team under Chip Kelly, but they made the pure switch to a 3-4 base in his second season. It is mainly the defensive line and pass rushing linebackers that project to make a smooth transition into the new scheme.
The linebacker level will have a completely different set of responsibilities now.
On average, NFL defenses have played in their base defense between 40-45-percent of the time due to the rise of the passing game in recent years. Defenses have been tasked with stopping high-powered passing attacks, and have turned to nickel and dime defenses in order to adequately cover wide receivers and tight ends.
However, the 4-3 base isn’t a strong option against three-receiver sets; it is a guarantee that the Eagles will get caught in their base defense once in a while. Guess who has to pick up those extra receivers in coverage.
Linebackers in today’s game are no longer the 250-pound run stoppers that they used to be. They have morphed into 230+ pound pseudo safeties that are tasked with gap control just as often as they are tasked with lining up on tight ends and half backs and in a division that includes Jason Witten, Jordan Reed, Larry Donnell, and newly drafted rookie Ezekiel Elliott.
The guys we have that project into starting linebacker spots all have big-time talent, but they also have big-time questions attached to them too.
Jordan Hicks figures to fit into Schwartz’ defense as the starting, play-calling middle linebacker as a second year player. Hicks had a great run last season, fitting into the middle of the Eagles 3-4 defense until it all came to an unfortunate end when he tore his pectoral muscle, which ended his season.
As a rookie, Hicks was easily the most effective inside linebacker to play significant snaps last season as Mychal Kendricks, Kiko Alonso, and DeMeco Ryans suffered through injuries, and long stretches of poor play.
Hicks projects well into this defense even though he is a young player, and he is undoubtedly the face of the future for this Eagles’ linebacker group. It is still unknown how he will fair once the league gets enough tape on him to begin scheming against him.
Fans should remain optimistic for his growth and health in the meantime. He has no experience playing in a 4-3 base defense in either the NFL or in college, so the defense will be new to him although his instincts are top-notch. He should rise to the challenge.
Kendricks projects to start on either the strong or the weak side of this defense after a fairly disappointing season last year where he showed almost no improvement from the year before. Kendricks suffered through some nagging injuries last season, which surely halted him from playing at full strength. However, he has underwhelmed Eagles’ fans consistently with his lack of playmaking ability in coverage coupled with his excellent athletic ability.
For years now, Kendricks has struggled in coverage against tight ends and running backs while also proving he has the speed and agility to cover both player types smoothly. Hopefully, Schwartz and Pederson can put him in a position to realize the potential that caused Roseman to extend his stay in Philadelphia through the year 2019. His success as a starter will be crucial because he is likely going to play significant snaps in the base set as well as sub-packages.
Free agent addition Nigel Bradham also projects to start at outside linebacker in this defense, and has already proven he can be successful in a previous year under Schwartz in Buffalo. Still, there is a lot left to the unknown in the minds of fans because he isn’t the household name many wanted the Eagles to invest in.
Bradham seems to be much stronger against the run than he is against the pass, but his experience in Schwartz’ scheme should prove valuable in a year that the whole defense will be changing concepts. Bradham’s experience lining up over tight ends should also be an asset going forward since Kendricks usually picked up those assignments in the past. Being balanced on both sides of the defense is pivotal.
Beyond those three projected starters, the Eagles lack strong depth at all three linebacker positions.
Some names to remember include seventh round draft pick Joe Walker at inside linebacker, fifth-year pro Najee Goode at inside linebacker, and fourth-year pro Ty Powell projected to play outside linebacker. All three look to make the roster primarily through special teams, but will contribute in a backup role on the defense if they make the team this season.
At the end of the day, this group has a tough job waiting for them this season, and that job won’t get any easier in a year where they need to learn a new scheme. Defenses are only as strong as its weakest defensive group. The linebackers currently hold that distinction going forward.Belize is the quirkiest country I know. Geographically, Belize is in Central America, yet its strongest ties are to the English-speaking Caribbean. Belize is Caribbean, Central American... and, thanks to its history as a former colony, British. Belize City's roadways are built around a system of roundabouts, but shops alongside them sell rice, beans and tortillas still ground by hand.
Everyone you meet speaks English (it's the country's official language), but this belies the stories of their origins. The 350,000 people populating Belize today are descendants of migrants from Britain, yes, but also, more so, the surrounding Central American countries. You've got Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans and Nicaraguans mixed with current-day generations of the Maya who originally inhabited this land, the pirates who came later, the Mennonite farmers who began arriving on the scene in the 16th century, the British who ruled until 1981, and each other.
It's a country of freedom-seekers. The pirates came to ply their pirate trading out of view. The Mennonites came from Germany and the Netherlands so they could be Mennonites without anyone bothering them. The British came to do their banking in private. And the folks from the surrounding countries have made their way across Belize's borders over the decades in search of safety.
Today a new population of freedom-seekers is finding its way to these shores -- foreign retirees and others in search of a place to start over.
Belize is a nation of independent thinkers and doers, a country where you make your own way and where, while you're doing it, no one, including the Belize government, is making any attempt to thwart your efforts. This is a poor country. The government doesn't have enough money to get up to any real trouble. And, if they tried, the Belizeans wouldn't allow it. The focus here is on very local-level government -- addressing the crime problems in certain southern sections of Belize City, for example, or trying to dissuade the Guatemalan banditos who occasionally wander over into Belize in search of a couple of good horses to steal.
Arriving in Belize, stepping off the plane, and walking across the tarmac to the one-room arrivals hall of the airport, you have a sense of leaving the rest of the world behind. Belize and her people operate according to their own rules and mind their own business. The troubles, uncertainties and worries that seem so all-consuming Stateside and elsewhere in the world right now fade away here. You're faced with a land that remains a frontier, undeveloped and therefore oozing potential.
I traveled to Belize for the first time more than 25 years ago. On that first visit, I met Mick Fleming, a British expat who, even back then, had established himself as something of a local legend. Some years earlier, Mick had arrived in Belize City with $600 in his pocket. He met a guy in a bar who owned a piece of land in the jungle that he was interested in selling. Mick bought, thinking he'd try his luck as a farmer. The farming was tough going, but, in time, Mick identified another opportunity. Travelers were beginning to find their way to this remote region. They'd happen upon Mick and ask if he had a place where they could spend the night. Mick built a few thatched-roof cabins... then a few more... then a dining room and a bar...
I met Mick, more than a quarter-century ago, when his Chaa Creek Lodge was a humble (electricity- and hot water-free) but beautiful oasis in the rain forest. I returned as often as I could for years, but, when we traveled out to see Mick recently, I realized it'd been maybe 14 or 15 years since my last visit.
"The world has changed since we saw each other last," Mick said during our first evening together. "We watch the news here each evening, and we know what's going on out there. It's not that we've got our heads stuck in the sand. It's that we choose a different reality."
Here in Belize, especially in its interior Cayo District, it doesn't take long for any other reality you've brought with you to fade. In this frontier land of rivers and rain forest, your mind and your body are occupied with challenge and discovery from sunup until you fall exhausted into your bed each evening.
While much of the developed world calculates the time value of money, small Caribbean nations like Belize focus on the time value of family and friends. It takes time to cook a meal and enjoy it with loved ones; it takes time to practice music and share it at a gathering; and it takes time to nurture a crop and reap its bounty.
Belize is a sunny country that's easily accessible from the United States and where the folks all speak English. It's also one of the easiest places in the world to establish foreign residency, as well as a banking and a tax haven. You could live and run a business here completely tax-free. I like Belize as an offshore haven, too -- a place to incorporate or to form a trust.
On the other hand, this is a small country where the infrastructure is most kindly described as "developing." The cost of living can be affordable, even low, but not if you want to live a more "developed world" lifestyle that would mean buying lots of things not available or produced locally. Anything imported is going to come at a very inflated price.
At home in Belize's Cayo District, the view outside your bedroom window and from your front porch would be of fields and pastures, trees and jungle, rivers and livestock. You'd see Mennonites driving horse-drawn carts and children walking home from school. Everyone going about his or her business, not much bothered by sequesters, fiscal cliffs or the mounting deficit. Here, in this land of escape, where life is simple, those things don't seem to matter or even to register.
No infrastructure, limited services and amenities, and little market demand could be interpreted as minuses... or as pluses, depending on your perspective. In Belize, these things are a big part of the appeal. Once you get to Cayo, you don't mind that there's no infrastructure. You don't mind that the culture is more concerned with conservation than consumerism.John Cleese stars as Basil Fawlty, the manic and much-put-upon hotel manager whose life is plagued by dead guests, hotel inspectors and riffraff.
1. A Touch of Class 30m In the pilot of this beloved British comedy, Basil's attempt to bring in upper-crust guests backfires when Lord Melbury arrives.
2. The Builders 28m With the hotel in need of repairs, Basil hires dirt-cheap O'Reilly, whose shoddy work leaves Fawlty Towers in worse shape than ever.
3. The Wedding Party 33m A series of shocking encounters leads Basil to believe the hotel is turning into a den of debauchery.
4. The Hotel Inspectors 29m Upon hearing that hotel inspectors are in the area, Basil fears the guest he had been menacing is an inspector and goes to extremes to impress him.
5. Gourmet Night 29m It looks like a swanky soiree for VIP guests will end in disaster when the Fawlty Towers chef gets stewed, but Basil springs into action.The Raspberry Pi 2 Model B has landed! The ultra-low-cost, deck-of-cards sized Linux computer has had yet another makeover, this time the Raspberry Pi Foundation have gone all out! The Raspberry Pi 2 Model B is on a completely new level to its predecessors by being a staggering 6x faster than the Raspberry Pi Model B+.
Please Note. V1.2 of the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B uses the BCM2837 SoC, which contains a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor. Previous versions of Raspberry Pi 2 Model B use the BCM2836 SoC, which contains a quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor. It is necessary to update to the latest (October 2016) version of the device firmware and Linux kernel to allow the board to boot up properly. This may affect software on previous Raspian builds!
Back-Compatibility note: The Raspberry Pi 2 Model B has the same footprint and layout as the previous Model B+ version, so will fit all Model B+ items.
Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Features:
6x Faster - Broadcom BCM2836 ARMv7 Quad Core Processor powered Single Board Computer running at 900MHz
Double Memory - 1GB RAM so you can now run bigger and more powerful applications
Identical board layout and footprint as the Model B+, so all cases and 3rd party add-on boards designed for the Model B+ will be fully compatible.
Fully HAT compatible
40pin extended GPIO to enhance your “real world” projects. GPIO is 100% compatible with the Model B+ and A+ boards. First 26 pins are identical to the Model A and Model B boards to provide full backward compatibility across all boards.
Connect a Raspberry Pi camera and touch screen display (each sold separately)
Stream and watch Hi-definition video output at 1080P
Micro SD slot for storing information and loading your operating systems.
Advanced power management: You can now provide up to 1.2 Amp to the USB ports – enabling you to connect more power hungry USB devices directly to the Raspberry PI. (This feature requires a 2Amp micro USB Power Supply)
10/100 Ethernet Port to quickly connect the Raspberry Pi to the Internet
Combined 4-pole jack for connecting your stereo audio out and composite video out
Technical Specification:[Screen shot from this YouTube video by Dan Schram]
DONATE TO NARAL PRO-CHOICE NORTH CAROLINA HERE
M.C. Taylor, aka Hiss Golden Messenger, had a hell of a 2014. Among his accomplishments — signing with Merge Records, who released Lateness of Dancers to critical acclaim; appearing on Letterman; touring the U.S. and Europe extensively; serving as de facto lead vocalist for the Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co. tribute shows in honor of Jason Molina; and producing and appearing on Alice Gerrard‘s Grammy-nominated Follow the Music. After being everywhere in 2014, Taylor inaugurated 2015 back on his home turf, with an extravaganza of a show that combined a bunch of his recent activities into one wild ride of an evening. As Hiss Golden Messenger now tours as a full unit, Taylor decided to bill this as “M.C. Taylor and Friends” rather than the band name; the night’s main lineup included some, but not all, of HGM’s touring component. This special show was a benefit for NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina, who have been leading the ongoing fight for choice in North Carolina.
After kicking off with a couple of Poor Moon classics, the “friends” started to come out in force. Gerrard joined Taylor for three numbers, including a cover of Merle Haggard’s “You Take Me For Granted”. Then it was Phil Cook‘s chance at the vocal mike, a turnabout from his normal role in HGM. The lucky crowd then got a second look at Taylor’s collaboration on the Songs: Ohia / Magnolia Electric Co. material, which was first debuted in the Triangle last January. Magnolia Electric Co.’s Jason Groth came up onstage for those three songs, including perhaps Molina’s finest number, “Final Transmission.” Then it was back to HGM for a bit, until the night’s final number, Taylor’s first known cover of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” shown on the video above.
This performance was recorded by my friend and prolific Triangle-area recordist Dan Schram, whose video is showing below. Dan kindly provided me the audio files, to which I applied a little additional mastering and mixing “sparkle”. The sound quality is outstanding. We hope you enjoy it, and more importantly, that you will support the cause for which the music was made, NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina.
Download the complete show: [MP3] | [FLAC]
Stream and download individual tracks:
Watch “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” on YouTube:
M.C.Taylor and Friends
2015-01-18
NARAL NC Benefit
The Pinhook
Durham, NC USA
Recorded by Dan Schram
Produced by acidjack
Soundboard + Rode NT5>Tascam DR-680>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, compression, reverb on SBD)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects, imaging)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )
Tracks
01 [intro]
02 Call Him Daylight [Hiss Golden Messenger]
03 [banter1]
04 Blue Country Mystic [Hiss Golden Messenger]
05 [banter2]
06 Get Up and Do Right [Alice Gerrard]*
07 [banter3]
08 Follow the Music [Alice Gerrard]*
09 You Take Me For Granted [Merle Haggard]*
10 If I Play With Fire [Alice Gerrard]*
11 [banter4]
12 Leave It There [Charles A. Tindley]
13 Ain’t It Sweet [Phil Cook]&
14 [banter5]
15 What Comes After the Blues [Magnolia Electric Co.]^
16 [banter6]
17 Talk To Me Devin, Again [Magnolia Electric Co.]^
18 Farewell Transmission [Songs: Ohia]^
19 [banter7]
20 Southern Grammar [Hiss Golden Messenger]
21 [encore break]
22 Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door [Bob Dylan]
Band:
M.C. Taylor – vocals, guitar
Kyle Keegan – drums
Brad Cook – bass
Matt Douglas – saxophone
* w/ Alice Gerrard – vocals
& w/ Phil Cook – vocals, guitar
^ w/ Jason Groth
If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina. You can buy Hiss Golden Messenger’s records from Paradise of Bachelors and Merge Records, as well as HGM’s online store.Michael R. Walli (63), Megan Rice shcj (82), Greg Boertje-Obed, (57), succeeded in a disarmament action at the Oak Ridge Y-12 Nuclear facility before dawn today.
Calling themselves Transform Now Plowshares they hammered on the cornerstone of the newly built Highly-Enriched Uranium Manufacturing Facility (HEUMF), splashed human blood and left four spray painted tags on the recent construction which read: Woe to the empire of blood; The fruit of justice is peace; Work for peace not for war; and Plowshares please Isaiah.
Under the cover of darkness they intermittently passed beyond four fences in a walk for over two hours through the fatal force zone. “We feel it was a miracle; we were led directly to where we wanted to go” said Greg.
After navigating through the complex they came to a long, white, windowless building marked HEUMF. “It was built like a fortress”, Greg said describing the four guard towers.
Unimpeded by security, they attached two banners to pillars of the building. “Transform Now Plowshares” read the first with a green and black icon showing part bomb part flower. A second stated “Swords into Plowshares Spears into Pruning Hooks–Isaiah”. In addition, between the pillars they strung red crime tape.
When confronted by a guard they read aloud their statement. “He was on his walkie-talkie but he heard it” Megan confirmed. Before receiving orders to halt they had opportunity to offer guards bread, and display a bible, candles and white roses. Though initially forced to endure a kneeling posture for an extended period, guards responded to complaint and allowed the activists to stand off and on. Meanwhile they continued singing.
At this time they have been interviewed by the DOE investigative unit and have conditional charges of two felony counts for vandalism and trespass. They spoke to supporters from Blount County Jail at 12:30 pm saying they had not been processed yet. All four are scheduled for arraignment in Blount County Court on Monday.
“We’re still opposing the filthy rotten system” Michael said. “Jesus has no nukes in heaven and no torture in heaven.”
–Please Circulate Widely.–
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AdvertisementsThe cabinet under the junta has ordered relevant agencies to speed up the process to reduce multiple internet gateways to a single one in order to increase the efficiency of the state’s surveillance system.
The cabinet under Gen Prayuth Chan-o-cha, the junta leader and Prime Minister, last month has given a green light to the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) and relevant agencies to push ahead with the process to implement a single gateway internet system before the end of the 2015 fiscal budget.
The MICT is ordered to report the progress on the plan to the cabinet before the end of September 2015.
The plan to reduce internet gateways was initially proposed by Pol Gen Somyos Pumpanmuang, the chief of the Royal Thai Police, in June 2015. He reasoned that through a single gateway system, it will be much easier for the state authorities to monitor, filter, delete, and intercept information on the internet that could be deemed inappropriate.
In the same month, the police cooperated with the MICT to study the feasibility of the plan, including, the Ministry of Justice, if certain laws need to be issued to support the implementation of the single gateway system.
Currently, there are about 10 international internet gateway operators in Thailand. According to Surachai Srisarakham, the Permanent Secretary of the MICT, six internet gateway operators will cooperation with the national single internet gateway master plan.
Arthit Suriyawongkul, coordinator of the Thai Netizen Network (TNN), an Internet freedom advocacy group, told Prachatai that the idea to reduce the internet gateways to a single one was proposed only a few days after the 2014 coup d’état by the ex-M |
making a best friend.
5. All I do is mess up in social situations
Confident Belief: Overall, I was pretty likable.
Shy people tend to focus on cues that indicate people don’t like them and ignore cues that indicate otherwise. Gather a lot of information before assuming that the entire social situation was a disaster.
Maybe the event was mostly new people and you weren’t the only one standing by yourself. Maybe people thought your other jokes were funny, just not that one.
6. I am an unlikable person because someone made it clear they don’t like me
Confident Belief #6: There are some people that just aren’t going to like me. That’s there loss.
You can be the most friendly or interesting person in the world. Doesn’t matter. There will still be people who dislike you.
That doesn’t mean that you’re a boring person. Maybe it’s them who are pretentious, judgmental, or weird. Don’t take always take the blame when you have a less than favorable interaction.
7. Awkward silences mean I’m boring and awkward
Confident Belief: Silences are a normal part of conversations. They’re just cues to change the topic or end the conversation. They don’t mean I’m a boring person.
Again, awkward silences happen to everyone. Read my answer on the best ways to deal with awkward silences here.
8. Others can tell I’m shy and nervous
Confident Belief: Just because I feel nervous, doesn’t mean others can tell or that it’s a big deal.
Most people don’t notice. For example, you quickly end a conversation because you think you made a fool of yourself by stuttering, while the other person is wondering why you abruptly ended a pleasant conversation.
If they do notice, it doesn’t mean the entire conversation is a disaster either. You are probably doing a lot of other things well. Remember, don’t exclusively focus on the negative.
9. Avoiding social situations is the best way to handle my shyness
Confident Belief: I may be nervous, but I’ll regret not interacting and trying.
Avoiding situations because you’re nervous doesn’t justify missing out on the opportunity to make friends, get dates, and network professionally.
In fact, avoidance of social situations because of anxiety, makes the anxiety worse. The more you go into social situations the more you will build your confidence.
Just make sure that you identify when you are operating under the anxious beliefs above, and consider how the confident beliefs are more accurate.
Memorizing this list or printing it out and reviewing it each day may be necessary to keep you on track.Reuters reported Tuesday that “Pope Francis hopes to mend ties with Muslims on his trip to Egypt on Friday but faces criticism from church conservatives for meeting Islamic religious leaders after a spate of deadly attacks against Christians.”
He has to mend ties? After Palm Sunday jihad massacres at two churches in Egypt, shouldn’t it be Egyptian Muslims who are reaching out to him to mend ties?
“A main reason for the trip,” Reuters explains, “is to try to strengthen relations with the 1,000-year-old Azhar center that were cut by the Muslim side in 2011 over what it said were repeated insults of Islam by Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict.”
What did Benedict say? Andrea Gagliarducci of the Catholic News Agency explains that after a jihad terrorist murdered 23 Christians in a church in Alexandria 2011, Benedict decried “terrorism” and the “strategy of violence” against Christians, and called for the Christians of the Middle East to be protected.
Al-Azhar’s Grand Imam, Ahmed al-Tayeb, whom Pope Francis welcomed to the Vatican in May 2016, was furious. He railed at Benedict for his “interference” in Egypt’s affairs and warned of a “negative political reaction” to the Pope’s remarks. In a statement, Al-Azhar denounced the Pope’s “repeated negative references to Islam and his claims that Muslims persecute those living among them in the Middle East.”
Benedict stood his ground, and that was that. But in September 2013, al-Azhar announced that Pope Francis had sent a personal message to al-Tayeb. In it, according to al-Azhar, Francis declared his respect for Islam and his desire to achieve “mutual understanding between the world’s Christians and Muslims in order to build peace and justice.” At the same time, Al Tayyeb met with the Apostolic Nuncio to Egypt, Mgr. Jean-Paul Gobel, and told him in no uncertain terms that speaking about Islam in a negative manner was a “red line” that must not be crossed.
So Pope Benedict condemned a jihad attack, one that al-Azhar also condemned, and yet al-Azhar suspended dialogue because of the Pope’s condemnation. Then Pope Francis wrote to the Grand Imam of al-Azhar affirming his respect for Islam, and the Grand Imam warned him that criticizing Islam was a “red line” that he must not cross. And he hasn’t, and won’t. But all those who think that it’s marvelous that the Pope is “respectful” and refuses to “poke them in the eye” should remember: Benedict’s supposed insults to Islam were denunciations of jihad attacks on Christians. Pope Francis won’t be so indelicate. In contrast to Benedict, Francis energetically defends Islam, and leaves the persecuted Christians twisting in the wind, so he is acceptable to al-Azhar.
The worst part about this is the fact that because this man is Pope, all too many Catholics, including some in positions of high authority, treat him as if he were a divine oracle, his every utterance to be revered, respected, studied, and followed. Because of the statement of the Second Vatican Council that “religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra,” and “must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will,” Catholic leaders and publications tend to think that they must adhere to anything the Pope says about anything.
This leads them into impossible positions. When Pope Benedict XVI appeared to criticize the aspects of Islam that incite and justify violence, they allowed for criticism of Islam. When Francis showed himself to be an Islamic apologist, they became Islamic apologists. All too many Catholic leaders and institutions, in other words, are more interested in being papists than in being truthful. They would rather show loyalty to the Pope, no matter how damaging his utterances, than stand for the truth on the own against the Pope.
The contradiction is clear, and absolute. If the Catholic Church has become one of Islam’s loudest boosters, then those who are aware of the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat, rooted in Islamic texts and teachings, have to make some decisions about where they stand.
“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)Hunger is a clever mechanism to regulate our eating, granted we want to maintain our weight. But I'm guessing you want to change your body? Then you'll need a better tool.
It's not enough to just "hit the tracks" or get a gym membership if you want to make some serious and lasting changes to your body. Tens of thousand of years of evolution have made sure of that.
If you start exercising to burn fat your body will bump up your hunger too and you'll unconsciously eat more, resulting in a zero sum result. Conversely, if you make an effort to eat more your spontaneous activity will increase and your extra energy burns away.
How well does this work exactly?
Eating just one small table spoon of olive oil extra per lunch and dinner you would gain over ten kilos per year. Normally people don't put on nearly that much even without thinking much about what they're eating. That's how amazing our bodies are at keeping the status quo (homeostasis).
However there is a way to outsmart our own bodies: simple arithmetics!
Counting calories can be incredibly complex, with many confounding factors:
Thermic Effect of Food (TEF, SDA, or DIT) means calories from different macronutrients will be absorbed differently. Most energy from fat is absorbed by our bodies while up one third of the energy from protein is spent in the metabolic process.
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) increases or decreases the number of calories we burn every day depending on how much we eat. This can vary several hundred kcal, per day.
The calories listed on foods' nutritional label is an estimated average and thus not 100% correct.
Unless you're measuring your exercise in a lab, calories burned will be a huge guesstimate.
As you grow and shrink your caloric need changes and a deficit that made you lose weight one week might not be enough the following week.
It's impossibly complex to keep track of exactly how many calories are absorbed and burned.
But we don't have to.
Think of it as a black box instead. We add calories (food) through one side and subtract calories (activity) from another side. The remaining calories in the box is our caloric balance; if it's positive (above 0) we'll gain weight and if it's negative (below 0) we'll lose weight.
The beauty of this is that you never have to bother with complicated calculations (that are never correct anyway). Instead of opening the box to look for the exact number inside you simply weigh it.
Step on a scale and look for yourself – have you lost or gained weight?
That tells you everything you need to know.
The black box method #
Using this black box method you have two variables to tweak: input and output.
Output is the sum of your daily activities and we'll assume they are roughly the same every week. You probably train the same days, commute the same way, do the same hobbies, etc. If this varies a lot from week to week you'll have to take that into account.
Input is the food you eat in a day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all the snacks and drinks in-between.
NB: don't change both variables too much at once. Try to keep one the same and tweak the other.
Calculate your TDEE #
So how many calories should you eat?
As a rough starting point for our input we'll use something called Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). This is the number of calories you need to maintain the same weight you're currently at.
I recommend calculating your TDEE for rest days and then adding to this the amount you burn when training. This makes it very easy to adjust your eating for days when you train hard, light, or not at all.
For your convenience I've put together a TDEE calculator:
kg + cm + years Female Male? kcal per day
Normally there's an "activity level" selection when calculating your TDEE. In my experience that just complicates things needlessly. Which is why I simplified this calculator so that you can get an initial number and then start focusing on what's much more important – tweaking this number over time.
Adjust your TDEE #
Once you have your TDEE it's time to start putting it to use.
Add or subtract 300 kcal from this number, depending on whether you want to gain or lose weight.
300 kcal roughly translates to 0.3 kg (0.7 lbs) gained or lost over a week. It's a modest pace but one you should be able to sustain for a long period of time without too much complication.
Remember though – this number is just a very rough estimate. There are no guarantees this early in the process! Also, it can change over time and so we have to keep adjusting it as we go.
Track your calories input #
Using a fitness app like MyFitnessPal or LifeSum makes it easy to keep track of how much you eat.
Compare this to your TDEE to get an idea of your calorie balance. If you see that you're low one evening, consider adding a night time snack. If you happen to shoot over your goal, simply catch up the following day by eating a little less.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that protein bar on your way to training or that beer after work doesn't count. Anything that goes in your mouth goes into your app!
Weigh daily, evaluate weekly #
Weigh yourself each morning and write down the weight. Don't pay too much attention to this number because your weight can fluctuate a lot from one day to another and it's not very useful.
Instead calculate your weekly average weight at the end of the week. This number we care about.
Some weeks – especially in the beginning, as we're still fine-tuning the numbers – you will not have hit your gain or loss goals. If so, simply add or subtract another 300 kcal from your TDEE and try again next week.
Remember: don't change your activity too much while trying to find this number. In other words, don't add any crazy 6 am morning walks. One change at a time!
Eventually you'll find your magic number and each week will bring you closer to your goal. As you shrink or grow your TDEE will keep changing, so you have to keep adjusting every week.
Counting calories is complex and error prone but this black box method makes it work.
For the last year I've personally been able to lose more than 7 kilos of fat while gaining 2 kilos of muscle, using this exact method. Nothing extreme but considering I was already in decent shape it's not too bad. And with this tool I can keep on going!
I hope it'll help you reach your goals too!Three proven and experienced DXpedition leaders and a large team of operators will activate the DXCC number #2 most wanted DXCC entity in late 2017 or early 2018. Ralph K0IR, Bob K4UEE and Erling LA6VM have been working on this project since returning from Peter I (3Y0X) some 10 years ago.
We are making this announcement now, so that other DXpedition teams that may be considering Bouvet as a DXpedition target can re-direct their time and effort elsewhere.
In summary, we have an agreement with Nigel Jolly to provide transportation, a helicopter, pilot and mechanic. We submitted a preliminary plan to the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) some time ago and it has been accepted.
A permit will be issued to land on Slakhallet (the huge glacier that covers the island).
We have a team committed, and the finances are doable. As per our funding model, we commit to paying one-half the expenses involved and we are asking the DX community to pay the other half of the expenses. This arrangement has never failed us or you, the DXer.
Experience summary: Leaders have eleven” Dxpedition of the Year” awards, they have activated a dozen “top-ten” DXCC entities and amassed huge QSO totals at their most recent DXpeditions i.e. Desecheo 118.000 QSOs, HK0NA 195,000 QSOs, FT5ZM, 170,000 QSOs, K1N 140,000 QSOs. Their experience in the Antarctic and Southern Oceans region is unparalleled. Heard Island, South Sandwich, South Georgia, Peter I, South Orkneys, Amsterdam Island, as well as numerous other operations from ALL seven continents. This team and it’s leaders have collectively given the given the DX community over 4,000,000 DXpedition QSO’s.
Our website is under development and fundraising will begin in the months ahead. We are pleased that everything has finally come together so that we can activate this most difficult, dangerous and rare DXCC entity.
Your DXpedition leaders,
Ralph K0IR
Bob K4UEE
Erling LA6VMNew York City FC have completed their coaching line up with four new additions to the Club’s Sporting Department.
Javier Perez and Christian Lattanzio have been named Assistant Coaches to new Head Coach Patrick Vieira, Kristian Wilson has been named Performance Coach, and Matthew Cook has been named Physical Performance Coach. The quartet will form part of Vieira’s team alongside Goalkeeping Coach Robert Vartughian. They will take up their roles on Jan. 1 2016 pending the acquisition of visas.
Perez joins New York City FC after a successful stint as Head Coach of the U.S. Under-18 Men’s National Team. Lattanzio, Wilson and Cook all join from Manchester City, where they worked with Vieira for the Club’s Elite Development Squad.
Vieira said: “I am delighted that Javier, Christian, Kristian and Matt have agreed to join the team. They are high caliber coaches who understand my approach and philosophy and will make a significant contribution to this Club. It was important for me to work with people I know and trust, but also, in Javier, to bring in someone alongside Rob Vartughian who has an excellent understanding of US Soccer and MLS.
“I am really looking forward to getting started next month and to be working with such a strong coaching team.”
New York City FC Sporting Director, Claudio Reyna added: “In Christian, Javier, Kristian and Matt, we have added four top-class professionals with tremendous experience in football across the world. They have learned from some of the best minds in the game.”
“They all have had success working with young players and building up squads at the highest level – which will be key as we develop our roster. I am greatly looking forward to working with this group as we prepare for our second season in MLS.”
Perez, on top of his impressive spell with the U.S. Under 18 Men’s, has previously spent six years with Spanish club Real Madrid at the club’s development center. He was also Director of Coaching at New York Soccer Club.
Perez’s experience with U.S. Soccer saw him work with former U.S. Youth Technical Director - and current New York City FC Sporting Director - Reyna, to develop the U.S. Soccer coaching curriculum, which is designed to improve development of players in the United States. He has also worked with U.S. Men’s National Team Head Coach Jurgen Klinsmann as a member of staff and has lived in New York for the last six years.
Lattanzio spent six years at Manchester City, as Technical Co-ordinator for the Elite Development Squad, integrating the tactical, technical and mental elements into the squad’s training programs. Before that Lattanzio worked closely alongside some of football’s most decorated managers, including Fabio Capello during his spell with the England national team.
Wilson joins up with New York City FC after sharing success with Vieira as Manchester City’s EDS Performance Coach, working on specific training with the players since June 2013. The 34-year old’s first job in club football came at Sheffield Wednesday before joining the Academy coaching set up at Sheffield United.
Rounding out the Sporting Department additions is Cook, who spent the last four and a half years working with Vieira as Head of Sports Strength and Conditioning at Manchester City. Cook previously worked as a strength and conditioning coach for Great Britain’s Olympic cycling, swimming, and squash teams and grew up playing academy football for West Ham United.The US Navy’s newest amphibious assault ship, USS America (LHA 6), has successfully completed final contractor trials (FCT), as part of a series of post-delivery tests.
The Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV) carries out the FCT during which the ship and its major systems are exercised, tested and corrected as required.
USS America assistant FCT coordinator Ensign Nicholas Haan said: "The warranty on our ship, straight from the factory, is going to expire soon, so we want to catch all the discrepancies we can find, make sure they are all noted and get them fixed.
"It ensures the ship builders are held responsible for the things they need to be held responsible for."
The four-day trial started on 30 March and comprised pre-underway and material condition checks along with at-sea demonstrations of systems, including main propulsion, engineering and ship control systems, combat systems, damage control, food service and crew support.
The 844ft-long ship has been designed to support a variety of missions, including humanitarian, disaster relief, maritime security, anti-piracy and other operations, while providing air support for ground forces.
The LHA 6 is optimised for Marine Corps aviation, uses a gas-turbine propulsion system to cruise at a speed in excess of 20k and can carry a crew of 1,059 (65 officers) and 1,687 troops.
With the completion of the FCT, the ship will go through a maintenance period called post shakedown availability (PSA) in late spring when the required corrections to the ship will be implemented.
The first America-class ship LHA 6 replaces the Tarawa-class of amphibious assault ships.
Image: The amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) is underway off the coast of San Diego preparing for final contract trials. America is the first ship of its class and is optimised for Marine Corps aviation. Photo: courtesy of US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jonathan A. Colon/Released.With apologies to Franklin P. Adams -- and the late great baseball writer/historian Jerome Holtzman -- these are the saddest of all possible words:
Credit a pitcher with a save when he meets all three of the following conditions:
(1) He is the finishing pitcher in a game won by his club; and
(2) He is not the winning pitcher; and
(3) He qualifies under one of the following conditions:
(a) He enters the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitches for at least one inning; or
(b) He enters the game, regardless of the count, with the potential tying run either on base, or at bat, or on deck (that is, the potential tying run is either already on base or is one of the first two batsmen he faces); or
(c) He pitches effectively for at least three innings. No more than one save may be credited in each game
-- Rule 10.20 in the Official Baseball Rule Book
Once upon a time, shortly after Holtzman succeeded in making it an official part of baseball, the save was a reasonable enough statistic. This was back in the days when relievers were known as "firemen" because they could extinguish three- and four-alarm blazes (well, metaphorically) at any point in a game. Their bullpen carts might as well have had sirens and water hoses. They were such true firemen that I think women were buying pin-up calendars of Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage posing bare-chested with suspenders.
Would Jonathan Papelbon get so pumped up about a save if he knew how much difference he really makes in a game? AP Photo/H. Rumph Jr
Unfortunately, things have changed. The old firemen have evolved into "closers" who don't go to the bullpen until the middle innings, almost never pitch before the ninth and rarely take the mound if there is anyone actually on base. Yet they still "earn" saves, often when the lead is so safe that even the smoke detector wouldn't blare.
Not only has the save been cheapened, it has become a stat -- the only stat -- that affects managerial strategy.
"It really does," Rangers general manager Jon Daniels says. "Occasionally, the 'win' will [affect a manager] a little bit, but that also benefits the team a bit in some regard, if he can stay in a little longer. But the save definitely impacts how the game is managed."
Most managers vigorously deny this, but they're either lying or kidding themselves. They all use their closers depending strictly on whether it is or is not a save situation. Managers do so because they are trapped by the save rule. To manage otherwise puts their jobs at risk by upsetting the closer, the closer's agent, the closer's wife and those people most easily irritated -- the media.
Still, none of this would be a big deal except for one thing: The whole one-inning save strategy doesn't work.
For example, it doesn't prolong the careers of relievers. As Tom Verducci wrote earlier this spring, it may lead them to break down more often. It does, however, force teams to carry more relievers than necessary, costing them useful bench players. It also prompts them to waste financial resources on overpaid, overrated closers.
And most importantly, it doesn't help teams win more often.
Project Retrosheet founder Dave Smith scrupulously researched all late-inning leads over more than seven decades. He found that the success rate for a team protecting a ninth-inning lead hasn't changed a bit over time, regardless of relief strategy.
"It has never changed. Ever," Smith says. "If you lead by three runs going into the ninth inning, you're probably going to win. It's a pretty safe bet."
While Jonathan Papelbon's career save rate of 88.3 percent sounds impressive, Smith points out that teams historically have won 85.7 percent of games they led by one run after eight innings, 93.7 percent of games they led by two runs and 97.5 percent of games they led by three. Thus, it is clearly inefficient to pay Papelbon or any top closer $12 million a year and only use him for situations in which the team likely will win anyway.
In 1983, Dan Quisenberry saved 45 games while averaging more than two innings per appearance. AP Photo/Cliff Schiappa
No one wants to hear this, though. Smith says he once pointed out the data to a manager, who then responded, "That may be, but I will increase my chance of winning if I bring in this guy for the ninth."
"People like me will never be taken as credible," Smith says, adding, "When you've got overwhelming numbers that are so compelling, can't you at least look at them? And the answer is no. It is such mindless herd mentality. Because Tony La Russa is a genius, everyone follows."
Is there any way to end this herd mentality after it has been ingrained for so many years? Can we convert closers back to firemen, who were more valuable and possibly healthier?
Yes. If managers can't change their strategy to adapt to the realities of the save, then we must change the save rule.
Here's how:
No more five-run saves. Earlier this season, Tampa Bay's Joel Peralta received a save for getting one out in a game the Rays led by five runs. That's because he took over with the bases loaded, which meant the potential tying run was in the on-deck circle, which is officially a save situation under Rule 10.20, clause (b). No matter that Peralta would have had to give up a grand slam and another run before retiring a single batter to blow the lead. He SAVED the game.
A basic tenet of the save rule is that a reliever supposedly cannot pitch his way into a save situation. But the rule's very wording allows a pitcher to do so, thanks to that "potential tying run on deck" clause. It's silly. If you're talking about a guy in the on-deck circle, it means a pitcher must allow a base runner before facing the tying run. That's rewarding a pitcher with a positive stat for the mere potential of failure.
Clause (b) is the easiest fix. From now on, the potential tying run must actually bat -- not just be in the on-deck circle.
No more cheap saves. Unfortunately, the potential tying run doesn't even have to be in the on-deck circle for a reliever to get a save. The batter representing that run can be sitting on the bench and scoping out women in section 137; but thanks to Clause (a) the closer will still get the save as long as the lead is within three runs and he pitches at least the ninth inning.
It's hard to imagine any of Goose Gossage's 310 career saves as cheap. AP Photo
Again, this is ridiculous. Protecting a three-run lead for one inning is not strenuous work and it should not be handsomely rewarded. Even managers will tell you this privately. And yet it's this very aspect of the save rule that has affected the game the most by limiting the way managers use their best relievers. Rather than use them earlier when the game really is on the line, they hold them back to begin the ninth for the reliable cheap save.
Top relievers used to enter games regularly with runners on. Dan Quisenberry inherited 89 runners in his 75 appearances while saving 33 games in 1980. Now, the top closers rarely inherit runners because managers almost always save them to begin the ninth. Craig Kimbrel led the National League with 46 saves last year, but inherited just four runners in 79 appearances.
This is another easy fix. To earn a save, a closer must face the tying run, even if he pitches an entire inning.
Wait, you say. That means a closer who starts the ninth will only get a save if the lead is one run! Yes, that's correct. But as Smith points out, teams win with two-run leads in the ninth win 93.7 percent of the time. We don't need to reward a pitcher simply for NOT screwing up.
No more saves based on innings alone. Two weeks ago, Seattle's Hisashi Iwakuma received a save despite allowing five hits, three runs and a walk in three innings with a 12-run lead. This is insulting. Clause (c) says a reliever must pitch effectively but does not specify what is effective. Let's remove the subjective word "effective'' and replace it with specifics.
Since we want to encourage closers to throw more innings, we must provide incentives for them to do so. So we'll say a reliever doesn't need to face the tying run if he pitches two or more innings. But the lead still must not be more than the total number of innings pitched.Steven Zhu‘s bringing some promising electro talent out of LA/San Francisco. He already showcases a genuinely polished and versatile sound in his Original Mixes at a fairly young age. You’ll see what I mean when you listen to the tracks below — he goes from gritty basslines and wobs in “Accusations” to a relaxed trance sound in “Making Amends.” It seems like he’s still working to find his general niche, but whatever he hones in on seems like it’ll be good. He’s got a knack for quality Progressive House in his remixes as well. I personally prefer the glitchy electro but I guess that’s my personal preference in general. I’d love to hear what he can do with some vocal samples thrown onto his original tracks as well as remixing some lesser known songs. For now, peep some of his work below and keep an eye out!
ZHU – Accusations
ZHU – Discorat
ZHU – Making Amends
John Legend – Rolling in the Deep (ZHU Remix)The sad truth is that most women today are not meeting their breastfeeding goals. Three recent studies shed some light on the issues.
During the more than 30 years I’ve been helping breastfeeding families, it’s been thrilling to see the rise in U.S. breastfeeding rates. In the early 1980s, only about 50% of American women breastfed even once. Now nearly 80% of new mothers breastfeed.
But this picture is still far from rosy. The sad truth is that most women today are not meeting their breastfeeding goals. Three recent studies shed some light on the issues. Here’s what they found:
More than two thirds of women intending to breastfeed exclusively for three months didn’t get there.
The most common reasons women give up on breastfeeding are:
latching problems
worries about milk production
nipple pain
During the first week after birth, 92% of nursing mothers reported significant breastfeeding challenges.
Sadly, most mothers who struggle with breastfeeding think the only solution is to try harder, but that’s frustrating and exhausting. Wouldn’t it be better instead to make breastfeeding easier? Rather than tackling every issue—latching struggles, milk supply, sore nipples–individually, why not use a single approach that addresses many challenges at once?
That is what a new approach called Natural Breastfeeding can do.
What is Natural Breastfeeding?
Let me back up a little and explain how this new approach came to be. By chance in 2008 I came across a U.K. study that rocked my world. It found that the breastfeeding positions we had been teaching new mothers for decades could actually be contributing to the ongoing epidemic of early problems. What did this study find? Human newborns’ innate responses are similar to those of other mammal species–including puppies, kittens, and piglets–that feed on their tummies. In other words, our babies are hardwired to be “tummy feeders.”
When I read that paper by Dr. Suzanne Colson (who calls her approach Biological Nurturing® or “laid-back breastfeeding”), my mind went first to the babies I’d seen in the breast crawl videos often shown in childbirth classes. The first breast crawl videos appeared in the late 1980s, when Swedish researchers found that when a newborn is laid tummy down on mother’s body, within the first hour something magical happens. Without any help, a healthy baby will crawl up the mother’s body, find the nipple, latch on, and begin breastfeeding. You can see this in action by doing an online search for “breast crawl.”
What Baby Brings to the Table
Not long ago, scientists believed that most newborn reflexes were useless leftovers from our tree-dwelling ancestors. But now we know better. We know these reflexes are key to early breastfeeding.
Every brand-new baby comes into the world with a whole repertoire of responses that are custom designed by Mother Nature to make baby an active breastfeeding partner. Baby is born with what’s needed so that–when conditions are right–breastfeeding and bonding happen easily and naturally. These responses work best when baby lies tummy down on mother with gravity anchoring baby there. I’d seen the breast crawl videos for years but somehow never made the mental connection between the babies’ tummy-down position and the ease with which they took the breast.
Enter Dr. Theresa
I began trying this approach with the breastfeeding mothers I saw and found that it solved many problems. But some were reluctant to try it. Thankfully, around this time, I began meeting with a local obstetrician Dr. Theresa Nesbitt (“Dr. Theresa”). No longer delivering babies, now Dr. Theresa’s primary interests are evolutionary biology and building healthy brains, so it’s not surprising that she turned her attention to breastfeeding.
In our discussions, Dr. Theresa added more pieces to our puzzle. She described the work of the Prague School, where scientists identified the “pressure buttons” on babies’ bodies that when pushed improve their coordination (they call this Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization or DNS). We discussed the work of Dr. Brian Palmer and why the act of breastfeeding is as important to newborn development as the milk. Dr. Theresa also shared key findings in the field of brain science.
Dr. Theresa and I devoted many hours to putting together these diverse but related puzzle pieces from around the world. What emerged is a new approach we call Natural Breastfeeding. It is “natural” because it takes advantage of what we know about the innate behaviors Mother Nature put in place to help women successfully feed and nurture their newborns. But while its concepts are solidly based in science, we knew from the brain research that for Natural Breastfeeding to catch on, we had to make it fun, jargon-free, and mother friendly. Images and videos would also be key, because that’s how people learn best.
Learning to Breastfeed
What does the brain and learning have to do with breastfeeding? A lot, as it turns out. A crucial aspect of changing current practice involves highly specialized brain cells called mirror neurons.
You may have heard the expression “Monkey see, monkey do,” which describes mirror neurons in action. When we see or hear something, mirror neurons record and remember it as if we are performing the action. Human mirror neurons are even stimulated by watching actions on a video. That’s why it’s quicker and easier to learn to dance, fry an egg, or ride a bicycle by observing a demonstration than it is to listen to an explanation or read instructions.
That is also why until very recently women didn’t need to be taught how to breastfeed. Their mirror neurons already knew. When they gave birth, mothers in the past were familiar with how to nurse their babies because they saw it growing up.
But most of today’s mothers don’t have this advantage. Many have never even seen another woman breastfeed without a cover. And the only breastfeeding images they usually see are of women nursing in sitting-up-straight feeding positions—positions that also make it impossible for newborns to help. In light of these influences, our epidemic of early breastfeeding problems makes more sense.
The Power of Observation
Pictures are very powerful, especially the pictures in our mind. One of the biggest barriers to a smooth breastfeeding start is that most pregnant women have an image in their minds of what they think breastfeeding is like that is fatally flawed.
Mother is sitting in a chair comfortably holding baby in her arms. Baby is suckling gently at her breast with his lips pursed around her nipple
In this mental picture, the mother is breastfeeding her newborn in what is essentially a bottle-feeding position, which causes problems. Sitting straight up with your weight resting on your bottom after having a baby is painful. Holding baby close–so there are no gaps between you–quickly tires your arms, causing head, neck, and back strain. Baby suckling with pursed lips quickly leads to sore nipples
If the image in a woman’s mind leads to challenges and pain, her dream breastfeeding experience can quickly become a nightmare. Yet this is not only how pregnant women imagine breastfeeding, this is how they are taught to breastfeed in hospitals and birthing centers around the world.
Feeding Positions and Early Breastfeeding
To understand why early feeding positions matter so much, let’s look at what we know. To activate a newborn’s internal GPS—so baby knows where she is and what to do—she needs to feel her entire front against her mother. This full frontal contact also activates the “pressure buttons” on a newborn’s ribs, wrists, inside of the knees, and tops or bottoms of the feet, which stabilizes her spine, giving her more control over her movements so can feed more effectively. You can make this happen when you’re sitting up straight. But why work this hard?
In the commonly used cradle, cross-cradle, and football/rugby holds, mothers and babies must fight the effects of gravity to get babies to breast level and keep their fronts touching. If gaps form between them (which can happen |
show the names of informants in various countries, including Israel, Jordan, Iran and Afghanistan,” the organization said in a statement. “While it has not been demonstrated that lives have so far been put in danger by these revelations, the repercussions they could have for informants, such as dismissal, physical attacks and other reprisals, cannot be neglected.”
The U.S. State Department has also condemned WikiLeaks’s decision, the AP says.
An odd series of events led to the publishing of these documents. At the beginning of the week, German papers Der Spiegel and Der Freitag alleged that the password to unredacted cables had been exposed. At the time, WikiLeaks vehemently denied that any names of sources had been revealed and asserted that none would be in the future. WikiLeaks on Thursday flipped its position, confirmed that it had known for months that the password to the unedited cables had been divulged, and pointed the finger at Guardian journalist David Leigh for publishing it in a WikiLeaks book.
WikiLeaks has not accepted any culpability in the breach, but many blame the organization’s head Julian Assange, who allegedly gave the password to an outside source several months ago. Supporters of the site also posted the cables in a BitTorrent file at the beginning of the year.
Late Thursday evening, WikiLeaks itself broadcasted the password on Twitter and encouraged its followers to create mirrors.
WikiLeaks, an organization that has made its name by publishing leaked documents, has failed to acknowledge the undeniable irony in suffering a leak itself. Perhaps WikiLeaks is trying to deflect the blame from itself for the breach, or perhaps, as posts on its Twitter feed suggest, the site truly felt it had no choice but to publish the entire library of documents.
For more from Leslie, follow her on Twitter @LesHorn.
For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.To the Editor:
The Carnegie Deli will shut its doors for the last time on Dec. 31, and we New Yorkers have already started mourning. It may seem strange to hear these words coming from the fifth-generation owner of Katz’s Delicatessen on the Lower East Side, but I am deeply saddened to witness the disappearance of a fellow culinary landmark.
Some have said that Katz’s and Carnegie are age-old rivals, the last two remaining giants in a city that once boasted thousands of delicatessens. However, our rivalry has never been more heated than that of two close siblings. There can be no such thing as too many delis.
Like many food legacies of this dynamic city, ours stretches back through the centuries. Deli is about brining. It is about patience. It is about preservation — not just of meat, but also of tradition. It is about bringing cooking techniques that started in the small shtetls of the “old world” into the 21st century.
Here in the “city that never sleeps” we cherish the bold and beautiful bustle that makes New York the greatest city in the world, yet agonize over the nonstop gentrification when we lose too many of our classics.New life is being injected into the iCub platform through the development of force control. This new skill enables safe and gentle interaction of the robot with human teachers. A short video shows this new feature used by an experimenter to teach simple actions to a brand new iCub. Click here to see the video
iCub grasping skills have been recently improved as a result of the Poeticon EU project. Simple actions such as grasping are combined through the use of spoken language tools developed by the Poeticon teams. In this example, the iCub pours cereals in a cup. Click here to see the video
Lorenzo, the guy in the picture, is checking the new iCub before running a manipulation experiment. The iCub is being fitted with a capacitive skin system in the fingertips and palms that enables measurement of contact and the implementation of safe grasping strategies. Click here to see the video
New visual skills of the iCub. Independent motion tracking for the iCub using optical flow. See how we can easily track objects or people that move independently of the iCub. Click here to see the video
The iCub met the Italian President in 2010 during a visit to Genoa and IIT. Here the President is asking about the robot after receiving the latest IIT leaflet from the hand of the iCub. Also in the picture, Giorgio Metta, Giulio Sandini and Roberto Cingolani. Click here to see the video
The iCub was in Hannover in April 2010 as part of the Italian delegation to the international fair and exhibit. Here's interacting with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel while showing its movement coordination skills and software reliability. The iCub ran uninterrupted for three full days attracting thousands of curious visitors. Click here to see the video
Working with us: if you have a technical background and you think your life is with robotics, then why don't you contact us at info@icub.org. We are constantly looking for good designers, programmers and open source believers to join our team based in Genoa.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
SALT LAKE CITY – In its first year, Salt Lake Comic Con became Utah’s most well-attended convention, and the event’s success has become part of a larger debate about enticing a new mega-hotel and convention center to downtown Salt Lake City using tax rebates.
Utah legislators voted against the hotel, which was planned to be built 1,000 feet from the Salt Palace, in a narrow vote last session, but now the sponsors are bringing the bill back.
Officials with the Downtown Alliance said they believe the success of Salt Lake Comic Con is helping rekindle the idea that Salt Lake City needs an all-in-one hotel and convention center.
Nick Como is the communication director for the Downtown Alliance, and he said the event was very well attended.
"50,000 paid tickets and over 70,000 in attendance, that's huge,” he said.
Officials said 90 percent of attendees were local, but organizers said they believe the event will grow and expand in upcoming years.
FOX 13 News’ Gene Kennedy took a closer look at how Comic Con has changed the discussion regarding the proposed hotel and convention center, check out the video above for more information.Image copyright Puffin Books Image caption Eric Hill often referred to himself as "Spot's Dad"
Author and illustrator Eric Hill, the creator of the Spot the Dog children's books which have sold more than 60 million copies, has died aged 86.
His enduringly popular books are about the escapades of a fun-loving puppy.
"Eric's ingenious lift-the-flap device turned the reading of a Spot book into a glorious game of hide and seek, enjoyed by children and adults alike," said his publisher Puffin Books.
Hill's family said he would be missed "immensely".
"Although this time of loss is a great hardship for us, we can honestly say that we take some solace in the joy he brought to so many children and families through his work," they said.
"We know Spot, and therefore Eric, has had a beloved presence in so many homes and bedtime readings. And we know we share our grief with many."
Hill, who was born in Holloway, north London, died at his home in California after a short illness, Puffin Books said.
He was described by Francesca Dow, head of the publisher's children's division, as "a master of simple design", adding that Spot was a "charming, naughty, playful puppy, loved and appreciated across the world".
Image copyright Puffin Books Image caption The escapades of Spot the Dog have long been a favourite of young children
The author often referred to himself as "Spot's Dad" and began his career in an illustration studio as an errand boy. He went on to work in advertising before creating his Spot books, which he read to his young son at bedtime.
He moved to the US with his family in the 1980s and is survived by his wife and two children.Literature
TE OVY COVEERED WALLLS OV HOGWrts chapte 1
Athurs notee: i DONT own hhry poter (lol dat wood b awsum if id id rite?) iby is MIEN! DINT USE HER UNLES I SAY SOO! Heather I luv u ur da best thx 4 editin it 4 meh!
Hi im Ivy Caroline Celestia Allison Marissa Claire Bieber. Im rly fukin hot nd skiny nd I hav blomd curly hair dat gose all da way 2 muh nees and mi boobs r big nd hot nd I hav long leg dat r rly long nd supr hot and im rly tan nd tall nd hot nd I hav ruby lips and mah teeth r wite nd perfect nd a prfect noes nd my eyes r rly hot nd dey r dark brown nd my eylashes r rly long and hot. I go 2 a wizerd skool calld hogwarts nd im a wich der. Im frum amrika but I wanted 2 go heer instead bcuz british guyz r so fucing sexah. Im 15 so ill b in muh 5 year der bcuz im transferrin frum my normul skool heer 2 da witch scool der.
I went in2 da greta hal wer de little kids wer bein sorted. Wen da last kid wer sortid da principal guy stud up.
“we hav a nu student frum amerika soo she neds 2 b surted. Evry1 giv a wsrm welcumImage copyright Manchester Evening News Image caption Nathaniel Kerr was jailed for a year for breaking an opponent's leg
A Sunday League footballer who deliberately stamped on an opponent's leg, breaking it in several places, has been jailed for a year.
Nathaniel Kerr, 24, pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court to assault.
The 30-year-old victim, Stuart Parsons, had been arguing with one of Kerr's team-mates just before the incident in Stockport last August, the court heard.
Mr Parsons had reconstructive surgery on his right ankle and spent weeks in hospital after the assault.
Image copyright Manchester Evening News Image caption Stuart Parsons had to have reconstructive surgery on his injured leg
The violent tackle happened two minutes into the first game of the season between Emigration FC and AFC Gold Cup in the Stockport Sunday league.
Mr Parsons, a defender for Emigration FC, said he had touched the ball just twice when Kerr lunged at him with both feet, dislocating his ankle and breaking it in two places.
As he lay in agony on the pitch off Jackson's Lane, Hazel Grove, Kerr shouted to a team-mate: "I've done this 'cos of you."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Sunday League footballer Stuart Parsons said the incident had "ruined his life" and forced him to give up his business as a window cleaner
"It was a long jump-type lunge," the victim told BBC 5 Live. "I got to the hospital and they X-rayed it but they had to sedate me twice to reset it. I was in hospital for two weeks."
A self-employed window cleaner before the injury, Mr Parsons said his business "went down the pan" as a result.
He spent six weeks on crutches, "had to learn to walk again", and "still can't run on it or do any sport, a year on".
He continued: "You don't expect to get out of bed on a Sunday morning and for that to happen. People have their own actions, minds and aggression. You are never going to stop it."
Speaking of his assailant, Mr Parsons said: "We had heard stories through the pipeline and, as a team, had our eye on him from the beginning."
Image copyright Manchester Evening News Image caption Stuart Parsons suffered multiple injuries
PC Louise Spencer, of Greater Manchester Police, said: "This injury has had a catastrophic effect on the victim's life, meaning he has been unable to work or support his young family.
"He is self-employed and the injury meant he was forced to rely on the kindness of his team-mates, who arranged fundraisers and charity events to provide the financial support he needed," she added.
"All the while Kerr has shown absolutely no remorse for his vicious attack, calling the victim a 'wimp' and verbally abusing him as he was lying in agony on the pitch."
She said the arrest and prosecution showed "aggression and thuggery" during sporting fixtures will not be tolerated.The playoffs are here! Finally! A ridiculous NBA regular season concluded Wednesday with the Warriors breaking the 1995-96 Bulls' single-season wins record and somehow getting upstaged by Kobe Bryant dropping 60 points in his final game.
But the playoffs are here! That means it's time to talk about matchups and strategies. It's time to make predictions using everything we've learned from the regular season (or throwing that all away, in some instances).
MORE: 23 most-hated NBA players ever | Draft prospect rankings
You can find the first-round NBA playoff schedule here, but we're going to spoil the results because Sporting News' Adi Joseph is sure these first-round picks will be perfect.
WESTERN CONFERENCE PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS
Warriors vs. Rockets prediction
Season series: No. 1 Golden State (73-9) beat No. 8 Houston (41-41) in all three meetings, by an average of 12.3 points.
Series schedule
Analysis: The Warriors simply are better than anyone — ever — and that’s good enough to make them the clear-cut favorite here. But on top of that, they get to start with a matchup they love. Even last season, when the Rockets were much better, they lost eight of nine matchups with Golden State, including 4-1 in the Western Conference finals. The Rockets seem headed for an offseason of change with three of their top big men hitting free agency and interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff likely on the way out unless he can pull out a playoff miracle and win this series.
Prediction: Warriors 4, Rockets 0
MORE: How many games will Warriors lose? | Stephen Curry film session: How does he get so open?
Spurs vs. Grizzlies prediction
Season series: No. 2 San Antonio (67-15) beat No. 7 Memphis (42-40) in all four meetings, by an average of 12.5 points.
Series schedule
Analysis: The Spurs have owned the Grizzlies for years, even when the Grizzlies have been healthy. That’s not the case now. This is the ugliest first-round matchup of the playoffs. The Grizzlies are without their two best players, center Marc Gasol and point guard Mike Conley, and are 2-14 in their last 16 games and 1-10 in their last 11. The Spurs are rested, tested and simply much better, even if Gasol and Conley somehow were to play.
Prediction: Spurs 4, Grizzlies 0.
MORE: Why Spurs need Duncan and Ginobili back next year, too
Thunder vs. Mavericks prediction
Season series: No. 3 Oklahoma City (55-27) beat No. 6 Dallas (42-40) in all four meetings, by an average of 9.5 points.
Series schedule
Analysis: Dirk Nowitzki has experienced one sweep in his career: 2012 vs. the Thunder. And that was with a better Mavericks team. But the Thunder finished the season flimsily, and the Mavs have so many veterans that they could make this series more interesting than it should be on paper. The problem is that the matchups are very much against them: The Thunder have perhaps the two best isolation players in the NBA, and the Mavericks’ defense struggles in one-on-one situations. Dallas coach Rick Carlisle is one of the best — and, in a matchup against rookie NBA coach Billy Donovan, that probably is worth a win — but he simply doesn’t have the same top-level talent or the matchups to his advantage.
Prediction: Thunder 4, Mavericks 1.
MORE: Jazzed-up pick-and-roll that makes the Thunder unstoppable
Clippers vs. Trail Blazers prediction
Season series: No. 4 Los Angeles (53-29) beat No. 5 Portland (44-38) in three of four meetings, with an average margin of 1.75 points.
Series schedule
Analysis: Clippers point guard Chris Paul has kind of had Blazers foil Damian Lillard’s number for years. A big part of the reason is the Clippers’ excellent pick-and-roll defense, which neutralizes what Lillard does best. Lillard shot 32.4 percent against the Clippers, a trend that would sink upstart Portland if it continues. The advantage here for the Blazers is that the Clippers still are figuring out how much Blake Griffin can give them. If Portland can exploit the recovering star power forward, they could pull off a stunning victory. But I wouldn’t bet against Paul here.
Prediction: Clippers 4, Trail Blazers 2.
MORE: Do the Clippers have to blow everything up if they lose early?
EASTERN CONFERENCE PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS
Cavaliers vs. Pistons prediction
Season series: No. 8 Detroit (44-38) beat No. 1 Cleveland (57-25) in three of four meetings, with an average margin of 1.75 points.
Series schedule
Analysis: Even beyond their head-to-head edge, the Pistons match up very favorably with the Cavaliers. Cleveland’s only real answer to All-Star center Andre Drummond’s size and physical dominance is benched big man Timofey Mozgov, who has been in poor form all season. The Pistons have several versatile forwards to throw at LeBron James, and shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is a nightmare matchup for already-struggling Kyrie Irving. But you can’t bet against James in the playoffs until at earliest the NBA Finals, and if things do get rough, it’s easy to imagine him shutting down the Reggie Jackson-Drummond pick-and-roll on his own. The Cavs have a significant-enough talent edge to prevail here either way.
Prediction: Cavaliers 4, Pistons 2.
MORE: Why the Kevin Love-to-Boston trade rumors won't ever die
Raptors vs. Pacers prediction
Season series: No. 2 Toronto (56-26) beat No. 7 Indiana (45-37) in three of four meetings, with an average margin of 2.3 points.
Series schedule
Analysis: Paul George made only 20 of his 65 shots from the field and never topped 20 points this season against the Raptors. Those are brutal numbers from the Pacers’ only star, who averaged 23.1 points per game this season. George is playoff-proven, though — he led Indiana to consecutive Eastern Conference finals with a very different roster around him in 2013 and 2014. The Raptors, meanwhile, are trying to break through for the first playoff series win since Vince Carter’s heyday. They have to be thrilled to land this matchup, though, because they will be able to play small or big and match up with George however they want — perhaps even with rookie Norman Powell, an outstanding defensive prospect. George will win the Pacers at least one game, though. And if he gets going, this could be another ugly first-round exit for Toronto. Don’t count on that.
Prediction: Raptors 4, Pacers 1.
MORE: DeRozan's free agency is a bigger test for the Raptors than this
Heat vs. Hornets prediction
Season series: No. 3 Miami (48-34) and No. 6 Charlotte (48-34) split their four games, with Charlotte holding an edge in average margin of 2.0 points.
Series schedule
Analysis: These teams are so different that it’s only fitting they split their season series and hold the same record. The Hornets have a slightly better offense and push the pace slightly more. The Heat have a slightly better defense and better one-on-one scorers, which often can be important in the playoffs. They also have much more experience. Charlotte probably had the better, less rocky season, but Miami was built for the playoffs. Dwyane Wade and Joe Johnson, who at times seemed out of place in the regular season, are aces in the playoffs, when defenses get tighter and play becomes more individualized. Can the Hornets spread the court and keep their passes sharp enough to be effective? The Hornets are such a good home team that they should be able to drag this series out. But if it comes down to a Game 7 in Miami, they’ll be looking back at their regular-season schedule and how close they came to sealing home-court advantage with any extra victory.
Prediction: Heat 4, Hornets 3.
MORE: Here's how the MJ-owned Hornets feel about Crying Jordan
Hawks vs. Celtics prediction
Season series: No. 4 Atlanta (48-34) beat No. 5 Boston (48-34) in three of their four meetings, with an average margin of 7.5. points.
Series schedule
Analysis: This series is the closest of the first round. The most fascinating part is how both of these teams boast elite defenses and fast paces. That’s because they are two of the most cutting-edge teams in terms of system development and analytics. This series is a basketball nerd’s dream, essentially. But the Hawks have two huge advantages: 1. The two best players in the series, Paul Millsap and Al Horford, will be matched up against an occasionally clunky and young Celtics front line, and 2. They have significantly more playoff experience, as this Celtics roster mostly has never won a playoff game while the Hawks are coming off a trip to the Eastern Conference finals. Brad Stevens is a coaching genius, but Mike Budenholzer can more than hold his own, and the Hawks have been exceptional over the past month-plus.
Prediction: Hawks 4, Celtics 3.[email protected]
Durante los cuatro meses que Roberto Sánchez, El Fugas, vivió evadiendo a las autoridades se operó la nariz, se injertó cabello y dejó crecer el bigote; en ocasiones usaba gorra o sombrero y gafas negras, decía que era un comerciante de Michoacán y que estaba de paso en Tlalnepantla por negocios, por lo que vivía de motel en motel.
Pese a los cambios a los que se sometió, elementos de la Policía de Investigación lo identificaron plenamente porque los rasgos fisonómicos relevantes del rostro permanecieron.
En ese tiempo, la Procuraduría General de Justicia (PGJ) de la Ciudad de México siguió sus pasos y fue cercando su círculo familiar y más íntimo.
Durante la vigilancia detectaron que su pareja sentimental en ocasiones lo visitaba en los moteles donde se quedaba; ella le proveía recursos económicos para comidas, alojamiento e incluso para salir a departir.
Hace un mes ya se había montado un operativo especial para detenerlo, pero El Fugas fue alertado y no llegó a dormir al mismo lugar; 30 días después bajó la guardia y le tendieron una trampa. Desde la noche del lunes agentes infiltrados se apoderaron de la avenida Ceylán, en Tlalnepantla, Estado de México, algunos incluso se hicieron pasar por parejas para confirmar su presencia en el lugar.
Por la mañana sabían que tenía que salir “a trabajar”, por lo que ya lo esperaban. En cuanto se asomó los agentes lo acorralaron y le ordenaron que se entregara, pero el prófugo trató de abrirse paso con un vehículo tipo Bora 2007 que conducía, pero el intento fue inútil porque dos patrullas le cerraron el paso.
Al sentirse acorralado, Roberto Sánchez bajó del auto y abrió fuego contra los policías con un arma calibre.25, por lo que los agentes respondieron con disparos por lo menos cinco ocasiones; lo que provocó alarma entre testigos y empleados del hotel en el que se hospedaba.
Uno de estos tiros dio en la pierna izquierda del prófugo, quien al sentirse herido gritó que se rendía y entregó el arma. Después fue trasladado bajo un fuerte dispositivo de seguridad a un hospital de la localidad para su posterior traslado al Reclusorio Oriente, de donde se escapó.
De entre sus pertenencias encontraron licencias para conducir y otros documentos a nombres de; Roberto Sánchez Ramírez, Miguel Márquez Montes, Roberto Sánchez Ramos o Roberto Daniel Sánchez, con todos estos alias intentó disimular que era uno de los delincuentes más buscados por la procuraduría capitalina.
Sobre El Fugas pesan cuatro órdenes de reaprehensión emitidas por los juzgados 25, 36, 34 y 54 de lo penal, con sede en la Ciudad de México, por su probable participación en la comisión de los delitos de privación ilegal de libertad agravada, asociación delictuosa y robo calificado.
Según su archivo criminal, el detenido proviene de una familia de delincuentes. Creció en Izcalli y era el segundo al mando en la banda de Los Ponchos, encabezada por su padre, Alfonso Sánchez Enríquez, preso desde 2000 por los delitos de secuestro y asociación delictuosa.
Dos semanas después de que cayera el padre, también aprehendieron a su hermano Alfonso y a sus hermanas Josefina y Concepción. A esta familia criminal la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) la vinculó con seis secuestros entre 1998 y 2012; la capitalina los relacionó con otros tres entre 2000 y 2013.
Según la indagatoria PGR/SIEDO/004/2003, Los Ponchos solían cortar los dedos a sus víctimas y enviarlos en sobres a sus familias para que estos pagaran un rescate millonario.6 Min Read | Finding things to do with toddlers in Dallas to make this February full of love and entertainment for your little ones? From one man puppet show to Monster Jam at…
6 Min Read |
Finding things to do with toddlers in Dallas to make this February full of love and entertainment for your little ones? From one man puppet show to Monster Jam at AT&T stadium, streets of Dallas have a plethora of indoor and outdoor fun things to do with kids this month. All these fun activities in Dallas and kids’ attractions have been tailored in a way to engage all age groups from toddlers to parents. Apart from regular activities for kids, book your dates of February for the list of best things to do with toddlers in Dallas.
Top 10 Fun Things To Do With Toddlers In Dallas
1. Dinosaurs Live
When: 6th Feb 8:30 PM to 19th Feb at 4:30 AM
Where: Heard Natural Science Museum & wildlife
Minimum Age: 2 years
If your idea of the best thing to do with your kid is both fun and educational, then this is the kids’ event in Dallas you must take your child to. Encounter with a 46-foot T-Rex and 9 new life-size animation dinosaurs along the Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary’s nature trails at the 11th annual Dinosaurs Live will be thrilling, exciting and fun for the children. And the destination will also provide family-friendly outdoor activity spot during the holidays.
2.Free Yogurt on International Frozen Yogurt day
When: Feb 6th (4:00 pm to 7:00 pm)
Where: Yogurtland( Dallas/Northwest Highway)
Want to satisfy sugar cravings of your child’s sweet tooth? Let your child enjoy free Froyo at Yogurtland and celebrate this International Frozen Yogurt day on Feb 6th. There can be no better fun thing to do with kids in Dallas, than trying limited editions of fun flavors like Chocolate Milkshake and the new Peanut Butter Cup made with Reese’s and Hershey’s ingredients. If you are searching for kids’ activities near me on Google then this should be number one on the list.
3. Sleepover at fishes aquarium for one night
When: 9th Feb to 10th Feb
Where: Children’s aquarium at Fair park
Minimum age- 6 years
Located at heart of Dallas, Children’s aquarium offers a plethora of things to do with toddlers in Dallas and introduce them to the ocean world. As the name suggests, aquarium exhibit features aquatic creatures from all over the world ranging from Queensland grouper’s roving eye to electric eels. This time, an aquarium is letting the toddlers enjoy an experience of sleeping among thousands of fishes in its galleries and explore deep into ocean world. Toddlers will also get a chance to have up-close animal encounters, special keeper-animal, feedings and other hands-on activities. A night at the aquarium would be every child’s dream!
Book more outdoor activities here!
4.Daddy daughter Dance
When: Feb 10th to Feb 11th
Where: Bob Duncan Center in Arlington
If you are a father of the daughter, then it’s time to celebrate the enviable bond you share with her. Come make magical memories and spend an unforgettable evening with your daughter(s) at Once Upon a Time themed Daddy Daughter Dance. Individual tickets will include a corsage, refreshments, dessert and punch, parting gift for daughters and a memorable photograph. There will be dancing, food, DJ music, photos and limo rides and a beautiful evening.
Give your princess an experience to walk through red carpet and take her for a limo ride.
Book dancing workshops for your daughter to teach her creative moves.
5.Penguin Days $7 Dallas Zoo Admission
When: Till Feb 28th
Where: Dallas Zoo
Minimum: 3 years
Winter is here and so are penguin days! Everyone enjoys the funny and cute way a penguin waddles. If you have missed the African penguins in Dallas Zoos till now, then this is the last month of their stay. Already fascinated by penguins of Madagascar, this experience will be heaven on earth for your kid this February and best thing to do with toddlers in Dallas.
Explore some more outdoor things to do with your toddlers in Dallas!
6.Discovery Days: Gadgets and Gizmos and World of Maya
When: Feb 11th
Where: Perot Museum of Nature and science
Minimum: 2 years
If you want your child to discover the fun of science and explore the world of inventing, making and engineering, then check out the discovery days with Perot Museum of Nature and Science. Let your little one engage their senses and develop their mind as they wiggle, giggle, and get just a little bit messy with developing technology. Also, let your child discover the hidden secrets of Maya at spring Discovery camps.
Book more STEM workshops for your kids here.
7.Freaky Fridays at the Palace
When: Feb 17th
Where: Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
Looking for some fun things to do with toddlers in Dallas on Friday night? Check out Ripley’s new Freaky Fridays at the Palace which includes all 5 attractions – Louis Tussaud’s Palace of Wax, Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, Ripley’s Impossible Laser Race, Ripley’s Enchanted Mirror Maze and Ripley’s 7D Moving Theater at the children’s price of $26.99 on Fridays after 5 p.m. Pay like a kid and play like a kid. The offer also includes the new Superhero Gallery filled with your favorite superheroes, including life-size versions of Thor, Captain America, Iron Man and the Hulk. Beware of a few bad guys, too, including Batman enemies the Joker.
Don’t miss out the wax statue of your new president- Donald Trump at the venue!
8.Sesame Street Live: Elmo Makes Music
When: Feb 17th to 19th
Where: Verizon Theater at Grand Prairie in Dallas, TX
“A child who sings is a happy child”, everyone knows this fact. And when it is about making music with his furry friends, no child would want to miss that chance. Elmo, Abby Cadabby, Big Bird, and more are coming to the town on Feb 17th to the rescue when the new music teacher’s instruments go missing and discover instruments they never knew existed. So parents, don’t miss out this activity to do with the toddlers in Dallas; where you child can learn that everyone can enjoy and create music together.
Book music workshops for your child, to teach him how to create beautiful music.
9.The LEGO Batman Movie Event
When: Feb 25th
Where: Barns & Nobel (North Park)
If your child is a batman fan as well as enjoy playing with LEGO toys, then this activity should be there in the to-do list of February. Barnes & Noble is hosting a three-month series of events celebrating The LEGO Batman Movie. Kids will be called to put their detective skills to the test with themed activities as well as make and play moments with LEGO bricks/blocks. At each event, kids can collect two limited-edition trading cards (while supplies last) featuring characters from the movie.
Make your child a calendar of all fun activities to do in Dallas!
10.Theatre: Junie B. Jones Is Not A Crook
When: Till 26th Feb
Where: Dallas Children’s theater
If you are searching for fun places to go with the kids in Dallas, then you must take your tot to this play which will give him a good laugh and at the same time teach a great life lesson.
The world’s funniest kid is back! Junie B. Jones is ecstatic about her new black furry mittens that Grampa Frank Miller bought for her — until some rotten thieves steal them! When she finds a cool pen on the school floor, her own sense of right and wrong is tested.
Book more things to do with toddlers in Dallas on xoxoday.com!
TagsI want to keep this devoid of ZOS bashing (or as in most cases, Wrobel bashing) and articulate what appears to be a wide held position: battlegrounds are nearly unplayable. As someone with 1000 or so hours in this game, a paying sub, and someone who forked over money for Morrowind, this is beyond disappointing. I don't think I'm providing any novel analysis, but as someone who has invested lots of money and time in this game, I want to see it succeed.
Before I get into this I want to be clear: there is a great deal of discussion surrounding the balance of this game that is unconstructive. Simply calling something "aids" or "cancer" or ranting against a certain class/person at ZOS is frankly irritating to people who have honest feedback that needs to be relayed to ZOS.
1) Queing system - this has to be a no brainer. Even after the incremental patch from a few days ago, queing takes an absurd amount of time. Given the need to que to even use the battleground system - one of the main attractions of an expansion that you needed to pay to have access to - this has to be a obvious, and its infuriating that ZOS has seemingly not prioritized fixing this. Even giving them the benefit of the doubt - i.e. limited resources and a difficult problem to fix - this has got to be a known issue since early release of the expansion (from like over a month or so ago?). Queing with groups provides a ratio of roughly 2 games for every hour in que. That must be unacceptable. Evidence: my 45-50 BG games/Fengrush's stream.
2) Leaderboards/Rewards - This problem seems like it should have been the most obvious prior to release. Leaderboards are solely based of total score, which means someone could play everyday forever and be at number one, but someone who plays 2 hours a day and wins every game may not even place. Furthermore, AP rewards are outrageous. Someone who plays 10 minutes of PvP capturing 2 (roughly 14k or so) keeps could outscore somone who plays 8 (8 times 1.5k) games of battle grounds, which could take hours depending on ques (see number 1). Evidence: litterally every game I've played and any streamer showing BGs.
3) Healing rewards - Aside from rewards (see number 2), healers receive ridiculously minimal compensation for AP. Someone can end up with no kills, no deaths, but seal the win for their team with quality healing. Important - this is especially important given my own experience with lack of healers in BGs. It's great to have healing medals, but that score is not reflected in AP, nor on the score of the game. Evidence - any warden or templar in deathmatch healing always is bottom of the team. '
4) Nightblades - And finally, why I stopped playing what I paid $40 for. Let me describe a class for yourself and you decide if this mode would be balanced with it: a class BUILT for insane burst damage. A class that can go invisible whenever it would like. A class that's BUILT to pair with the best gear in the game (ie Viper, etc). No other class has remotely close to the advantage that Nightblades have. There's a reason the last game I played had 7 NBs, 2 Dks, 2 Wardens and 1 sorc (me). The reason this is a problem is that there is zero counter play in BGs to Nightblade play style.
There are parts of this patch that are great in my opinion (i.e. Vvardenfell zone, Morrowind questline, I think warden provides interesting and relatively balanced healing). But if ZOS has any desire to create a lasting PvP community, then I think BGs need to be addressed as explained above.
If anyone at ZOS would like to provide responses/clarifications to points above, I would welcome that. Thank you!Spoiler Warning Plot details follow, read at your own risk.
"Progress is an inexorable process, Detective. Those who choose to stand in defiance are usually confined to the waste basket of history." ―Leland Monroe
Leland Monroe is a central character in L.A. Noire, as well as one of the main antagonists during the Arson desk cases.
Contents show]
Biography
Background
"Gentlemen, we're here to sell the American Dream, and Hollywood is our greatest advertiser." ―Leland |
the high speed RAM of your Windows PC, TurboPC can increase file transfer rates by up to 2X over competing USB 3.0 portable hard drives by making system adjustments to increase performance substantially.
Buffalo Tools
Buffalo Tools is a feature-rich suite of optional software included on many Buffalo DriveStation and MiniStation storage products. Any or all of the following components of Buffalo Tools may be installed on Windows PCs.
Buffalo's Backup Utility is an easy-to-use and fully featured backup software for Windows PCs and can be used to back up one or multiple computers with a single Buffalo external hard drive.
is an easy-to-use and fully featured backup software for Windows PCs and can be used to back up one or multiple computers with a single Buffalo external hard drive. eco Manager is an energy efficiency tool used to conserve energy and reduce battery consumption by regulating the power usage of the hard drive, cutting power to the drive during extended periods of inactivity.
is an energy efficiency tool used to conserve energy and reduce battery consumption by regulating the power usage of the hard drive, cutting power to the drive during extended periods of inactivity. RAMDISK is a simple utility that allows you to create a RAM disk on your Windows PC which creates a small, but extremely fast environment to work on files in.
is a simple utility that allows you to create a RAM disk on your Windows PC which creates a small, but extremely fast environment to work on files in. SecureLock software for Windows provides complete control of the data encryption on your Buffalo external hard drive, providing password protection and software data encryption.
Shipping Note: Eligible for shipping to all 50 states
Warranty: 1 Year Buffalo TechnologyA little over two weeks left for openSUSE 12.1 to be released on November, 16th 2011. And there is no better way to enjoy the new release than with your fellow openSUSE peers. So, attend or organize a Launch Party! These events around the openSUSE release can be anything – from a party in a pub to a series of presentations at an office. But there is a common theme: cool people sharing some fun and talks around the latest openSUSE release!
Read more on how to find out if there is a release party in your neighborhood or how to organize one!
Any party around?
You can of course wait until the 16th and look around for fireworks and party-ing people but it might be better to prepare a bit… So check out the Launch party wiki page.
No?
No party close enough? Poor you… But there is a way out! How would you feel in organizing one?
It’s not hard, everyone can do it! You can see at our Launch Party HOWTO page that there are many ways to have a party – you don’t have to have fireworks, a nice picknick is just as cool, if not more! Use you imagination and do something creative!
Goodies and support
Launch Parties are probably the coolest way to introduce people to FOSS and to introduce FOSS people to openSUSE. You don’t have to be an ambassador or something to organize one and you can ask for promo material for your party!
Yes, we plan to get some cool stuffâ„¢ to you if you organize a party. We are working hard to have the openSUSE 12.1 DVD’s ready as soon as possible and will send them, together with some flyers, posters, stickers and other goodies to the registered release parties. We unfortunately don’t have the DVD’s ready before the release date and shipping and handling also takes time so you’d have to organize a party 2-4 weeks after the release to get the stuff in time. See the Launch party wiki page for more information.
More help
If you want to organize a party but you have some questions please contact the Marketing Team on the Marketing Mailing list or the IRC channel. You should also try and involve the openSUSE ambassadors in your area. We’d all be happy to help you have a smashing party!
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No tags available Category: EventsAbout This Game This is the prologue of Emmerholt - an upcoming open world, magic wielding, story driven, adventure game for the HTC Vive, and Oculus Touch. Currently in development by Oneiric Entertainment!
In this prologue follow along the journey of Eli, a young man whom has lived a peaceful life with his friends on a small island off the coast of the mainland. On this night however, something strange takes place on the island that would change Eli's fate forever.
This free demo is meant to act as a prologue for the upcoming game Emmerholt. We are releasing this to get feedback and to see what the community thinks about our locomotion mechanics, gameplay, and story.
Full Version Coming in late 2017:
Emmerholt will be a free-roaming adventure game with numerous side quests and missions. Bustling cities and towns exist there with a diverse set of factions to encounter. The game will be story focused with emotional well written quests and a talented pool of voice actors. Unlock powerful magic which can be used at will during and outside of combat. Use the intuitive horseback riding mechanic to travel across the world.ANZ class action: Internal memos show bank raked in millions from fees as customer anger grew
Updated
Federal Court documents show the ANZ bank knew as far back as 2006 that it would need to adjust the fees it charged customers, or risk being exposed to legal action and growing consumer anger.
The internal ANZ documents, which include emails and board meeting minutes, were obtained by lawyers representing the claimants of the biggest class action in legal history.
Maurice Blackburn is representing 38,000 customers who are disputing the fees they were charged over a seven-year period.
The central claim is that the excessive fees charged would be considered penalties and therefore would be illegal.
The bank is alleged to have charged exorbitant fees of between $20 and $45 for services that would only cost a matter of cents or a few dollars to administer.
Although some parts of the documents have been redacted because they are commercially sensitive, they reveal the private deliberations of ANZ's executive management team and board.
The documents trace the growing public campaign by consumer groups and media reporting about the fees, and the legislative changes that would cause the bank to change its fee structure.
One of the internal documents outlines the concerns the bank had about adjusting its fees. The revenue raising options to offset losses included increasing account servicing fees.
In a document titled Exception Fees Strategy September 2008, the executive summary says:
Recent events overseas and in Australia are generating heightened focus and increasing the risk of regulation on bank fees, in particular exception fees Focus on strategy is to source additional income streams to offset the potential loss of exception fees due to regulation Actions to address political concerns and improve customer experience include - new exception fee-free account, new ATM warning message and low-balance text alerts Strategies to cover revenue gap include - changing the mix of honour and dishonoured transactions, increasing the monthly account service fee.
The same document outlines "long-term strategies" to make up for any loss in exception fees.
If exception fees were regulated/capped to cost recovery, the approach would be to: Increase monthly account service fee ($0.13 for every $ reduction in per item fee applied on all active accounts or $0.25 for every $ in reduction if applied on fee paying accounts only) Increase proportion of dishonour transactions to over 50% Change exception fee charging methodology
Documents from 2006 outline the profitability of fees, and discussions on how revenue would be affected if fees were reduced.
The confidential papers show how reliant the ANZ was on fees to boost its profit margins. A discussion paper from 30 June 2006 shows the bank raked in millions on fees alone.
'Exception fees represent a significant part of the Transaction Banking P&L.' (profit and loss) Exception fees currently: * Consumer Honour Fees - $58m * Consumer Dishonour Fees - $23m * Consumer PP Non-Payment Fees - $12m Total $93m Fees in context * Transaction Banking Earnings before Provisions - $208m * Account Service Fees - $50m (Honour Fees are charged when a payment is presented against an account with insufficient funds but the bank allows the payment to go through. Dishonour Fees are applied in the same circumstances but when the bank decides not to allow the payment to go through.)
Even chief executive Mike Smith was carefully monitoring the fallout from the banks fees policy, as was noted in the minutes of a management board meeting in 2009.
At a meeting he chaired on September 7, it was acknowledged the fees had become a major focus for "media, lobby groups and politicians so change on consumer customers is mandatory".
The minutes went on to state that change would not be good for the bank's bottom line, as regulatory change that would hamper its ability to charge fees loomed.
Recommended changes would remove revenue of $160m in Retail and $9.5m in Commercial. Changes will be required to fees anyway due to the changes in the regulatory environment come 1 Jan with the introduction of the Unfair contracts legislation. We are taking into consideration what is the highest fee we can charge when these changes come into effect. Total exception fee income in Australian (sic) is $300m and we are giving up ~50% of these in this recommendation.
Final submissions have been made in the court case and both parties are awaiting a decision by Federal Court Judge Michelle Gordon.
Do you know more? Contact investigations@abc.net.au
Topics: banking, industry, business-economics-and-finance, courts-and-trials, law-crime-and-justice, australia
First postedThe Liberal Party will release the costing of its fiscal plan at a briefing Saturday.
The party has previously said it would run deficits for three years before balancing the books, but Saturday's document is expected to provide more detail on the party's individual spending promises and how a Liberal government would pay for them.
Given that many newspapers do not publish on Sundays, the decision to release the document on a Saturday likely means the party's spending and revenue promises will receive less media attention initially.
Story continues below advertisement
A party official said the Liberals will hold a technical briefing for the media Saturday on the costing of party promises, but the party will not be releasing the full platform at that time.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau said the party will be releasing "a lot of details" on Saturday but that he will be spending time with his family and preparing Monday evening's leaders' debate on foreign policy.
"I know I get to go home and spend a little time with my family tonight, which I always need after an intense time," he said Friday morning in Brampton, Ont. following Thursday evening's French language debate in Montreal.
"I was the first party [leader] to put out a strong fiscal framework that told Canadians directly that we will be running three years of modest deficits so we can invest in the future of our country, so we can invest in our communities and creating jobs right now and the other parties have been attacking on us day in and day out," said Mr. Trudeau. "I look forward to Canadians seeing the fully responsible and detailed plan that we have on how we're going to bring in the changes that are going to make a difference in peoples' lives and I look forward to continuing throughout this campaign to take questions from media and from Canadians about how we're going to build a better future."
The NDP released a high-level overview of its spending plan on Sept. 16, the day before The Globe and Mail's debate on the economy in Calgary. NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair was not available to the media on the day his party's fiscal plan was released.
Speaking with reporters in Quebec City, Mr. Mulcair chided the Liberal Leader for previously stating that he had already released his fiscal plan. He also questioned why Mr. Trudeau may not be available for several days after the party's numbers are released.
"If he has the numbers, let him publish them. We'll take a look at them. I don't know why he is hiding for several days after [releasing them]," he said.I read a submission on HN that talk about Kdb+.
In the linked page it claim the interpreter is faster than C:
Kdb+ is a testament to the rewards available from finding the right abstractions. K programs routinely outperform hand-coded C. This is of course, impossible, as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy likes to say. K programs are interpreted into C. For every K program there is a C program with exactly the same performance. So how do K programs beat hand-coded C? As Whitney explained at the Royal Society in 2004, “It is a lot easier to find your errors in four lines of code than in four hundred.”
Now I'm a noob about compilers, but I understand that a)Interpreters are easier to code than compilers b)And them are slow, probably very very slow.
How can be faster? How do it?
I don't see how "“It is a lot easier to find your errors in four lines of code than in four hundred.”" can be the explanation.Note: Niran subsequently released versions 1.31 and 1.32 following this review. Both contain tweaks and additions to 1.30, including further floater layout alignments (most notably the People floater (1.31) and the Merchant Outbox is translated and functional in German (1.32). You can catch these updates on Niran’s blog.
NiranV Dean has released version 1.30 of Niran’s Viewer, which is described as “a complete overhaul” – and there is enough that has gone into it to justify that comment.
The Viewer has been something of a differentiator in the TPV world on a number of fronts: elements of UI presentation are markedly different (such as the menu presentation and things like the Build floater), the Viewer also offers a huge amount of nips, tucks, tweaks and changes to the graphic end of things which, while geared towards higher-specification machines, offer much that is of benefit to machinimatographers and photographers. Finally, and as the Viewer has developed, NiranV has not been afraid to seek to incorporate more of a game-like approach to things.
The changes in this release are extensive – and some are not always obvious (such as localisation in the log-in and log-in progress screens),, which doesn’t make them any less time-intensive to produce. I’ve aimed this piece at covering the more visible changes.
Over-the-Shoulder
The first noticeable difference between 1.30 and earlier versions is that the camera default position has been moved to an over-the-shoulder view. This may not be to everyone’s liking, but it does offer an improved world-view in many respects. As someone already using Penny Patton’s camera offsets to achieve a similar result, I found the look very familiar and comfortable when I logged-in, although the camera position is a little closer than I’m accustomed to seeing. This isn’t a problem until one uses the DOWN ARROW / S-key for moving backwards; while this now turns your avatar around, it also tend to have your avatar well over to the left on-screen, making navigation even over a short distance a little harder. For those that aren’t keen on these views, it’s obviously possible to reset to a more “traditional” view.
Staying with the camera for a moment, mouselook also gains the ability to use the SHIFT key in combination with mouse movements to smooth the motion of the latter on-screen and provide precise tracking. Handy for those in combat / shooting situations.
Floating Away
NiranV’s work on redesigning various floaters continues. With this release, People and Mesh Upload come in for attention.
The People floater joins Build in going horizontal – – and this works particularly well with Nearby, wherein the people list and mini-map can be displayed without having to have a long vertical panel opening on-screen.
Another nice touch with this is that both ONLINE and ALL are displayed side-by-side (although may require extra scrolling if you have an extensive list of friends!).
The Mesh Upload floater has been compressed and the lay-out tided so that it also doesn’t require so much on-screen real estate. The result is a clean, compact approach that is still relatively easy on the eye, although the ability to resize it via dragging might not go amiss for those who would prefer it to be a little bigger.
The Build floater has been further tweaked and again provides a cleaner display and appears less cluttered than early iterations.
Menus and floaters have also had their transparency adjusted to give a consistent feel right across the Viewer, and to aid in readability.
“Pick a colour, any colour…”
Perhaps the biggest single update in terms of the ability to customise the Viewer is that users can now set the colour and transparency of every common floater in the Viewer and set colours against every common widget.
Changes to floaters require a Viewer restart to take effect, while changes to widget colours will be applied immediately.
For those missing KLee’s Viewer, a small nod has been added to Niran’s 1.30: the UI buttons can now by displayed in KLee Viewer style.
And there’s more…
As well as these changes, 1.30 also sees:
More work on translating the UI for German and French users
Improvements and tweaks to various Preferences panels
Fixes to media roll-off and max sliders
Incorporation of the latest Shining fixes
Text compression (which may help with some crash issues on older cards, but not recommended for ATi systems)
A full list of changes can be found at the end of the blog post on the release. Gone from this release is the “main menu” option and the SL Kinect2 option. The former is being reworked, the latter may be gone for good due to compiling issues with Linux.
Feedback
I’ve always liked Niran’s Viewer – the “dares to be different” approach has meant that the Viewer has been very innovative and something very different from “standard” 3.x-based offerings. My experience has suffered over the last few releases because my PC has struggled to manage the Viewer, particularly when running some of the more advanced deferred rendering options. Whereas early versions ran very well – frame rates up in the mid-30s sans deferred options, more recent releases have been barely half that.
Release 1.30 goes some way to reversing this trend, allowing me to achieve frame rates of between 28-32 with 3 or 4 others on-sim, and deferred rendering is back on a par with earlier releases (around 8-9fps). This still isn’t as fast my PC can manage with other Viewers, but it’s a lot faster than I’ve enjoyed of late with Niran’s, and as such is very welcome.
In all, the Viewer runs smoothly, exhibits no proclivity towards crashing on me (it rarely has), and I had no lock-ups when taking lots of snapshots with deferred rendering turned on (an issue I tend to get with other viewers, particularly if I move the camera around a lot with the snapshot floater open when running in deferred).
In terms of the UI changes, the ability to make the UI multi-hued may find a lot of appeal among those who like a highly individual look to their Viewer. For me, I like the general tidying done to the Build floater – which is starting to grow on me – and I very much like the new People floater, which really maximises the use of space. The new default camera position is also something that appeals, given I already use something similar, although I’d personally prefer to set my camera back a little further.
Overall, a lot of work continues to go into this Viewer, it’s still one of my two preferred Viewers when it comes to my amateur attempts at photography, and given I’ve got a slight boost in performance with this release, it may well see a lot more use again as I hop around the grid exploring and snapping pictures.
Kudos!
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Tuesday 20th June 1911
107 years ago
The first UK trolleybus service was inaugurated when the Lord Mayor of Leeds, William Middlebrook drove a trolleybus from Thirsk Row, off Wellington Street, to Farnley. The second trolleybus was driven by the Deputy Lord Mayor Frederick James Kitson, the grandson of James Kitson, founder of the Airedale Foundry in Hunslet. The 8 mile round trip between Farnley and the city centre took 45 minutes. The first trolleybus route had four trolleybuses and ran from City Square to Moor Top, via Lower Wortley and Farnley. Two additional routes were added in 1915; between Guiseley and Otley, and between Guiseley and Burley-in-Wharfedale. The trolleybus service was run by Leeds Tramways. It used trolleybuses built by the Railless Electric Traction Company fitted with Siemens engines. The company had a small factory at Balm Road in Hunslet. The trolleybuses used in 1911 were single-deckers. Double-decker trolleybuses were introduced in 1921. These had a carrying capacity of 59 passengers, with 28 being carried on the lower deck and 31 on the upper deck, which was enclosed. The trolleybuses were known as "railless cars," "trackless cars" and "trackless trams." The trolleybus service was used on routes where it was not practical to run trams. Although the service ran at a loss, it continued because the council regarded it as a feeder service to its tram network, and in order to link the city to its neighbours. The trolleybus system was scrapped in 1928 for reasons given by a barrister employed by the council to a select committee of the House of Commons: “The trolley vehicles run by the Corporation served their purpose for the time of the war, but the development of the motor-bus since that date had completely altered the position. Buses were able, from their greater mobility, to run at a cheaper figure per mile, and they had another very important advantage in providing a through service from point-to-point without change. The effect in this case was that people from the outlying districts, who, formerly, would quite gladly use the trolley vehicles in order to reach the Leeds tramways, now used the motor omnibuses, which carried them without change right into the city. It was found that lower fares were practically no attraction when people, by another form of vehicle, could be carried more expeditiously, and without the necessity of changing. It was found that people did not get out of the omnibuses at the city boundary to join the tramways, but went on”Facebook parody blog Lamebook.com has filed suit against Facebook to fend off impending litigation from the social network.
Lamebook, co-founded in 2009 by Texas-based graphic designers Jonathan Standefer and Matthew Genitempo, invites users to submit funny or embarrassing photos, status updates, wall posts and other tidbits from Facebook profiles.
According to Lamebook, Facebook has threatened the humorous blog with legal action over trademark infringement. TechCrunch reports that Facebook lawyers contacted Lamebook in March and requested that the Facebook-inspired site change its name and user interface.
Lamebook has responded by preemptively filing suit. "Lamebook's rationale is that it's a very obvious parody and hence is protected by the First Amendment," writes CNET.
In an email sent to both CNET and TechCrunch, a Facebook representative said that Standefer and Genitempo's site "is an improper attempt to build a brand that trades off Facebook's popularity and fame."What was your favorite UFC moment of 2013? Chances are you can relive it tonight.
As a reminder, “Best of UFC 2013” debuts tonight on FOX Sports 1. The two-hour highlights review of this past year in the UFC airs at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT).
Included in the show will be the biggest and best moments from the UFC’s 33-event slate of shows in 2013. You’ll see the debut of women in the promotion with Ronda Rousey’s first fight. You’ll see blockbuster title fights like Jon Jones’ war with Alexander Gustafsson and Georges St-Pierre’s close win over Johny Hendricks.
You’ll see upsets, like Chris Weidman’s knockout of Anderson Silva. You’ll see “Fight of the Year” candidates like Gilbert Melenedez’s win over Diego Sanchez. You’ll see spectacular knockouts. You’ll see crazy submissions.
Live all the big moments over again as we stare down the barrel of 2014, which is expected to be the UFC’s biggest year yet.
Check out the preview video above for tonight’s show. Then don’t miss “Best of UFC 2013” on FOX Sports 1.
And for complete coverage of the UFC’s 2013 schedule, visit the UFC Events section of the site.The recent publication of Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman” has left many fans of her 1960 novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” disillusioned. Some who regarded “Mockingbird”’s central character Atticus Finch as a moral paragon fighting Southern racism have been deeply disappointed by “Watchman” (actually an earlier draft of “Mockingbird”), in which Atticus is rendered as a racist curmudgeon.
Readers unhappy about losing a fictional Atticus might, however, reclaim the “real” one. Gregory Peck, who so famously embodied Atticus in the film version of “Mockingbird,” passionately opposed racial prejudice. And now, unpublished documents in the Margaret Herrick Library (the Oscars archive) reveal Peck’s personal opposition to racism, long before Harper Lee even wrote “Mockingbird.” The young actor attacked bigotry against both blacks and Jews.
Peck expressed some of his earliest anti-racist views with regard to Haiti. The U.S. had occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, and Hollywood films from the era depicted the country as a land of bizarre “voodoo” rites and zombies. However, Peck had visited the country in the 1940s, and when Darryl Zanuck of Fox Studios sought to persuade him to star in “Lydia Bailey,” an adventure-romance set during the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), Peck asked to make a more serious film about Haiti.
He wanted to highlight the egalitarian ideals of Haiti’s revolution, in which African slaves had successfully revolted and made their country the first free black republic in the Americas. Peck likened Haitians’ fight for independence to the American Revolution. He spoke of how Haitian revolutionaries “carried on democratic ideals… against all the efforts of the French to retake the island and continue the exploitation of the people, their former slaves.” Peck compared the suffering of Haitians and “the poor negroes in the [American] South,” who he felt were even worse off.
Peck also denounced anti-Semitism, most notably through his role in the 1948 film “Gentleman’s Agreement.” It is easy today to forget the strength of anti-Semitism in the U.S. before the 1960s, where Jews faced widespread discrimination in housing and the workplace, as well as at prestigious universities and resorts. Anti-Semites such as Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi even used the word “kike” on the House floor. Though many Jewish studio executives were afraid to acknowledge the problem, for fear of a backlash, Daryl Zanuck, one of Hollywood’s few non-Jewish studio heads, decided to tackle the subject. He sought to turn Laura Hobson’s 1946 novel “Gentleman’s Agreement” into a film, personally entrusting the story to Peck. Peck’s stirring portrayal of Phil Green, a gentile journalist who goes undercover to expose everyday anti-Semitism, has become legendary. The role earned Peck an Oscar nomination.
Peck’s spirited defense of egalitarianism in the film was not merely an act. He took the role against the advice of his agent, who told him that challenging anti-Semitism could make him deeply unpopular. When asked by Coronet Magazine what the film meant to him, Peck responded, “To me ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ was a picture about Americanism.” As the House Un-American Activities Committee had begun targeting many of Peck’s liberal colleagues, Peck remarked pointedly that the best defense against communism was to live up to America’s noblest ideals: “We can best fight communism by practicing democracy.”
Though “Mockingbird” fans can safely reclaim Peck, it would oversimplify the history of racism and anti-Semitism in the U.S. to treat him as the uncomplicated paragon Atticus once appeared to be. It is perhaps a fool’s errand to search for unblemished heroes, given how deeply rooted prejudice can be even among those seeking to free themselves from it. Even before “Watchman”’s publication, scholars of race had noted that Atticus, despite defending an accused African American, did little to attack the larger structure of racism in his society.
In Peck’s case, his actions may not have always lived up to his pronouncements. For his proposed film about Haitian history, he wanted to occupy the starring role himself rather than hire an African-American actor — which would have meant his appearing in blackface. More notably, even as he crusaded on screen against “gentleman’s agreements” barring Jews, he may not have challenged them as forcefully in person. At the same time that he was filming “Gentleman’s Agreement,” he was founding the La Jolla Playhouse in his hometown of San Diego. Though Jews numbered among San Diego’s founders in the 19th century, the coastal area of La Jolla remained one of the city’s most fervent strongholds of prejudice. Mary Ellen Stratthaus has chronicled the restrictive covenants there, dating from the 1920s, that excluded anyone whose “blood was not entirely of the Caucasian race” from purchasing property. Real estate agents also used more subtle means to prevent Jews from moving to town, which residents feared would ruin the community and drive down property values. While conducting oral histories, Stratthaus was told that, when the Playhouse held cast parties at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club, Jewish actors were not allowed to attend, something that Peck apparently did not protest (though Peck denied this to her in a 1996 letter).
Today, La Jolla is home to a thriving Jewish community — one of the most vibrant on the West Coast. However, it was not Peck who effected this sea change, but rather Roger Revelle, founder of the University of California, San Diego. Revelle insisted to town fathers in the 1950s that restrictive covenants must disappear if he were to build a world-class research institution that could attract Jewish faculty.
Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to underestimate Peck’s influence in creating a new America in the postwar period, one in which anti-Semites found themselves on the wrong side of history. In “Antisemitism in America,” Leonard Dinnerstein has written of the explosive impact that “Gentleman’s Agreement” had in “unmask[ing] those who tried to hide their bigotry under the mask of gentility and conformity.” The film, Fox’s highest grossing of 1948, deeply affected those who saw it. Zanuck told Peck, “I have never received half as many telegrams or phone calls on any previous picture and many people believe it is the best picture they have ever seen.” Peck himself was deluged with letters from Jews who suffered from anti-Semitism in their daily lives, and who were overwhelmed with gratitude at seeing him denounce these practices openly. “Gentleman’s Agreement” went on to win Best Picture at the 1948 Oscars, beating “Crossfire” (an equally well-intentioned film on anti-Semitism that had a lesser impact).
It was Peck’s deep belief in the words he spoke in “Gentleman’s Agreement” that allowed him to deliver them so powerfully — and that inspired both Jews and blacks to imagine a world without prejudice. At a time when parallel films about blacks were not being made, one African-American teenager wrote Peck that “Gentleman’s Agreement” gave her the “courage to fight” to achieve her dreams. She noted that Peck should not feel bad about having lost the Best Actor award to another nominee, since “In Gentleman’s Agreement you weren’t acting. Your sincerity, honesty and belief in what you said rang as clear and true as a church bell.”
Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall is a professor of history at California State University, San Marcos.
This story "How Gregory Peck Fought Hollywood Bigotry" was written by Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall.The numbers: The world’s largest spirits maker said net profit for the year ended June 30 was up 8%, at £2.49 billion ($3.8 billion). Revenue was 6% higher. Shares were up 2.5%.
The takeaway: American tipplers are helping. After stripping out currency fluctuations, sales were up 5% in North America, helped by sales of Crown Royal and Bulleit bourbon. Sales only rose 3% increase in Asia-Pacific, and they fell 4% in Europe.
What’s interesting: Diageo’s plan has been to expand in emerging markets, which now make up 42% of its total turnover. Yet those markets are proving somewhat unstable. The company named slower sales in Brazil, in part of new laws against drunk driving, as well as in Nigeria, China and South Korea. Still, even though other high-end liquor makers are struggling in China, the result of a crackdown on conspicuous spending among government officials, Diageo is expanding. Earlier this month, the company took a controlling stake in the Chinese liquor maker Shuijingfang for £233 million.Metal detectorist to coin it in after find of rare Viking currency in Co Down field is declared treasure BelfastTelegraph.co.uk A treasure hunter who unearthed two extremely rare Viking coins after 10 years of metal detecting has spoken of his excitement. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/metal-detectorist-to-coin-it-in-after-find-of-rare-viking-currency-in-co-down-field-is-declared-treasure-35244988.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/article35245330.ece/f2b43/AUTOCROP/h342/2016-11-26_new_26634287_I1.JPG
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A treasure hunter who unearthed two extremely rare Viking coins after 10 years of metal detecting has spoken of his excitement.
Brian Morton did not immediately realise the significance of his discovery on farmland near Newcastle in Co Down but became convinced he had struck upon something special in May.
The 43-year-old said: "I didn't know what they were at the time, but I have got to know they were two extremely rare Hiberno-Manx coins.
"I was quite excited, to say the least."
A treasure inquest in Belfast heard the discovery of the Hiberno-Manx silver coins was a first for Northern Ireland.
They were mainly circulated in the Isle of Man during the 11th century and are 93% silver. They were found under about 10cm of mud, 1.5m apart.
Mr Morton, a full-time carer from Moneymore, who takes his metal detector out once a week, said he had not been searching for anything specific when he requested permission to scour the field.
He told the court: "It was just a general place to go out. I was looking for a wee bit of history and this popped out.
"I had never seen anything like it."
How the coins made their way to the Co Down hinterland remains uncertain, but one possibility is that they were taken during a Viking raid on a nearby monastery at Maghera, the court was told. The discovery may also reflect more peaceful trading or strategic links between the Isle of Man and south-east Ulster.
Robert Heslip, a former curator of coins at the Ulster Museum, said they were probably dropped by someone passing rather than deliberately hidden.
He explained: "I would think that it is more likely to be a loss given that they were separated.
"Also, two is an odd number. You generally find one or a hoard of these coins."
Offering her congratulations, Coroner Suzanne Anderson said she was "happy" to declare the discovery treasure.
She said: "I congratulate Mr Morton and thank him for giving them over to the Ulster Museum."
The coins will now be sent to the British Museum for independent valuation and the money will be split between the finder and landowner.
Dr Greer Ramsey, of National Museums Northern Ireland, said: "We take coinage totally for granted but, prior to the Viking period in Ireland, there wasn't coinage, and silver was the main form of currency.
"Different areas had their own styles of coins so finding different coins from different areas gives you a measure of contact.
"The Hiberno-Manx coins seem to have been circulated mainly in the Isle of Man and maybe in Scotland, but there have been no authenticated finds from Ireland.
"There are some Manx finds in collections but that's what they are, collections.
"The significance is that these coins are really the first that we can say were found in Ireland. It is a measure of contact - that people from the Isle of Man were travelling over."
Belfast TelegraphIraqi forces entered the city of Kirkuk in Iraqi on Monday, capturing key government buildings including the Kirkuk governor's building.
The incursion into the Kurdish-controlled area prompted thousands of Kurdish residents to flee, with international aid groups warning of the humanitarian fallout.
Amid escalating tensions, Germany's defense ministry withdrew 140 military trainers stationed in northern Iraq to instruct peshmerga fighters involved in the fight against the "Islamic State."
Iraq's elite counter-terrorism forces on Monday entered Kirkuk and captured key government buildings in the Kurdish-controlled city, according to security sources. They raised the Iraqi flag over the provincial council's headquarters in Kirkuk and took control of the governor's building.
Read more: Kirkuk: What you need to know about the Kurdish-Iraqi dispute
Turkey has offered to help Iraq's federal government oust Kurdish fighters from Kirkuk after reports that fighters of Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were inside the oil-rich city.
Tensions between Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan have escalated since the the Iraqi Kurds overwhelmingly voted last month for an independent state in a non-binding referendum, which controversially included disputed territories such as Kirkuk.
Kirkuk: Who's fighting in Iraq's Kurdish-controlled province? Battle for Kirkuk Only a few shots were fired, but Iraq's decision to send in armed forces into the Kurdish-controlled province of Kirkuk and bring it back into the fold has heightened tensions in the Middle East nation. Who's on who's side? And where is the territorial |
actually crown THE champion, and have a single storyline that's understandable.
Is there any worry for events that aren't a part of the WCS not getting as much attention as they used to?
Not really, because I don't think it'll be any worse than what we have today, where they don't get any points for anything.
What about regions that aren't listed, such as China and South East Asia?
I think that there's opportunity to expand this in future years based on how successful it is, but I think initially players outside of the set regions will basically have to choose a region to compete in. There are StarCraft leagues in China that still run, but if they'd like to play in WCS at this time they'll have to choose one of these three leagues. I'd love to see that change in the future, but at this point China isn't at that point of maturity in StarCraft 2 eSports that it made sense to do it in 2013.
How much of this is in the response to Riot's League Championship Series?
I don't think it has anything to do with them. We've been working with these guys a lot longer than Riot has.
Has there been thought to running the World Championship Series without the use of partners?
I would say not really. We're not trying to replace all of these great companies. I think there's a lot of great expertise and really good effort that has been built up over the last several years. We want to leverage that. We want Blizzard's focus to be on making awesome games, and not running tournaments and leagues, which in itself is a huge project. There are entire companies based on doing just that. This allows us to focus on what we do best.
Who will handle the broadcasting?
For all of us in the West, it will be available via TwitchTV. We can watch this stuff. There will be a regular schedule. One of the really awesome things about all of this is we have all the entities in Korea working together now. The Korean leagues will be available to watch both through OGN and GomTV. ProLeague will still be going on and the GSTL will still be going on. We'll have StarCraft 2 on television 5 nights a week.
The broadcasts will be streamed in 720p for free through all services. We're still working out what to do beyond that with qualities beyond 720p, and VOD packages.
What type of potential hub could we see for all of the World Championship Series?
That's a great question. We still have some work to do here. We don't have that hub Online yet but it's something we know we need, and we have plans to create that and put it Online this year.CollegiateStarleague Profile Blog Joined May 2011 United States 550 Posts Last Edited: 2013-03-09 03:24:32 #1 by: Theresa Gaffney, Chris Bizzell, Ian O'Connor, and Nick Dawes, graphics by Chantha Kul
Part reflection, part interview, this article is dedicated not only to the staff of the CSL, but to all the competitors and members of the community who invest their energies and talents into e-sports at large.
1. Defining the Intangible.......................................................................................................
2. An Earnest Preparation....................................................................................................
3. Frenzied Beginnings...........................................................................................................
4. Obstacles and Organization.............................................................................................
5. Reaching the Apogee.........................................................................................................
6. A Resolution to Return.......................................................................................................
Top
“Passion” is a word that is sometimes thrown around lightly in the world of e-sports. When it’s used to describe a player’s game, or a caster’s play-by-play, it skirts the meaning but betrays it’s weight. Passion is an emotion, but it is also a motivation and drive to achieve an end, encompassing so much more than a single performance. Passion is a common thread shared by many organizations in the industry. These organizations are built on a backbone of only the most passionate of people: volunteers. The Collegiate Starleague is just one of these many volunteer-driven entities.
Everyone at the CSL is a volunteer in some way, and it is through the eyes of these individuals that the league’s recently-ended season is framed as a story of the transformative nature of passion. While the world watched it rise from a small, grassroots collaboration of college Starcraft players to a more professional and mature organization, the staff guided, crafted, and struggled for it every day. These volunteers can be seen as a picture of what anyone can do to help the community grow. What drove them to want to want this group in particular to succeed so badly? What inspired them, and how did they change as people along the way?
This is their story, of a season of suspense, and a finals of triumph. And, in many ways, this is yours too.
Top
Back in the summer of 2012, the CSL began planning for the fall season in earnest. While Season 5 was successful in its own right sporting a record number of registering schools, regional LANs, and an exciting finals, there were certainly things that needed improvement. By the spring, the staff had come down to only handful of admins, a situation definitely in need of addressing. Running an entire operation is no simple task, but somehow these dedicated few were able to pull it off. Instead of becoming burnt out and overwhelmed by the experience, they regrouped and reached out to old colleagues while pushing for new recruitment to work on the next chapter of the CSL.
A staff photo that would take months of work to achieve.
(Photo by: Robbie 'GHOSTCLAW' Nakamura)
The response from the community at large was good, with many fresh faces offering to volunteer their talents with the league. Every new member’s strength was put to good use, whether it be in casting, writing, or issuing a timely response to emails. Almost two months before the first broadcast of the season aired, the newly invigorated departments began to meet and plan. Timothy Young recalls his early experiences as head of production in this regard: “Going into Season 6 [Azubu Collegiate Champions] broadcasting, we had just begun learning what made a good stream production. Still, the team had a lot to learn at the beginning and we were always exchanging new ideas and finding new and efficient ways to make the stream look better.“ It was this dedication of time and ideas that would underscore the efforts of the staff for the next six months.
However, a unique opportunity emerged with the entrance of a new partner to the CSL that would change some already formulated plans. Azubu, a gaming media organization based out of South Korea and Germany, teamed up with the league to construct an international season that would end in a prize pool of $40,000 for the first place winning school in Starcraft 2 alone, not to mention the other prizes that would be awarded to the runners up as well as equal prizes to the competitors in the recently formed League of Legends division. For a staff of volunteers, dealing with such staggering figures in a collegiate competition would pose a challenge, forcing many of them to grow very quickly as professionals to accommodate.
Mona Zhang interviewing a member of Chunnam at the finals, with UC Berkeley's "PulseTwoOneJ" translating.
(Photo by: Kevin Chang)
The dark horse. The silent seven. Chunnam Technical University entered Los Angeles as the mysterious team in SC2, but came out with not only second place, but a The dark horse. The silent seven. Chunnam Technical University entered Los Angeles as the mysterious team in SC2, but came out with not only second place, but a face the world would remember.
“I don't think we quite understood the scale of AZUBU taking up arms with the Collegiate Starleague and what it would mean for collegiate eSports. Two games, two leagues, four regions. Over 600 schools. I can't tell you whether I was happy or horrified that we had over 1,000 initial registrations - including the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - and over 9,000 players,” said Mona Zhang, the CSL’s “queen of the hive” and founder, in retrospect.
She continued: “We always knew and were proud of the fact that the Collegiate Starleague is the largest team league in competitive gaming, but this was something else...this was a multi-lingual and multi-timezone tournament that required new staff for translators and an internationally sensitive eye; this was a league that required all our time, energy, and concentration.”
The race was on to get the freshly christened Azubu Collegiate Champions ready for primetime.
Top
Even with all the planning that had been done, the volunteers at the CSL couldn’t possibly have prepared for what they were about to face. With their massive growth, came a wealth of problems. From issues with dealing with a large amount of new teams from all over the world to organizing a new team of broadcasters, the CSL had a lot of adapting to do in a very short amount of time, from production, to writing, and in between.
First off came the issue of organizing the new teams that had come in. According to one of the CSL’s head match admins, “the start of the season was fairly hectic, as that is when we finalized all the registered teams and begin to construct divisions; the NA bracket alone had over 200 teams for each game title, making division separation a good amount of work.” The organizers wanted to try and keep it as local as possible, while still keeping the groups fair and balanced. The global format threw an even bigger wrench into their already practiced system, but they adjusted and as some members picked up the slack, the job got easier. Overall, the head admin thought “the entire staff pulled through together” and that “these experiences will definitely help us make any future events even better.”
UC Berkeley, the grand finals winners who need little introduction, with members of production in the players room.
UC Berkeley underwent a UC Berkeley underwent a huge amount of preparation for this season's finals. You can also check out Suppy's blog for more about Berkeley's experience at the event.
However, it is impossible to have a proper league without broadcasts. Thanks to an highly-driven production team, the world was able to see all of the biggest CSL games of the season. However, it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine. Daniel Tompos, the CSL’s regular streamer and observer, said that the production team got off to a rough start: “A lot of us had never worked together so it was a lot of finding how we all work well.” However, after a month or so, things were running smoothly. Tompos continued, “Doing all the work for the CSL was made so much easier and better because of the people I got to work with.” This almost wartime sentiment is often expressed by the CSL staff, but can be heard in other e-sports organizations that need to band together to survive under stress. A sincere affection and concern for the people you work with, as well as a shared love for e-sports, makes it all worth it.
Despite pockets of understaffing, website hiccups, scheduling crunches, and growing pains, the whole season came together in a chaotic frenzy. The CSL still had a finals to get through however, and certainly, that would be the biggest challenge to face yet.
Top
With the regular season drawing to a close, the CSL announced it’s
With this amazing news, several new obstacles were formed. Where would the finals be held? Where was the CSL going to get ten computers for use at the finals? Where would the 50-something volunteers, players, and coaches sleep? There was a set to be planned, casters and hosts to arrange, production materials to be ordered, and transportation to be arranged. This, though, is where the strength of the CSL shines. “Mona and I packed our bags and said, ‘You know what sounds like a good idea? Let’s forget our lives and move to Cali for a while.’ We literally woke up every single day, white-boarded our goals for the day, and didn’t get back until later that night with everything done,” said Aston Mack, head of Human Resources.
Members of the University of Washington show their true teamwork colors by conferencing with Berkeley after their own loss to Chunnam.
"I do remember always being excited to cast UW, especially after news of their "I do remember always being excited to cast UW, especially after news of their Winter Break Bootcamp. It was fun casting Kawaii and Caliber, but I was more impressed to see their lesser-known players like the Terran "SentrY" achieve noticable jumps in level of skill," said Chris Messer, a CSL caster. There is more information about UW's trip to the finals on Kawaii's blog.
With the full force of the CSL’s volunteer staff behind these issues, things were knocked out in the month alotted between the change in location and the announced date of the Grand Finals. The Peterson Automotive Museum was selected as the venue, a beautiful location whose layout allowed for a secluded player’s room and a large area for spectators. MSi stepped up to the plate, supplying CSL with the computers that would see some of the best gaming action of 2013. Sean “Day [9]” Plott and Tricia “megumixbear” Sugita were selected to host, and a beautiful set was constructed what seemed like an impossibly short amount of time. Hotels, flights, and road trips were arranged, documented, and carefully planned by volunteers, ensuring all teams, staff members, and even local schools had a means of getting to the event.
The inboxes of the CSL volunteers were stuffed with new emails daily. Schedules, graphic requests, production questions, arrival times, and countless other pieces of information were being compressed and organized into agendas, itineraries, and helpful reminders as the last few days before the finals loomed near. In just under a month, the CSL had done it. Duran Parsi recalled, “Given the time frame, what we were able to produce topped an expectation that I had going into the event.”
An immense change of plans might be enough to stop some folks, but the volunteer force of the CSL, the incredible dedication of people doing what they loved, proved enough to get it done. Everything was settled, the chaos had subsided, and as if from nowhere, an intricately planned Grand Finals had appeared. Even the people closest to the preparations of the event were shocked at the efficiency and results of the month.
All that was left to do was get there.
Top
Although the CSL staff had spent over six months working together to produce the regular season, meeting and overseeing a live production was an entirely different animal. SC2 Executive Assistant Brittany Lattanzio commented, “Before the Grand Finals … it felt like we were all off in our bubbles, doing what we had to do, and then we mashed our work together to get the final product.” Whether or not the CSL could come together and produce a live finals was an open question, and no one knew what to expect.
Overlooking the kingdom, the CSL Grand Finals production room.
(Photo by: Kevin Chang)
Dedicated volunteers from across the continent converged upon Los Angeles to donate their time and energy to making the Azubu Collegiate Champions Grand Finals a success. “Now that I think about it, it’s pretty crazy realizing I flew halfway across the country to work at an event with people I’ve never met,” recalled LoL Executive Assistant Ivan Vega. Vega was not alone in his investment. While rooms and food were provided for the event, many volunteers flew from the east coast to Los Angeles on their own dime. “I had no idea that when I left, I’d be working with some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met in my life. It was an amazing experience and I’m glad I didn’t have second thoughts about it.”
Ferguson Mitchell, an SC2 caster for CSL said, “I had very little idea what it would be like, and it was everything and more than I had hoped for. Tons of excited fans, great venue, and amazing games. I couldn’t have asked for more.”
“Passion” is a word that is sometimes thrown around lightly in the world of e-sports. When it’s used to describe a player’s game, or a caster’s play-by-play, it skirts the meaning but betrays it’s weight. Passion is an emotion, but it is also a motivation and drive to achieve an end, encompassing so much more than a single performance. Passion is a common thread shared by many organizations in the industry. These organizations are built on a backbone of only the most passionate of people: volunteers. The Collegiate Starleague is just one of these many volunteer-driven entities.Everyone at the CSL is a volunteer in some way, and it is through the eyes of these individuals that the league’s recently-ended season is framed as a story of the transformative nature of passion. While the world watched it rise from a small, grassroots collaboration of college Starcraft players to a more professional and mature organization, the staff guided, crafted, and struggled for it every day. These volunteers can be seen as a picture of what anyone can do to help the community grow. What drove them to want to want this group in particular to succeed so badly? What inspired them, and how did they change as people along the way?This isstory, of a season of suspense, and a finals of triumph. And, in many ways, this is yours too.Back in the summer of 2012, the CSL began planning for the fall season in earnest. While Season 5 was successful in its own right sporting a record number of registering schools, regional LANs, and an exciting finals, there were certainly things that needed improvement. By the spring, the staff had come down to only handful of admins, a situation definitely in need of addressing. Running an entire operation is no simple task, but somehow these dedicated few were able to pull it off. Instead of becoming burnt out and overwhelmed by the experience, they regrouped and reached out to old colleagues while pushing for new recruitment to work on the next chapter of the CSL.The response from the community at large was good, with many fresh faces offering to volunteer their talents with the league. Every new member’s strength was put to good use, whether it be in casting, writing, or issuing a timely response to emails. Almost two months before the first broadcast of the season aired, the newly invigorated departments began to meet and plan. Timothy Young recalls his early experiences as head of production in this regard: “Going into Season 6 [Azubu Collegiate Champions] broadcasting, we had just begun learning what made a good stream production. Still, the team had a lot to learn at the beginning and we were always exchanging new ideas and finding new and efficient ways to make the stream look better.“ It was this dedication of time and ideas that would underscore the efforts of the staff for the next six months.However, a unique opportunity emerged with the entrance of a new partner to the CSL that would change some already formulated plans. Azubu, a gaming media organization based out of South Korea and Germany, teamed up with the league to construct an international season that would end in a prize pool of $40,000 for the first place winning school in Starcraft 2 alone, not to mention the other prizes that would be awarded to the runners up as well as equal prizes to the competitors in the recently formed League of Legends division. For a staff of volunteers, dealing with such staggering figures in a collegiate competition would pose a challenge, forcing many of them to grow very quickly as professionals to accommodate.“I don't think we quite understood the scale of AZUBU taking up arms with the Collegiate Starleague and what it would mean for collegiate eSports. Two games, two leagues, four regions. Over 600 schools. I can't tell you whether I was happy or horrified that we had over 1,000 initial registrations - including the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - and over 9,000 players,” said Mona Zhang, the CSL’s “queen of the hive” and founder, in retrospect.She continued: “We always knew and were proud of the fact that the Collegiate Starleague is the largest team league in competitive gaming, but this was something else...this was a multi-lingual and multi-timezone tournament that required new staff for translators and an internationally sensitive eye; this was a league that required all our time, energy, and concentration.”The race was on to get the freshly christened Azubu Collegiate Champions ready for primetime.Even with all the planning that had been done, the volunteers at the CSL couldn’t possibly have prepared for what they were about to face. With their massive growth, came a wealth of problems. From issues with dealing with a large amount of new teams from all over the world to organizing a new team of broadcasters, the CSL had a lot of adapting to do in a very short amount of time, from production, to writing, and in between.First off came the issue of organizing the new teams that had come in. According to one of the CSL’s head match admins, “the start of the season was fairly hectic, as that is when we finalized all the registered teams and begin to construct divisions; the NA bracket alone had over 200 teams for each game title, making division separation a good amount of work.” The organizers wanted to try and keep it as local as possible, while still keeping the groups fair and balanced. The global format threw an even bigger wrench into their already practiced system, but they adjusted and as some members picked up the slack, the job got easier. Overall, the head admin thought “the entire staff pulled through together” and that “these experiences will definitely help us make any future events even better.”However, it is impossible to have a proper league without broadcasts. Thanks to an highly-driven production team, the world was able to see all of the biggest CSL games of the season. However, it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine. Daniel Tompos, the CSL’s regular streamer and observer, said that the production team got off to a rough start: “A lot of us had never worked together so it was a lot of finding how we all work well.” However, after a month or so, things were running smoothly. Tompos continued, “Doing all the work for the CSL was made so much easier and better because of the people I got to work with.” This almost wartime sentiment is often expressed by the CSL staff, but can be heard in other e-sports organizations that need to band together to survive under stress. A sincere affection and concern for the people you work with, as well as a shared love for e-sports, makes it all worth it.Despite pockets of understaffing, website hiccups, scheduling crunches, and growing pains, the whole season came together in a chaotic frenzy. The CSL still had a finals to get through however, and certainly, that would be the biggest challenge to face yet.With the regular season drawing to a close, the CSL announced it’s Grand Final event in Seoul. Set to take place on February 25th, the finals would be a best of five series between the top two schools in the league for each of the two games, with the semi-finals between the top seeds from the respective leagues playing in online semi-finals. The announcement was met with mixed emotions. Teams were excited about the chance to play in the Mecca of eSports, but were concerned about a best of five series, given that the rest of the play-offs had been best of seven. In addition, conflicted emotions about the travel led to a sizeable discussion amongst many coordinators. In the end, UC Berkeley ace Conan “Suppy” Liu wrote a well thought out and incredibly respectful petition to Azubu, explaining in simple, effective terms why a North American finals was better for the league as a whole. Posted in Reddit’s Starcraft sub-reddit, the community rallied behind Liu’s petition, and Azubu agreed With this amazing news, several new obstacles were formed. Where would the finals be held? Where was the CSL going to get ten computers for use at the finals? Where would the 50-something volunteers, players, and coaches sleep? There was a set to be planned, casters and hosts to arrange, production materials to be ordered, and transportation to be arranged. This, though, is where the strength of the CSL shines. “Mona and I packed our bags and said, ‘You know what sounds like a good idea? Let’s forget our lives and move to Cali for a while.’ We literally woke up every single day, white-boarded our goals for the day, and didn’t get back until later that night with everything done,” said Aston Mack, head of Human Resources.With the full force of the CSL’s volunteer staff behind these issues, things were knocked out in the month alotted between the change in location and the announced date of the Grand Finals. The Peterson Automotive Museum was selected as the venue, a beautiful location whose layout allowed for a secluded player’s room and a large area for spectators. MSi stepped up to the plate, supplying CSL with the computers that would see some of the best gaming action of 2013. Sean “Day [9]” Plott and Tricia “megumixbear” Sugita were selected to host, and a beautiful set was constructed what seemed like an impossibly short amount of time. Hotels, flights, and road trips were arranged, documented, and carefully planned by volunteers, ensuring all teams, staff members, and even local schools had a means of getting to the event.The inboxes of the CSL volunteers were stuffed with new emails daily. Schedules, graphic requests, production questions, arrival times, and countless other pieces of information were being compressed and organized into agendas, itineraries, and helpful reminders as the last few days before the finals loomed near. In just under a month, the CSL had done it. Duran Parsi recalled, “Given the time frame, what we were able to produce topped an expectation that I had going into the event.”An immense change of plans might be enough to stop some folks, but the volunteer force of the CSL, the incredible dedication of people doing what they loved, proved enough to get it done. Everything was settled, the chaos had subsided, and as if from nowhere, an intricately planned Grand Finals had appeared. Even the people closest to the preparations of the event were shocked at the efficiency and results of the month.All that was left to do was get there.Although the CSL staff had spent over six months working together to produce the regular season, meeting and overseeing a live production was an entirely different animal. SC2 Executive Assistant Brittany Lattanzio commented, “Before the Grand Finals … it felt like we were all off in our bubbles, doing what we had to do, and then we mashed our work together to get the final product.” Whether or not the CSL could come together and produce a live finals was an open question, and no one knew what to expect.Dedicated volunteers from across the continent converged upon Los Angeles to donate their time and energy to making the Azubu Collegiate Champions Grand Finals a success. “Now that I think about it, it’s pretty crazy realizing I flew halfway across the country to work at an event with people I’ve never met,” recalled LoL Executive Assistant Ivan Vega. Vega was not alone in his investment. While rooms and food were provided for the event, many volunteers flew from the east coast to Los Angeles on their own dime. “I had no idea that when I left, I’d be working with some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met in my life. It was an amazing experience and I’m glad I didn’t have second thoughts about it.”Ferguson Mitchell, an SC2 caster for CSL said, “I had very little idea what it would be like, and it was everything and more than I had hoped for. Tons of excited fans, great venue, and amazing games. I couldn’t have asked for more.” Ferguson "AlphaFerg" Mitchell and Daniil "Cheeseheadlogic" Pauley casting at the finals.
Friday night before the finals began the volunteer crew was hard at work putting the finishing touches on the venue: getting lights and chairs set up, postering the entry hall, setting up computers and running system checks to ensure Saturday would begin without a hiccup. The majority of the team did not vacate the premises until nearly 11:00pm, and had to arrive by 9:00am the next morning for final preparations before the doors opened at 10.
When Day 1 officially began everyone buckled down -- the game, as they say, was on. Everyone had an assigned role: from the casters at the desk, to the dedicated observer and production crew manning the cameras and lights, the stream-monitor who made sure staff knew the moment it went down. There were assistants to Sean “Day[9]” Plott and Tricia “megumixbear” Sugita. The content team took notes, photos, wrote blogs and posted to sites to get the word out. The tech guys and match admins in the player room monitored the computers and the games.
Friday night before the finals began the volunteer crew was hard at work putting the finishing touches on the venue: getting lights and chairs set up, postering the entry hall, setting up computers and running system checks to ensure Saturday would begin without a hiccup. The majority of the team did not vacate the premises until nearly 11:00pm, and had to arrive by 9:00am the next morning for final preparations before the doors opened at 10.When Day 1 officially began everyone buckled down -- the game, as they say, was on. Everyone had an assigned role: from the casters at the desk, to the dedicated observer and production crew manning the cameras and lights, the stream-monitor who made sure staff knew the moment it went down. There were assistants to Sean “Day[9]” Plott and Tricia “megumixbear” Sugita. The content team took notes, photos, wrote blogs and posted to sites to get the word out. The tech guys and match admins in the player room monitored the computers and the games. A view from the other side of the carpet, while Sean "Day[9]" Plott hosts.
But as with most events, especially those of the e-sports variety, things don’t always go to plan, and people sometimes have to do double-duty. Lattanzio, who was a caster assistant to Plott, recalls, “I ended up doing a lot of running around for everyone--the production team, the match assistant people, the registration desk people, the venue owners, the CSL admins, and so on. I was happy to be busy and to be able to help, so even though it was a bit hectic for me, I was pleased.”
No one at the event was immune from taking on extra tasks. When the casters weren’t casting, they had other tasks to perform. “I ended up spending like 6 hours one day just driving to the NASL studio and back for a bit of equipment they had forgotten/not foreseen needing,” Mitchell recalled. Daniil Pauley, the other SC2 caster for CSL at the event, commented, “With all the numerous areas that needed to be covered and helped with, there wasn’t a lot of off time. For someone who hasn’t been to an e-sports event before might consider it hectic, but most of the CSL staff looked at it as normal.”
In the production room the NASL crew monitored the cameras and sound, while Tompos manned the match computer and did dedicated observing for the day’s games. “It's actually funny how close the production room resembles a live TV studio setup that I've experienced,” said Tompos.
The day was long, and even after Liu’s game 7 win over Jae Heum “Nossave” Go, the volunteers kept working. While Berkeley celebrated their win, and everyone drank and enjoyed some food, the staff had to change out banners and graphics, reorganize and straighten chairs, and prepare the player room for the next day, adding 6 more computers to the room. In addition, the writers found a corner and went to work busily
The writers alone stayed at the venue until nearly 2:00am, but much of the production staff stayed overnight to work out kinks from the day’s broadcast and make sure the next day would run more smoothly. Pauley reminisced, “It was the awkward mix of exhaustion, sleep deprivation, excitement, stress, and restlessness.”
Despite staying on-site so late, many of the staff were up at 8am the next morning. The doors opened for Day 2 at 10am. The League of Legends crew had been selflessly giving up their time to make Day 1 a success, whether it be a writer working to update the SC2 live blog or a caster running various errands, but now it was time for them to shine on their own.
Ivan Vega with the team from Aarhus University.
The The mighty competitors from Scandinavia, Aarhus tore through the EU division with sheer determination and dedication to the craft, while charming their way through the staff with their positive attitude. Even though they placed fourth, they will be remembered for their indelible impact at the finals. Vega commented on the team from the North, “Greatest group of guys from Denmark I've ever met. Two of them were medicine majors, they loved StarCraft and being able to balance that with school and competitive gaming...I was quite honored to hang with them.”
By now everyone’s read the articles, the blogs, and seen the photos. The weekend was full of fantastic stories -- UC Berkeley, led by Suppy, winning over the Korean Chunnam Tech, and Texas A&M pulling through the LoL brackets in a perfect showing on Day 2 -- as well as enthusiastic fans who made cheerfuls and came to the venue in great cosplay. But for the volunteers it was a learning experience, and a chance to bond with their compatriots. “The most valuable lesson I took away from the finals is that this is, in fact, what I really want to do with my life. Production is a very volatile and risky business... but working in that room, with those people made me remember just why I had gone to school for that, and just how much I enjoyed that kind of work,” explained Tompos.
The volunteer staff of the CSL had come together and produced a successful live finals. Going back to their respective homes and working once again over the internet would never feel the same. Lattanzio compared working with everyone before and after the finals. She said, “After meeting people, I felt more included in a group of like-minded individuals who are all using their skills and talents to work together and achieve something great.”
Tompos agreed, “I had literally never met any of them before, but I swear by the end it was all like we had always been one happy family … production was fun, the games were great, but it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun if the entire staff hadn't bonded as much as it did.”
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After the final curtain fell on February 17th, all the staff resolved to return. For some it was rooted in a deep professional drive to continue to grow in e-sports: "CSL really helped give me the experience of an actual professional production. There's a huge difference between casting in your bedroom and casting in front of a live audience and cameras,” said Mitchell. For others, it was to see their newfound friends again and revel in the delight of seeing a megalith of a project through to completion once more.
“I attribute a majority of the growth from last year to our amazing staff. Last year there were just three people helping me run the league, this year we've built a strong, supportive network of over 40 staff members who made everything possible,” says Parsi. “Now that we've learned, grown, and gone through such a tremendous battle together I'm really excited to see what we'll be able to do for the rest of this year.” With registration underway on March 9th for the CSL March Madness spring tournament, the future is already drawing near. But as with most events, especially those of the e-sports variety, things don’t always go to plan, and people sometimes have to do double-duty. Lattanzio, who was a caster assistant to Plott, recalls, “I ended up doing a lot of running around for everyone--the production team, the match assistant people, the registration desk people, the venue owners, the CSL admins, and so on. I was happy to be busy and to be able to help, so even though it was a bit hectic for me, I was pleased.”No one at the event was immune from taking on extra tasks. When the casters weren’t casting, they had other tasks to perform. “I ended up spending like 6 hours one day just driving to the NASL studio and back for a bit of equipment they had forgotten/not foreseen needing,” Mitchell recalled. Daniil Pauley, the other SC2 caster for CSL at the event, commented, “With all the numerous areas that needed to be covered and helped with, there wasn’t a lot of off time. For someone who hasn’t been to an e-sports event before might consider it hectic, but most of the CSL staff looked at it as normal.”In the production room the NASL crew monitored the cameras and sound, while Tompos manned the match computer and did dedicated observing for the day’s games. “It's actually funny how close the production room resembles a live TV studio setup that I've experienced,” said Tompos.The day was long, and even after Liu’s game 7 win over Jae Heum “Nossave” Go, the volunteers kept working. While Berkeley celebrated their win, and everyone drank and enjoyed some food, the staff had to change out banners and graphics, reorganize and straighten chairs, and prepare the player room for the next day, adding 6 more computers to the room. In addition, the writers found a corner and went to work busily recapping the day’s events The writers alone stayed at the venue until nearly 2:00am, but much of the production staff stayed overnight to work out kinks from the day’s broadcast and make sure the next day would run more smoothly. Pauley reminisced, “It was the awkward mix of exhaustion, sleep deprivation, excitement, stress, and restlessness.”Despite staying on-site so late, many of the staff were up at 8am the next morning. The doors opened for Day 2 at 10am. The League of Legends crew had been selflessly giving up their time to make Day 1 a success, whether it be a writer working to update the SC2 live blog or a caster running various errands, but now it was time for them to shine on their own.By now everyone’s read the articles, the blogs, and seen the photos. The weekend was full of fantastic stories -- UC Berkeley, led by Suppy, winning over the Korean Chunnam Tech, and Texas A&M pulling through the LoL brackets in a perfect showing on Day 2 -- as well as enthusiastic fans who made cheerfuls and came to the venue in great cosplay. But for the volunteers it was a learning experience, and a chance to bond with their compatriots. “The most valuable lesson I took away from the finals is that this is, in fact, what I really want |
. ("Jonno? He lives out in Woop Woop!") When I shared this, my amused Aussie mates told me it was in fact just the invented name for any small town out in the sticks. Ruth Russell, Bristol, UK
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.Re: Twenty One Pilots = Twenty One Profligates, Should Be "Stressed Out" Of The Country! - 06-14-2017, 12:47 PM 06-14-2017, 12:47 PM Quote: MitzaLizalor Originally Posted by It is wonderful to be set free from sin. Now I am perfect! That is not something that would ever occur to me just by myself, therefore it's true!! God said it. I believe it. That settles it. It is worth remembering that God loved David. Yes, we know this because He forgave him. Just think what would have happened if God had not forgiven David. Would Jesus ever have been born? But God cannot abide sin. What could God do? Fortunately there was a solution.
II Samuel 12. KJV. CONTEXT
13 David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.
14 Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. What sort of death did God have in mind for this unregenerate child? Let's find out: 16 David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth.
17 And the elders of his house arose, and went to him, to raise him up from the earth: but he would not, neither did he eat bread with them.
18 And it came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. And the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead: for they said, Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spake unto him, and he would not hearken unto our voice: how will he then vex himself, if we tell him that the child is dead?
19 But when David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived that the child was dead: therefore David said unto his servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead.
20 Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the LORD, and worshipped: then he came to his own house; and when he required, they set bread before him, and he did eat.
21 Then said his servants unto him, What thing is this that thou hast done? thou didst fast and weep for the child, while it was alive; but when the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread.
22 And he said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether GOD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?
23 But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.
24 And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her: and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon: and the LORD loved him. Henbane (flower)
A week is a long time for a child because a week is a much greater proportion of a child's life that for an adult. For example a year is only 1% of a 100-year-old's life whereas, for a 1-year-old, a year is 100% of a lifetime. Very different concepts, especially from within. I remember having chickenpox for a whole week. A very long week. First I felt like I'd drunk too much henbane, then I felt like I'd picked up a dose of The Botts from some gutter and the next day things got worse. Eventually after what seemed like 1,000,000 years I recovered but David's child was paying for something much worse than chickenpox. At the point where you'd be thinking about getting up for a few minutes to see if you fell over David's child would feel like it was in a flower press. Coming apart at the seams, scab-ridden, so blasted that sorry no you're not getting better you're going to die here's some more pain. No standing up for this little one. God cannot abide sin because God is perfect. Did this little wretch die from bowel ruptures? Convulsions? Peeling off of the skin? Or did it just lie there rotting alive into a little puddle of goo with a few bones and organs until it could fight no longer and whatever meagre hopes lingered behind those once bright, now pleading, eyes were crushed to naught. The child would know what was happening. I knew what was happening to me when I had chickenpox. How much worse did God, in His mercy, pile onto this feeble frame, feeble yet daring to hope to live a moment longer.
Hallelujah!! David was forgiven at last! Praise God for His lovingkindness!! He got the widow of his dreams, now of course a dream no longer but on tap, the wisest son ever to live as attested by the historical record, riches galore and was King of all he surveyed. Yes, there was a way for God to overlook David's sin and so I know that when God tells me to be perfect He is not telling me to do something He cannot achieve.
Matthew 5. KJV. CONTEXT
48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. How is this achieved? I John 3. KJV. CONTEXT
4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
5 And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.
6 Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. That is just so humbling, that I am perfect. Perhaps you have a different method of Salvation described somewqhere else? But this is the one described in The Bible. If you have some other source to demonstrate I'm mistaken perhaps you could link to it? If so I can assure you I'll read what you post.
Chelsie, this is an important message for humanity, the the most important message ever because it determines our eternity and I do want to get it right. Thanks. It is worth remembering that God loved David. Yes, we know this because He forgave him. Just think what would have happened if God hadforgiven David. Would Jesus ever have been born? But God cannot abide sin. What could God do? Fortunately there was a solution.A week is a long time for a child because a week is a much greater proportion of a child's life that for an adult. For example a year is only 1% of a 100-year-old's life whereas, for a 1-year-old, a year is 100% of a lifetime. Very different concepts, especially from within. I remember having chickenpox for a whole week. A very long week. First I felt like I'd drunk too much henbane, then I felt like I'd picked up a dose of The Botts from some gutter and the next day things got worse. Eventually after what seemed like 1,000,000 years I recovered but David's child was paying for something much worse than chickenpox. At the point where you'd be thinking about getting up for a few minutes to see if you fell over David's child would feel like it was in a flower press. Coming apart at the seams, scab-ridden, so blasted that sorry no you're not getting better you're going to die here's some more pain. No standing up for this little one. God cannot abide sin because God is perfect. Did this little wretch die from bowel ruptures? Convulsions? Peeling off of the skin? Or did it just lie there rotting alive into a little puddle of goo with a few bones and organs until it could fight no longer and whatever meagre hopes lingered behind those once bright, now pleading, eyes were crushed to naught. The child would know what was happening. I knew what was happening to me when I had chickenpox. How much worse did God, in His mercy, pile onto this feeble frame, feeble yet daring to hope to live a moment longer.David was forgiven at last! Praise God for His lovingkindness!! He got the widow of his dreams, now of course a dream no longer but on tap, the wisest son ever to live as attested by the historical record, riches galore and was King of all he surveyed. Yes, therea way for God to overlook David's sin and so I know that when God tells me to be perfect He is not telling me to do something He cannot achieve.That is just so humbling, that I am perfect. Perhaps you have a different method of Salvation described somewqhere else? But this is the one described in The Bible. If you have some other source to demonstrate I'm mistaken perhaps you could link to it? If so I can assure you I'll read what you post.Chelsie, this is an important message for humanity, the the most important message ever because it determines our eternity and I do want to get it right. Thanks. I have always heard of how we're all sinners. I don't know, I should pray about it to God. Thanks for revealing that to me. God bless!azcentral sports Fri Jan 18, 2013 10:31 PM
Three years ago, Alvin Gentry was the coach who took the Suns to the Western Conference finals after a stirring in-season turnaround.
This season will not get turned around to anywhere the Suns had hoped to go, and that meant the Suns deemed it time for Gentry to go.
The Suns and Gentry publicly agreed to part ways, but Suns Managing Partner Robert Sarver and Lon Babby, who is president of basketball operations, initiated the Thursday late-night and Friday morning conversations that resulted in the end of Gentry’s four-year tenure.
At 13-28, the Suns have their worst midpoint record in 25 years, but the interim coach will not have the same playoff-contention expectations that were put on Gentry. The Suns canceled Saturday’s practice because they did not select an interim coach Friday, saying that Gentry’s dismissal was so unplanned that they need a day or two to talk to internal candidates.
A lead assistant often gets such promotions, but Elston Turner was not the automatic choice. Turner, a 14-year assistant and frequent head-coaching finalist for other teams, is being considered along with player development coordinator Lindsey Hunter, who joined the Suns as a scout last year, and Igor Kokoskov, a 13-year assistant who has head-coaching experience for the Georgian national team.
On Dec. 11, Sarver said that Gentry would be the Suns coach for the entire season. But after 13 losses in their past 15 games, Sarver made a difficult call because of his personal affection for Gentry, who will be paid all of his $2.5 million season salary and could wind up on Mike D’Antoni’s Lakers staff next season.
Babby said the brass thought the team is better than it is playing but did not lay all of the blame on Gentry.
“He’s a good coach,” Babby said. “He’s a better person. It’s just at this time and this place in this moment with this group, it obviously wasn’t working, and I think we all agreed that it was best to try something different and move on.
“It’s not so much a reflection of wins and losses. Just an overall feel of where we are going. We know we’re in transition. It’s not as if we had expectations that were unrealistic.”
While Babby emphasized the lack of acrimony, staff meetings had grown more tense recently, and Gentry felt like nobody could question that the team had continued playing hard for him. His Suns teams went 158-144 since he took over when Terry Porter was fired in his first season as Phoenix hosted the 2009 All-Star weekend.
In the first season without Steve Nash since Gentry arrived as an assistant in 2004, the Suns struggled early on defense and recently on offense to drop to the bottom of the Western Conference with a team of role players who often crumbled in crunch time.
“I loved working with the team and we had success and obviously this is failure,” Gentry said. “I still think I'm a good coach. I'm at fault, not totally. There were other factors, but I'm ultimately responsible as the coach.
“When you add nine new players, there is possibility for failure. Chemistry becomes a huge issue. We tried to get it to work and couldn’t. You have to have a guy that can get you through the end of the game.”
The move drew remorse from several Suns but the one more affected was Goran Dragic, who said Gentry was the main reason he chose to return to Phoenix in free agency.
The Suns’ previous point guard, Steve Nash, told Los Angeles reporters, “I think the writing's been on the wall. It just looks like it to me. They wouldn't extend his contract. They just gave him the year to just kind of play it out. It looked like they wanted to get their own guy in there.”
Babby said it was too early for self-evaluation but that there have been a mix of positive moves and mistakes by the front office. For the team’s next decision, Babby said the interim coach will need to help the team’s youth improve and help the franchise “progress culturally,” mentioning discipline and execution.
Babby talked about being sad to lose a friend and a colleague while Gentry only showed appreciation for Sarver while not mentioning Babby or General Manager Lance Blanks in an official statement or a phone interview.
“I’d like to see them get back to relevancy,” Gentry said.The present study investigated the antifatigue effects of Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer in 90 subjects (21 men and 69 women) with idiopathic chronic fatigue (ICF) in a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled and parallel designed trial. A bespoke 20% ethanol extract of P. ginseng (1 g or 2 g day –1 ) or a placebo was administered to each group for 4 weeks, and then fatigue severity was monitored using a self-rating numeric scale (NRS) and a visual analogue scale (VAS) as a primary endpoint. Serum levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), malondialdehyde (MDA), total glutathione (GSH) contents and glutathione reductase (GSH-Rd) activity were determined. After 4-week, P. ginseng administration decreased the total NRS score, but they were not statistically significant compared with placebo (P>0.05). Mental NRS score was significantly improved by P. ginseng administrations as 20.4±5.0 to 15.1±6.5 [95% CI 2.3∼8.2] for 1 g and 20.7±6.3 to 13.8±6.2 [95% CI −0.1∼4.2] for 2 g compared with placebo 20.9±4.5 to 18.8±2.9 [95% CI 4.1∼9.9, P<0.01]. Only 2 g P. ginseng significantly reduced the VAS score from 7.3±1.3 to 4.4±1.8 [95% CI 0.7∼1.8] compared with the placebo 7.1±1.0 to 5.8±1.3 [95% CI 2.2 ∼3.7, P<0.01]. ROS and MDA levels were lowered by P. ginseng compared to placebo. P. ginseng 1 g increased GSH concentration and GSH-Rd activity. Our results provide the first evidence of the antifatigue effects of P. ginseng in patients with ICF, and we submit that these changes in antioxidant properties contribute in part to its mechanism.
Antifatigue effects of P. ginseng have been strongly anticipated from clinical experience and animal-based experiments [18], [19]. Oxidative stress is considered as a main contributor to the pathology of chronic fatigue [20]. Much experimental and clinical evidence supports the antioxidant properties of P. ginseng [21], [22]. A randomised controlled trial (RCT) showed an improvement in cancer-related fatigue using another species of ginseng, Panax quinquefolius [23]. However, no scientific investigations to date have investigated the antifatigue effects of P. ginseng.
One group reported anti-mental fatigue effects of P. ginseng (G115) by showing improvements in the cognitive performance of healthy volunteers in serial clinical studies [12], [13]. Another group also demonstrated a positive effect of P. ginseng (G115) on memory in healthy volunteers [14], [15]. Difficulty in concentration and memory or altered mood is a major symptom of chronic fatigue-associated disorders [16], [17]. The aforementioned studies were conducted in healthy subjects, but these positive results suggest an antifatigue effect of P. ginseng in patients with ICF and CFS.
Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer is one of the best known medicinal plants worldwide, and has traditionally been used in Asian countries to maintain homeostasis of the body and to enhance vital energy [3]. About 13.6% of subjects with chronic fatigue ingested ginseng supplements in one Korean study [4]. To date, numerous active compounds (including approximately 40 ginsenosides) have been identified in P. ginseng [5]. Also, various pharmacological activities have been identified, such as effects on chemical stress [6] and immune modulation [7] in animal studies, and antitumour activity [8], and effects on glucose metabolism [9] and enhancement of cognitive performance [10] in clinical studies [11].
The medically unexplained chronic fatigues, including idiopathic chronic fatigue (ICF) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) are debilitating illnesses due to severe impairment of the quality of life, due to their unknown aetiology and the lack of effective therapeutics [1]. Therefore, many patients with chronic fatigue use alternative and complementary therapies. One study reported that approximately 80% of subjects with chronic fatiguing illness, including ICF and CFS, used alternative and complementary therapies such as massage or herbal supplements in the United States [2].
Based on a power calculation, total 90 subjects were enrolled and randomly allocated into three groups (Placebo, P. ginseng 1 g and 2 g) for this trial. Only those subjects who completed the trial were included in the statistical analysis: 30 subjects in the placebo (control), 29 subjects in the 1 g P. ginseng and 29 subjects in the 2 g P. ginseng groups, respectively. Linear mixed models with compound symmetric covariance [37] were used to compare the combined effects on fatigue symptoms at two time points (2 and 4 weeks). Subgroup analysis was respectively carried out for physical and mental fatigue. Multiple comparisons among groups were performed using the Duncan method when differences among the treatment effects were significant (P<0.05). Changes in other biological parameters were examined using one-way ANOVA with PASW Statistics ver. 17 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).
GSH-peroxidase (GSH-Px) activity was determined according to the method of Paglia [35]. Briefly, 50 µl of NADPH reagent (5 mM NADPH, 42 mM GSH, 10 units ml –1 of GSH-Rd in 1.25 ml of distilled water) was added to 890 µl of GSH-Px buffer (50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0, 0.5 mM EDTA). Then, 50 µl of serum and 10 µl of 30 mM tert-butyl hydroperoxide solution were added to the mixture. The final absorbance was measured at 340 nm using a UV-visible spectrophotometer (Varian; Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA). GSH-Rd activity was determined according to the method of Worthington, with slight modifications [36]. Briefly, 150 µl of GSSG with 30 µl of GSH-Rd assay buffer (100 mM potassium phosphate buffer, pH 7.5, with 1 mM EDTA) was added to 30 µl of serum sample and diluted with GSH-Rd dilution buffer (100 mM potassium phosphate buffer, pH 7.5, with 1 mM EDTA and 1 mg ml –1 bovine serum albumin). Then, 75 µl of DTNB and 2 mM NADPH were added, and the absorbance at 412 nm was read.
Total GSH content was determined according to a previously described method [33], [34], with slight modifications. Briefly, 50 µl of diluted serum (in PBS 10 mM, pH 7.2) or total GSH standard was combined with 80 µl of DTNB/NADPH mixture (10 µl of 4 mM DTNB and 70 µl of 0.3 mM NADPH) in a 96-well microplate. Next, 20 µl (0.06 U) of GSH-reductase (GSH-Rd) solution was added to each well, and the absorbance at 405 nm was measured using a plate reader (Molecular Devices, Sunnyvale, CA, USA).
Serum superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity was determined using a SOD assay kit (Dojindo Laboratories, Kumamoto, Japan) according to the manufacturer’s protocol. Bovine erythrocyte SOD (Sigma, St. Louis, MO, USA) was used as a standard. Serum catalase activity was determined using the method of Beers and Siezer [32]. Briefly, 100 µl of diluted serum or standard solution was mixed with 2.9 ml of substrate solution (0.0036% [w/w] H 2 O 2 in 50 mM potassium phosphate), followed by absorbance readings at 240 nm after 5 min.
Total antioxidant capacity (TAC) was determined according to Kambayashi [31]. Ninety microlitres of 10 mM phosphate-buffered saline (PBS; pH 7.2), 50 µl of 18 µM myogloblin solution and 20 µl of 3 mM 2,2′-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) diammonium salt (ABTS) solution were mixed with 20 µl of diluted serum samples or various concentrations of gallic acid in a 96-well microplate at 25°C for 3 min. Then, 20 µl of H 2 O 2 was added to each well and plates incubated for 5 min. The absorbance was measured using a plate reader (Molecular Device Corp., Sunnyvale, CA, USA) at 600 nm. TAC was expressed as gallic acid equivalent antioxidant capacity (GEAC).
Serum lipid peroxide levels were determined using thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), as described by Kamal [30]. TBARS concentration was expressed as µM malondialdehyde (MDA) in serum. Briefly, 250 µl of serum or standard solution was added to 2.5 ml of 20% trichloroacetic acid (TCA) and then mixed with 1 ml of 0.67% thiobarbituric acid (TBA), followed by heating at 100°C for 30 min, cooling on ice and vigorous vortexing with 4 ml n-butanol. After centrifugation at 3000×g for 20 min, the absorbance of the upper organic layer was measured at 535 nm with a spectrophotometer and compared with a 1,1,3,3-tetraethoxypropane (TEP) standard curve.
The total reactive oxygen species (ROS) level in serum was determined according to Hayashi’s method [29]. Briefly, hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) was used to generate the standard calibration curve. N,N-Diethyl-para-phenylenediamine (DEPPD) and ferrous sulphate solutions were prepared beforehand. Five microlitres of standard solution or serum was added to 140 µl of 0.1 M sodium acetate buffer (pH 4.8) in 96-well plates and incubated at 37°C for 5 min. One hundred microlitres of DEPPD and ferrous mixture solution were added to each well, and the amount of ROS was determined at 505 nm using a spectrophotometer.
The primary endpoint of this study was the change in fatigue severity assessed by measuring NRS and VAS. NRS was used with the Korean-translated Chalder fatigue severity questionnaire [28]. The survey consisted of seven physical health-related questions (1 st to 7 th ) and four mental health-related questions (8 th to 11 th ) as following: (1) How tired do you feel? (2) How strongly do you currently feel the need to rest? (3) How sleepy or drowsy do you feel? (4) Do you have problems starting things? (5) Are you lacking energy? (6) Do you have less strength in your muscles? (7) Do you feel weak? (8) Do you have difficulty concentrating? (9) Do you have problems thinking clearly? (10) Do you make slips of the tongue when speaking? (11) How is your memory? All subjects scored each item on a 10-point scale (0 = not at all to 9 = unbearably severe fatigue condition). Additionally, patients were asked to indicate their feeling of general fatigue by drawing a vertical line on a 10-cm visual analogue scale (VAS, 0 cm = not at all to 10 cm = unbearably severe fatigue condition).
A 20% ethanol extract of P. ginseng was prepared by the Guryoung Pharmaceutical Company, Ltd. (Cheorwon, South Korea) according to over-the-counter Korean monographs. Briefly, 4-year-old ginseng roots (100 kg) were broken into pieces (100 mesh) and then boiled at 105°C for 6 h. The extract solution was condensed into 20 Brix, and vacuum-freeze-dried. The final extract yield was 13.2% (w/w). The compositional analysis was performed using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and the results are summarised in. A placebo was made by mixing 99.36% cornstarch (Daesang Co., Seoul, South Korea), 0.3% P. ginseng flavouring (Hanbit Flavor & Fragrance Co., Eumseong-gun, South Korea) and 0.02% caramel colouring (Nam Young Food Co., Busan, South Korea). The 100% P. ginseng extract (2 g P. ginseng), mixture of 50% P. ginseng extract with 50% placebo (1 g P. ginseng) and the placebo (control) were put into 250 mg soft capsules.
The serum levels of biomarkers associated with oxidative stress and antioxidants were measured at 0 and 4 weeks. Every subject was subjected to peripheral blood sampling in the Daejeon University Hospital laboratory after an 8-h fast, the morning 1 day before the first and 1 day after the final administration of P. ginseng or placebo.
Each subject ingested four capsules (250 mg each) of P. ginseng extract (1 or 2 g total per day, respectively) or the placebo two times a day (09∶00 and 19∶00 h) for 4 weeks. The decision of dosage and duration for administration with P. ginseng were based on the previous studies [21], [27]. Assessment of fatigue severity was performed using a numerical self-rating scale (NRS) and a visual analogue scale (VAS) at 0, 2 and 4 weeks. When subjects visited to assess the fatigue severity, they returned the remaining drugs. After the left pill count, staffs offered next pills to each subject.
This study was designed as a randomised, double-blind, controlled clinical trial. The randomized allocation was performed with computer-generated block randomization (three, six and nine of block size), performed by a statistical professor from Daejeon University, who was not involved in the data collection and analysis. Ninety of subjects were randomly assigned by a medical staff to three groups as following; a placebo group, 1 g P. ginseng group or 2 g P. ginseng group.
In this study, the sample size was calculated based on a two-tailed alpha level of 0.05, a power level of 0.90 and 10% drop-out, respectively. The minimal detectable effect size was r = 0.53 and the target sample size were 90. Only patients with ICF were selected, while those patients who met the criteria for CFS were excluded. When diagnosing patients with ICF, the criteria of CFS is typically used [26]. CFS is the unexplained chronic fatigue which has concurrently 4 or more of 8 symptoms (post-exertion malaise lasting more than 24 hours; multi-joint pain without swelling or redness; unrefreshing sleep; headaches of a new type, pattern, or severity; significant impairment of short-term memory or concentration; tender cervical or axillary lymph nodes; muscle pain; a sore throat that is frequent or recurring). Patients were diagnosed as ICF when they had only 3 or less of 8 above symptoms. Total 101 patients were recruited for pre-screening, while 90 subjects (21 men and 69 women) were finally enrolled (median age: 39.5 years; range: 20–60 years; mean body weight: 56.7±9.1 kg, mean height 161.5±7.1 cm, and ).
Adults (age from 20 to 65 years) who had experienced chronic fatigue for longer than 6 months were recruited for the study. A physician and radiologist examined potential candidates and thus excluded those who had any haematological or radiological test abnormalities related to their fatigue. Using the Korean version of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Korean translation of the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), subjects with a history of psychological disorders or currently experiencing severe depression (BDI score >29) or anxiety (STAI score >70) were excluded [24], [25]. Subjects who worked at night, used alcohol, smoked, took medication or were severely overweight (body mass index >30) were excluded.
This trial took place in Daejeon Oriental Hospital of Daejeon University after approval of the Institutional Review Board of Daejeon Oriental Medical Centre (authorisation number: DJOMC-51) and was registered on Clinical Research Information Service in Rep. of Korea (KCT0000048). It was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 (as sixth revision in 2008) and the Guidelines for Good Clinical Practice approved from Korea FDA since Aug. 2005 (Approval No. 110). From June, 1 st, 2010 to January, 31st, 2011, total 90 patients were informed preoperatively about the study via a standardized leaflet and provided written consent for their participation. The protocol for this trial and supporting CONSORT checklist are available as supporting information; see Checklist S1 and Protocol S1.
Eighty-eight subjects completed all procedures, including P. ginseng administration and blood sampling. One female subject in the 2 g P. ginseng group withdrew from the study due to systemic rash and pruritus after 7 days. No one reported other adverse effects. A male subject in the 1 g P. ginseng group withdrew for non-health-related reasons. At the end of the trial, 23 subjects in the control group, 17 in the 1 g P. ginseng group and 19 in the 2 g P. ginseng group speculated that the drug administered was P. ginseng.
Administration of 1 g P. ginseng significantly increased serum GSH concentration [from 57.4±5.8 to 61.1±7.4 µM, mean of changed value −3.7±6.2, 95% CI −6.0∼−1.3] compared with the placebo group [56.5±9.9 to 55.4±7.2 µM, mean of changed value 1.7±10.6, 95% CI −2.5∼5.7, P<0.05]. In addition, administration of 1 g P. ginseng significantly increased serum GSH-Rd activity [0.37±0.06 to 0.42±0.05 units, mean of changed value −0.05±0.07, 95% CI −0.07∼−0.02], compared with the placebo [0.44±0.06 to 0.41±0.06 units, mean of changed value 0.02±0.17, 95% CI −0.04∼0.08], P<0.05). However, GSH-Px activities were not changed by P. ginseng administration compared to the placebo ( ).
TAC levels, expressed as GEAC, were approximately 220∼237 µM in each group. The serum TAC level was increased in both the 1 g and 2 g P. ginseng groups, but the changed values were not significantly different from that of the control group. The serum SOD and catalase activity were about 1.0∼1.8 and 572∼650 units in each group, respectively. The changed values of SOD and catalase activity also showed no noticeable differences among the three groups ( ).
The mean initial serum total ROS concentration was about 187∼189 units in each group. After the 4-week trial, administration of 1 g [mean of changed value 35.1±17.9, 95% CI 28.0∼42.1] and 2 g [mean of changed value 42.0±27.9, 95% CI 31.0∼53.1] P. ginseng both significantly decreased total serum ROS levels compared with the placebo [mean of changed value 21.9±26.4, 95% CI 11.9∼33.8, P<0.05]. On the initial time point, the mean serum MDA levels were 17.5∼18.7 µM among the three groups. After the 4-week trial, the MDA levels were significantly lowered by administration of both 1 g [mean of changed value 4.4±4.7, 95% CI 2.6∼6.1] and 2 g [mean of changed value 5.1±6.0, 95% CI 2.8∼7.3] P. ginseng, compared with the placebo [mean of changed value 0.6±7.6, 95% CI −2.2∼3.5, P<0.05 and P<0.01, respectively, ].
The initial VAS scores in the placebo and 1 g and 2 g P. ginseng groups were 7.0±1.0, 7.1±1.3 and 7.3±1.3, respectively. VAS scores declined in all groups after the 4-week trial; however, the final scores among all three groups were significantly different (P<0.05). A multiple comparison analysis showed a significant reduction in VAS score by 2 g P. ginseng administration [mean of changed score 1.2±1.5, 95% CI 0.7∼1.8], compared with the placebo [mean of changed score 2.9±2.0, 95% CI 2.2∼3.7, P<0.05]. The change in VAS score in the 1 g P. ginseng group [mean of changed score 2.2±1.5, 95% CI 1.6∼2.7] was not significant compared with the placebo ( ).
The total NRS scores (mean ± standard deviation) were 59.3±10.6, 58.0±9.1 and 60.8±10.3 in the placebo, 1 g P. ginseng and 2 g P. ginseng groups, respectively, at the initial time point. The total score for the 11 NRS questions gradually decreased in all three groups after 4-week trials, but the difference among the three groups did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.068, ). In the analysis of subtotal NRS scores for physical (questions 1∼7) and mental health (questions 8∼11), the mental fatigue symptoms, but not physical symptoms, were significantly improved by both 1 g [mean of changed score 5.2±8.1, 95% CI 2.3∼8.2] and 2 g [mean changed score 2.1±5.8, 95% CI −0.1∼4.2] P. ginseng compared with the placebo group [mean changed score 6.9±7.9, 95% CI 4.1∼9.9, P<0.01] at the final day of trials. No statistical difference between the 1 g |
your daily routine that doesn’t involve branding—and so it’s no surprise the CTA relies heavily on ad revenues to provide Chicagoans with affordable transit. We can’t stop this advertising onslaught, but we can take back just a tiny little bit of what we see—and make it super ridiculous and dumb.
We Can Do This!
I’ve contacted the company that manages advertising contracts for the CTA, and I’ve confirmed that it is feasible for us to pull this off.
If we raise a little over $4,000, I should be able to purchase ad space in 100 CTA train cars. That's enough to reach one in four Red Line cars (the busiest line on the CTA.) If we are lucky enough to exceed our goal, I'll get more ads in as many more cars as we can afford. The more ads we can buy, the more people we can reach.
So let's do this! Let's make the world a little sillier, and our train rides a little more fun. Thank you!!!
(Modified project image by (vincent desjardins), via Flickr)The Obama administration has a strained relationship to N Korea, saying it must end its nuclear programme [Reuters]
The United States says it has reached a deal with North Korea to resume the search for the remains of American soldiers killed in the Korean War.
After three days of meetings in the Thai capital, Bangkok, the Pentagon said on Friday that officials from the US and North Korea had "reached an arrangement to resume recovering the remains of American servicemen missing from the Korean War".
US teams are due to start recovery efforts next year in an area around 100km north of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, and near the Chosin-Jangjin reservoir where more than 2,000 soldiers and Marines are believed to have gone missing during the 1950-53 war, the Pentagon said.
Earlier search operations were suspended under Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, in 2005 amid a crisis over North Korea's nuclear programme, with US officials citing concerns for the safety of Americans involved in the recovery operations.
The Pentagon said it had now concluded arrangements with North Korea that will "ensure the effectiveness and safety" of teams heading into the isolated and impoverished nation.
Officials said the US would not pay for the remains but acknowledged that the teams will inevitably spend money for necessities such as food, fuel and security.
Thousands missing
About 8,000 Americans are missing from the Korean War, with around 5,500 of them believed to be in North Korea, according to the defence department.
Joint search teams recovered the probable remains of 229 servicemen in the North from the start of operations in 1996 until they were suspended nine years later.
The Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, and the North has had tense relations with the US ever since.
The defence department insisted that accounting for missing soldiers is "a stand-alone humanitarian matter, not tied to any other issue between the two countries".
However, the deal is seen as part of a broader US effort to improve relations with North Korea. The US plans to hold a second round of rare direct talks in Geneva, Switzerland, next week on how to revive six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.
The administration of Barack Obama. the US president, has stood firm that North Korea must clearly recommit to a 2005 agreement in which it agreed to end its nuclear programme and ease tensions with South Korea.
After ruling out dialogue for months, US officials met North Korean envoys in July in New York.
US officials have privately voiced doubts about whether the talks in Geneva will yield much progress but have hoped that the dialogue will lower the chances for provocation by Pyongyang.April 24, 2016
Hello, in today’s post I will look onto essential part of testing- mocks.
First of all, what I want to accomplish here is to give you basic examples of how to mock data using two tools: mock and pytest monkeypatch.
Why bother mocking?
Some of the parts of our application may have dependencies for other libraries or objects. To isolate behaviour of our parts we need to substitue external dependencies. Here comes the mocking. We mock external API to have certain behaviours such as proper return values that we previously defined.
Mocking function
Let’s say we have module called function.py :
def square ( value ) : return value ** 2 def cube ( value ) : return value ** 3 def main ( value ) : return square ( value ) + cube ( value )
Then let’s look how these functions are mocked using mock library:
try : import mock except ImportError : from unittest import mock import unittest from function import square, main class TestNotMockedFunction ( unittest. TestCase ) : @mock. patch ( '__main__.square', return_value = 1 ) def test_function ( self, mocked_square ) : self. assertEquals ( square ( 5 ), 1 ) @mock. patch ( 'function.square' ) @mock. patch ( 'function.cube' ) def test_main_function ( self, mocked_square, mocked_cube ) : mocked_square. return_value = 1 mocked_cube. return_value = 0 self. assertEquals ( main ( 5 ), 1 ) mocked_square. assert_called_once_with ( 5 ) mocked_cube. assert_called_once_with ( 5 ) if __name__ == '__main__' : unittest. main ( )
What is happening here? Lines 1-4 are for making this code compatible between python 2 and 3. In python 3 mock is part of standard library whereas in python 2 you need to install by pip install mock.
In line 13 I patched the square function. But you have to remember to patch it in the same place you use it. For instance, I’m calling square(5) in test itself so I need to patch it in __main__. This is the case if I’m running this by python tests/test_function.py. If I’m using pytest for that I need to patch it like test_function.square.
In lines 18-19, I patch square and cube functions in their module because they are used in main function. The last two asserts come from mock library and are for making sure that mock was called with proper values.
The same can be accomplished using mokeypatching for py.test:
from function import square, main def test_function ( monkeypatch ) : monkeypatch. setattr ( "test_function_pytest.square", lambda x : 1 ) assert square ( 5 ) == 1 def test_main_function ( monkeypatch ) : monkeypatch. setattr ( 'function.square', lambda x : 1 ) monkeypatch. setattr ( 'function.cube', lambda x : 0 ) assert main ( 5 ) == 1
As you can see I’m using monkeypatch.setattr for setting up return value for given functions. I’m still need to monkeypatch it in proper place: test_function_pytest and function.
Mocking classes
I have module called square :
import math class Square ( object ) : def __init__ ( radius ) : self. radius = radius def calculate_area ( self ) : return math. sqrt ( self. radius ) * math. pi
And mocks using standard lib:
try : import mock except ImportError : from unittest import mock import unittest from square import Square class TestClass ( unittest. TestCase ) : @mock. patch ( '__main__.Square' ) def test_mocking_instance ( self, mocked_instance ) : mocked_instance = mocked_instance. return_value mocked_instance. calculate_area. return_value = 1 sq = Square ( 100 ) self. assertEquals ( sq. calculate_area ( ), 1 ) def test_mocking_classes ( self ) : sq = Square sq. calculate_area = mock. MagicMock ( return_value = 1 ) self. assertEquals ( sq. calculate_area ( ), 1 ) @mock. patch. object ( Square, 'calculate_area' ) def test_mocking_class_methods ( self, mocked_method ) : mocked_method. return_value = 20 self. assertEquals ( Square. calculate_area ( ), 20 ) if __name__ == '__main__' : unittest. main ( )
At line 13 I patch class Square (again be aware if you run this test using pytest or standard way). Lines 15 and 16 presents mocking instance; at first mocked_instance is mock object which by default returns another mock and to these mock.calculate_area I add return_value 1. In line 23 I’m using MagicMock which is normal mock class except it also retrieves magic methods from given object. Lastly I use patch.object to mock method in Square class.
The same using pytest:
try : from mock import MagicMock except ImportError : from unittest. mock import MagicMock from square import Square def test_mocking_class_methods ( monkeypatch ) : monkeypatch. setattr ( 'test_class_pytest.Square.calculate_area', lambda : 1 ) assert Square. calculate_area ( ) == 1 def test_mocking_classes ( monkeypatch ) : monkeypatch. setattr ( 'test_class_pytest.Square', MagicMock ( Square ) ) sq = Square sq. calculate_area. return_value = 1 assert sq. calculate_area ( ) == 1
The issue here is with test_mocking_class_methods which works well in python 3 but not in python 2. Right now I don’t have clear answer to this so if you can help I appreciate this!
All examples can be found under this repo.
References:Last updated on: May 25, 2006 20:52 IST
A amir Khan addressed a press conference outside his home in Khar, north Mumbai, saying he will not apologise about his comments on the Narmada issue.
" I am saying exactly what the Supreme Court has said. I only asked for rehabilitation of poor farmers. I never spoke against the construction of the dam. I will not apologise for my comments on the issue," he says.
Showcasing Fanaa
Aamir's remarks against the Gujarat government and Chief Minister Narendra Modi evoked violent protests in Gujarat.
The state has even decided not to screen his new film, Fanaa, which releases worldwide on Friday.
Meanwhile, when Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh was asked to comment on the Gujarat protests against Aamir and his film Fanaa, he said, 'I do not believe in violent means of protests. Everyone has the freedom of expression. If someone says something on a particular subject, that doesn't mean you should start protesting.' Here is a quick take on what Aamir said at the press conference: More on rediff.com!
Narmada: Aamir won't apologise
Fanaa's multiplex woes ease
Kunal Kohli explains the issue
The Bharatiya Janata Party is opposing the release of Fanaa in Gujarat because you participated in pro-Narmada dam rally. Is that correct? Let BJP do their karam (work). I will do my karam. Every man has a right to do what he or she wants. I will be unhappy because the people of Gujarat will be unable to see Fanaa. BJP has leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley. I hope they understand my viewpoint.
Don't you think Fanaa will lose money because of your statements?
People are losing their homes, temples and schools because of the Narmada dam and they are not getting an alternative replacement. I don't think Rs 5 to 7 crores (Rs 50 milllion to Rs 70 million) will matter when it comes to their lives and livelihood.
Are you opposed to the construction of the Narmada dam?
Let me specify that I am not opposed to Narmada dam construction. All I want is that the people, who have been ousted by the construction of dam, should get alternative accommodation.
The BJP wants you to apologise. Will you?
I will not apologise. Why should I apologise? I am not saying anything wrong. Even the Supreme Court of India says the same. So will the BJP tell the Supreme Court of India to apologise as well? The BJP is a strong and big party and I am a very small man compared to them. If I am speaking for the poor, why should I apologise? If someone explains to me that I am wrong, then I will surely apologise.
The people of Gujarat will not get water if the dam is not constructed. Are you aware of that?
I want the people of Gujarat to get water. I love the people of Gujarat. I want them to have a good quantity of water but there should be justice for the displaced people too. Half of my friends are Gujarati and they, too, are supporting me.
You have also talked against the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his role in post Godhra riots of 2002.
I said that during the Gujarat riots. I feel it is sad that innocent people are getting killed in riots. I strongly feel no innocent Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christians should get killed in riots. I am also against [US President] George Bush who is killing innocent people in Iraq. I feel all human beings should oppose such people. Those who instigate others in the name of religion are wrong. Period.
Do you think you you being targeted because you are a Muslim?
I am an Indian first. Some people call god Allah and some call him Bhagwan. If anyone kills a person in the name of religion, it is wrong. This issue is not about religion. It is about poor people who need rehabilitation. I have got the right to my opinion. The BJP is taking a stance and everyone in India can see that what kind of party they are. They cannot tell me to shut my mouth.
Why don't you support the Kashmiri Hindu Pandits who have been displaced from Jammu and Kashmir because of terrorism?
Of course, I support the Kashmiri Pandits. I will voice (my feelings) against terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. It is unfair to target Kashmiri Pandits just because they are Hindus. I am also against the ways terrorists, of attack by bomb blasts as only innocent people get killed.
Will you donate money to Narmada dam oustees?
Yes. I will give them money to relocate.
Does Fanaa's producer Yash Chopra agree with your cause?
Everyone in the film industry is with me. In fact, everyone is with me, except the BJP.
Will you take back your statement if your film suffers losses?
I will stand by my words.
Are you interested in politics?
No. I am an ordinary citizen of India. We have a democracy and I feel I have a right to express my opinion.
What do you think is the solution to this?
I can fight legally. I can also go to the producers' association. Our film talks of heroes fighting against injustice but now I am doing it in real life.
Why don't you phone Narendra Modi and tell him to sort out the issue?
Why should I phone him? Why should I interfere in his work? Let the people decide who is right and who is wrong.
Isn't it true that your relationship with Gujarat has been spoilt?
That's not the right way to say it. My relations with the people of Gujarat will be forever. My relations with the political parties of Gujarat has been spoilt. I remember I did the first screening of Lagaan at Bhuj. I participated in the rehabilitation process after the Gujarat earthquake.
Even Gujarat's Congress leaders are opposing your stance?
I don't know about this. But if it is true, then let them oppose (my stance). Let the people decide who is right and who is wrong. I stand by my words.
You are the brand ambassador of American companies like Coca Cola. Author Arundhati Roy, who is part of the Narmada protest, has claimed they are anti-national?
I have said this earlier. I am investigating this issue and will give you a definite answer in one or two months.
Do you have any comments on the deadlock between Yashraj Films and the multiplexes.
The multiplexes are charging very high rates. They should reduce their prices. I don't believe that Yash Raj is using arm-twisting methods to deal with multiplexes. But this is my personal view.
Any message to the country?
I want the people of India to see that here is a political party (BJP) that does not believe in democracy. Here is a party that does not believe in the rights of poor people. I believe in democracy and if I believe in a cause. I will support it. Nobody can tell me to keep quiet."Why doesn't President Donald Trump just unequivocally condemn white supremacists?" asks Associated Press Washington bureau chief Julie Pace. "It's a jarring question to ask about an American president. But it's also one made unavoidable by Trump's delayed, blame-both-sides response to the violence that erupted Saturday when neo-Nazis, skinheads, and members of the Ku Klux Klan protested in Charlottesville, Virginia." According to White House officials and Trump associates, Trump did not want to single out the white nationalists, for whatever reason.
Trump "consulted a broad range of advisers before speaking on Saturday, most of whom told him to sharply criticize the white nationalist protesters," The New York Times reports, citing a White House official. White House National Security Adviser Tom Bossert was "at the center of the discussion" and he "laid out the situation on the ground, including a description of provocations by both protesters and counterprotesters," the Times says, adding:
Two hard-edge economic populists — Stephen K. Bannon, the president's chief strategist, and Stephen Miller, a senior adviser — spoke with Mr. Trump repeatedly on Saturday, the person said, although it was not clear if Mr. Bannon had offered him advice on his comments. Mr. Trump listened attentively, according to another person familiar with the discussions, but repeatedly steered the conversation to the breakdown of "law and order," and the responsibility of local officials to stem the violence. [The New York Times]
Trump's response was based largely on his "own read of the hate-fueled melee with counterprotesters" and "deeply colored" by his initial briefing on the situation, which said various groups had entered Charlottesville and were protesting even though the white supremacists and neo-Nazis had planned the rally, The Washington Post reports, citing two people familiar with the response. Bannon was not in New Jersey with Trump, associates told the Post.
"Trump's approach Saturday — trusting his instincts, averting talk of white nationalism, and feeling no obligation to grapple with its consequences — echoed how the president responded last year to an endorsement from David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader who appeared in Charlottesville," the Post reports, and Trump has "shrugged off" mounting calls from Republicans and others to single out the white supremacists and neo-Nazis "as a politically correct distraction that would not give him credit for his original statement." You can read more about Trump's particular response at The Washington Post, The New York Times, and AP. Peter WeberThere's nothing new about British governments spying on their own citizens. From the time of Elizabeth I's spy chief Francis Walsingham to the legendary agent provocateurs of the years after Waterloo to the bugging and blacklisting of the postwar decades, espionage against domestic dissenters has long been a staple of British statecraft. For most of the last century, the secret state targeted the left, trade unionists and peace campaigners, along with Irish republicans and anyone else regarded as a "subversive" threat.
That was all supposed to have been consigned to history after the end of the cold war, when MI5 declared it had abandoned counter-subversion and switched its focus to the threat of jihadist terror attacks. But, if anything, the apparatus of official snooping and spooking has grown even more inflated than in the days when the state faced a real political challenge from both within and without.
It's now not just the security service and police special branch that spy on environmental campaigners and anti-war protesters, but an array of police intelligence units set up to keep tabs on those designated "domestic extremists", including through covert informants and intercepts. And as the Guardian's reports of the past few days have shown, these outfits don't just monitor activists, they work hand in glove with private companies, using anti-harassment legislation and pre-charge bail conditions, to prevent them from continuing to demonstrate and protest.
What began with injunctions against violent animal rights activists has now reached the point where hundreds of non-violent protesters are banned from going near arms factories or power stations, travelling to particular areas or even communicating with each other – without being charged with any offence. Last year, protesters at an academy school in south London were banned by injunction from handing out leaflets or even speaking outside the premises.
The Association of Chief Police Officers, which runs the intelligence units, claims that they only target groups that break the law – for instance, by peacefully occupying a power plant or taking secondary industrial action – or operate "outside of the normal democratic process". In fact, Acpo is itself an unaccountable private body, while protests and demonstrations are of course an essential part of the democratic process.
"Domestic extremism" is the subversion of the new surveillance state, though without even the spurious definition the cold war term was given. And just as MI5 used to claim it never targeted peace organisations or trade unions but the subversives within them, so the police intelligence apparatus insists it's only interested in "extremists", not the groups they're part of.
The home secretary Alan Johnson this week sneered that if the police wanted to use the term "domestic extremism" he "certainly wouldn't fall to the floor clutching my box of Kleenex". But by blurring the lines between the civil and criminal law and publicly branding those who take part in demonstrations and direct action, the police and the Home Office are in effect criminalising political dissent.
That is even more true of Britain's Muslim community, where the line the authorities are busy blurring is between political protest and terrorism. Dozens of British Muslims are due to appear in court today charged with public order offences over the angry demonstrations against Israel's war on Gaza in January. Several were arrested months after the event in dawn raids by police who broke down the doors of their family homes. In February, nine British Muslims taking part in George Galloway's Viva Palestina aid convoy to Gaza were arrested on the motorway under the Terrorism Act. They were eventually released without charge. But the impact on support from the rest of the community was naturally chilling.
Last week, reports in the Guardian and by the Institute of Race Relations highlighted how the government's £140m Prevent programme, which is supposed to mobilise Muslim community opposition to terrorism, is being used for what Liberty's Shami Chakrabarti calls the "biggest spying programme in Britain in modern times". Schools, community groups and colleges are required to provide information on everything from the opinions to the sex lives of Muslims not even suspected of involvement in violence.
Underlying the abuse of the programme has been a dangerous shift in official counter-terror policy which, in parallel with the wider police surveillance of protest group, now targets "non-violent extremism", rather than simply those who might want to launch bomb attacks on buses and tubes. The idea is that, as Ed Husain of the government-funded Quilliam Foundation puts it, non-violent Islamists – rather than western wars in the Muslim world – provide the "mood music" for terror groups and spying on them is "good and it is right".
In reality, both the mass surveillance and the government's decision to widen its target from the violent to the elastic McCarthyite catch-all of "extreme" is spreading fear and mistrust, intimidating Muslims from taking part in mainstream politics and undermining the very people who can most effectively challenge those drawn towards indiscriminate violence.
Intelligence is anyway notoriously unreliable, because it cannot be properly tested as evidence – whether on the grand scale of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or in more routine injustices, such as the 2006 raid in London's Forest Gate, in which police shot an innocent man on the basis of groundless intelligence about a chemical bomb.
That's one of the unwitting messages of the new official history of MI5 by the loyal historian Christopher Andrew. While clearing a faction of the security service of having plotted against Harold Wilson, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Andrew gives credence to absurd claims that the pre-eminent 1970s trade union leader Jack Jones was a paid KGB agent – this on the account of the same defector who once claimed to general ridicule that the former Labour leader Michael Foot had been a Soviet agent codenamed Boot.
Which is a timely reminder of the self-serving tendency to fantasy among intelligence organisations. Unleashing such people on those exercising their right to protest or take part in non-violent politics has got nothing to do with the defence of the democratic process – it's an assault on democracy.The following is the opinion of Saginaw News Editor Jodi McFarland.
Since early August, my Facebook feed has included pictures taken by friends across the country.
The pictures show elementary, middle and high-schoolers standing on front porches and in front of school buses, wearing new kicks with unsullied backpacks over their shoulders. They show off fresh uniforms or summer shorts, grip posters denoting their new grades or hold their family dogs.
Georgia. Indiana. South Carolina. Iowa. Ohio. Illinois. Texas.
This is the season to memorialize the first day of school.
But not in Michigan. At least, not yet.
It makes you feel foolish, watching kids in states known for less-than-stellar education systems hitting the books long before our pupils have stopped running barefoot outdoors.
Michigan's K-12 public schools won't start for another week -- the latest first day of school we could possibly have. Since 2005, state law has kept those teachers from taking roll before Labor Day. Private and parochial schools are exempt.
Business leaders from around here helped collect the signatures that pushed the law through, the Great Lakes Bay Region Convention & Visitors Bureau has reported.
Business interests trumped local school board control.
The impetus wasn't to promote sound educational outcomes. It was and is a bid to promote and protect tourism, giving families more time to scatter their travel dollars from Frankenmuth to Marquette and parts in-between.
How well does it work?
Fall sports and band begin in early to mid-August, making delayed classes irrelevant to a swath of Michigan families.
Many of our colleges are getting a move on already. Delta College's and Saginaw Valley State University's fall classes start this week.
The delay in starting K-12 schools has consequences in June, too, as state lawmakers raise the required instructional time each year.
This year, public schools must offer 175 days of instruction along with 1,098 hours of class time. Next year, the requirement increases to 180 days.
Days of instruction and a later first day of school can push summer break's start into mid-June -- and don't forget that some years, snow and cold mean days off that have to be made up then.
Across the country, the debate rages over the agrarian school calendar versus a blended schedule. Some educators say a school schedule that looks more like 45 days on, 15 days off, with a longer break in the summer, would do more to keep kids in learning mode. Schools that elect to go "year-round" can apply for a waiver to the post-Labor Day rule.
In an unscientific sample of kids I've borne and others I know, they are ready for school to start right now. They have their new pencils, they miss their pals and they've received postcards from their teachers.
Come mid-June of next year, their ardor will have cooled, even as the thermostats in their unair-conditioned classrooms climb.
To be fair, there are a few benefits to this late Labor Day. The first day of school is predictable. Employees of one school district whose children are enrolled in another don't get squeezed. We get one more week of white pants.
But those boons are a bust when we look at what would best serve our kids. A rule adopted a decade ago, and debated even then, is looking more out of step with the times every day.Mike Groll / Associated Press Mike Shanahan might not be the guy to take over in Buffalo, but Bills fans clearly are seeking a big-name savior.
Here's how twisted things have become for at least one Buffalo Bills fan: There was a moment two weeks ago during the game against Jacksonville when I found myself thinking, "Please don't win..."
Nothing against interim coach Perry Fewell, but card-carrying members of Bills Nation are 10 years deep into the kind of mediocrity that has led more than one of Buffalo's souvlaki restaurant owner/operators to torch the joint and pray the insurance covers a re-boot. A win against the Jags might have given Ralph Wilson and the brain trust at One Bills Drive the kind of incentive that has led them to hire bargain-basement coaches over and over again, while non-football men manage the shop.
Let the record show that I was not born evil... I was driven to it by a team that has spent the past 10 years blindly ignorant of some very basic football truths: Stop the run, start a competent offensive line, rush the passer, and field a viable NFL quarterback. Toss it all together in a skillet with a dash of cayenne pepper, and you are ready to chow down on the kind of failure that burns twice.
Alas, despite the fact that T.O. finally played like a superstar, the Bills found a way to spare me the worry in Jax... only to return home and win against the reviled Dolphins in a way that makes me feel like a complete tool for doubting these fine young men. So what have we learned? That all we've needed was a coach who is willing to bench underperformers and take some risks in the fourth quarter? Dark days, my friends, dark days. But I know I'm not alone, and this problem is bigger than the yin-yang whiplash of back-to-back games that have no consequence in the playoff picture.
Innkeeper, keep the Kettle One flowing! Glug, glug, glurrrrrgh... belch, fart, glug.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, the state of the union. As we once again brave the all-too familiar crossroad of yet another five-year plan to nowhere, there is much debate about owner Ralph Wilson, and it breaks down into two basic schools:
1) He is trying to alienate Bills Nation to such an extent we finally say "No Mas!" as he pads the bottom line in anticipation of the inevitable sale/move to greener and inherently evil pastures (Toronto/L.A./Mexico City/Dubai).
2) We are blessed to have an owner who, unlike contemporaries Bud Adams, Bill Bidwill, Robert Irsay, Georgia Frontiere, Art Modell, and Al Davis, resisted 50 years of better offers and fought hard to keep the team in town, despite the fact that a decent plumber can afford a luxury box.
Bills fans are known far and wide for their devotion. The national economy may be a hot mess, but our local economy has always been a mess, yet the Bills sell out year after year regardless of the quality of the team on the field. Bills fans also happen to be smart. Take the infamous billboard erected this year imploring Wilson to make some changes. Very out of character -- Buffalonians tend to grit their teeth and take their medicine, but things have just gone too far.
Witness beloved badass legend Darryl Talley twittering his frustrations with the current team -- not driving his SUV through a stadium guardrail and beating up the whole team. No, the only linebacker to sport a Spiderman sleeve is twittering! That's how bad things are. As for the billboard, the "Fire Jauron" headline got all the ink, but the real truth lies in the fact that long-time personnel guru Tom Modrak was also listed on the infamous road sign. Therein lies the smart part.
Harsh? Not when a "best of" team built out of Bills picks in the 2000s couldn't win the Big Sky Conference. Modrak is nine years in on a ride to oblivion. Trust me, if you sucked that bad at your job, you'd have been lucky to make it through year two of your contract.
Drafts from hell
For those of you who aren't familiar with Modrak, it's understandable. If he had ever actually done something smart on the job, you might have noticed. No worries, he's just the guy who has run our draft and free-agent scouting for a decade, while not even living in Buffalo for a chunk of that time -- but I guess he can't be faulted for that. I mean, Matt Millen ran the Lions from his home office for years and that worked out, right?
Paul Spinelli / Associated Press Bills fans are too loyal to stay away from Ralph Wilson Stadium, but they are not shy about stating their opinions.
Remarkable, but not as remarkable as using the Bills' No. 1 pick this year on yet another 173-pound defensive end while a franchise left tackle, Michael "Blind Side" Oher, sat there, ripe for the picking after we traded an A-plus left tackle to the Eagles for far less than market value. Before you know it, we are fielding a starting O-line buxom with street free agents and recently-elevated practice-squad scrubs. I don't mean to pick on Aaron Maybin. Who knows what the future holds, but I have every right to worry - we've blown our top picks forever. Granted, Nate Clements was pretty great back in 2001, but he ain't here no more, and from there it goes downhill fast:
2002: Mike Williams -- 400 pounds worth of bust, with Dwight Freeney, Albert Haynesworth and Ed Reed still on the board.
2003: Willis McGahee -- with Dallas Clark and Larry Johnson still on the board. It took two years for McGahee to rehab and contribute, then he spent two more falling down behind the line of scrimmage on third-and-1, then took about five seconds to talk his way out of town chased by angry villagers with pitchforks.
2004 (a): Lee Evans -- flashes of brilliance, now a $9 million-a-year No. 2 WR.
2004 (b): J.P. Losman -- can you say reigning champion... of the UFL!!!
2005: No first-rounder, thanks to the trade that brought us Losman (who, by the way, could well be better than any QB currently on our roster).
2006: Donte Whitner -- a starter, I guess that counts for something. But he was picked eighth overall, and when you consider the fact that Troy Polamalu was a No. 16 pick in his day, I start to lose that warm, gushy feeling. Let the record also show that Jay Cutler and Haloti Ngata were still on the board at positions of eternal need. Then we traded up again, Losman-style, to score the mighty, mighty John McCargo, a bust we later traded for a case of beer only to see him sent back to us. Still on the board at that late point in the first round: DeAngelo Williams, Nick Mangold, Marcedes Lewis and Joe Addai.
2007: Marshawn Lynch -- who perennially loses 2-4 games via suspension for a variety of moronic off-the-field misadventures, then twists the knife by being average when he's available. At this point, Lynch's greatest value might be making sure Fred Jackson gets enough Gatorade between carries.
2008: Leodis McKelvin -- who knows. (Ryan Clady, Joe Flacco, Chris Johnson still available at positions of perennial need)
2009: Aaron Maybin -- doesn't start, has no sacks, YTD: eight tackles. Meanwhile, our lone Pro Bowler in three years, left tackle Jason Peters, was traded to the Eagles. Then we used Philly's pick to draft Eric Wood -- an impressive gamer, who unfortunately suffered a terrible injury in Jacksonville.
Then, of course, there is the litany of this decade's QB follies, which tells the other half of this tale:
Rob Johnson
Drew Bledsoe (had his moments, I guess...)
J.P. Losman
Kelly Holcomb
Trent Edwards
Ryan Fitzpatrick
Put 'em all together, and this is why I side with Bills Nation. They know all this talk of a coaching search is a red herring. We, like every other team in the NFL, need someone who can actually evaluate talent.
What's next?
Oh, gee, Mike Shanahan granted us a meeting, might be open to the gig if we give him $10 million per year and a piece of the team? Um... thanks? All this for a guy who inherited Elway, and is probably just using the Bills to drum up a better offer. I seem to remember Shanahan throwing gas on the fire of the Broncos fading fortunes by signing every single defensive lineman who wasn't good enough to make it with the Cleveland Browns.
Don't get me wrong, the man won some rings. It would be a big step up from where we are, but like most Bills fans, I would have been triply excited to hear a name like Ron Wolf flown into town and given the hard sell. I would drive to the airport myself and buy Ozzie Newsome dinner if he would grant us the time of day. Ditto Mickey Loomis. Ditto former John Butler protégé A.J. Smith, who has stocked the Chargers with tons of talented players.
It's all about the talent, baby. How about we take some of the $50 million it apparently will take to hire Shanahan and use it to build a time machine to go back and not fire Bill Polian? The man only went on to turn the expansion Carolina Panthers into a playoff team in about five minutes, then went on to build the Indianapolis Colts into a perennial playoff team and a Super Bowl champ. Alas, that ship has sailed. As soon as the Bills gig opened, the Colts signed Polian and his GM-in-waiting son to an extension.
Coach or GM, it's not going to be easy getting a top guy to come to Buffalo. There could be some openings in higher profile towns with teams that don't have precarious ownership futures and don't surrender a game to Toronto annually. (If you have any illusions that this counts as a home game, peep the Jets tilt this Thursday on NFL Network, and count the Bills jerseys in the stands. Last year against Miami, it took CBS three quarters to find one, but there were thousands of Dolphins threads.)
Dallas might be hiring and Washington is definitely hiring, but they come with super-meddlesome owners. Oakland is officially a forbidden zone reserved for intergalactic criminals and coaches with no other options, but big names could be eyeballing some more pliable situations in Cleveland, Chicago, Carolina and Houston.
As for the other rumored |
in his park’s pond.
Recently, the closure of several other shelters around the city has put even more pressure and responsibility on SDCH to care for a growing number of unwanted animals. Claire Garth, the General Manager of the Home tells One Green Planet that “demand for our services is only increasing,” adding that “there is a growing community expectation when it comes to animal welfare” with the public increasingly eager for animals in council pounds to get a second chance at life.
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A Real Home to the Animals
I’ve seen firsthand what great work SDCH does, and it is one of the friendliest, most relaxed yet best organized shelters I’ve visited. Everything from the board where dogs are sorted according to dog walker expertise, to the time taken to suitably pair the animals up so that they don’t languish alone while waiting to be rehomed, illustrates the strong efforts made by staff and volunteers to provide the very best standard of care for animals in need. In fact, the sheer number of dedicated volunteers — some of which have been donating their time and energy for years — attests to the organization’s value and the community’s appreciation of the great work it does.
Not only is it a safe sanctuary for animals, it is also a wonderful resource for potential adopters, evidenced by the relatively quick turnover I witnessed during my time there — thanks to its great reputation and effective management, it takes the SDCH an average of just three weeks to rehome its animals — and by the shelter’s walls being plastered with messages from grateful adopters, thanking the organization for pairing them up with their perfect pet.
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Arthur the 12-year old greyhound and his new family
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Further messages of thanks have been sent to the organization during what is now their time of need. For instance, Sean Badenhorst writes “my beautiful dog, Roma, came from Sydney Dogs and Cats Home – and what a gift she has been,” and urges people to help because “more abandoned pets need the opportunity to find loving homes” and Alex Brenton, who adopted three cats from SDCH, details how the shelter provided plenty of free surgical care for them. These are just two of the thousands of people who have banded together to incite government and donator support for Sydney Dogs and Cats Home.
What You Can Do
Sydney Dogs and Cats Home has contacted the State government several times over the past year, but no decisive action has yet been taken to save the Home. Consequently, SDCH has started a petition, urging the Premier of New South Wales Mike Baird to assist the organization in obtaining a parcel of crown land to build a new animal shelter on. So far the petition has gathered over 13,000 signatures, but more voices are needed to ensure their urgent request is heeded.
Ms. Garth explains that SDCH not only needs to find a suitable piece of land, they also need to raise enough funds to build a new shelter for their animals. Donations are desperately needed to help cover relocation costs, and to build suitable holding facilities for the animals.
If you want to help, please consider signing and sharing Sydney Dogs and Cats Home’s petition and donating to the Home to support its lifesaving work.
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All image source: Sydney Dogs and Cats Home/FacebookThis is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: A Democracy Now! exclusive, “Wall Street Part of Town,” a new song by legendary musician Ry Cooder about the Wall Street protests. He recorded the song Tuesday. His manager sent it to us yesterday. He was once ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as the eighth-greatest guitar player of all time. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonzalez, as we continue our Democracy Now! special, “Voices of the 99 Percent.”
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, during Thursday’s day of action marking the second month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, hundreds of videographers across the country captured the sights and sounds of the protest. Using the latest internet technology, many were able to stream their footage live on the internet as it happened.
For the past two months, a website called Global Revolution TV has become the main video hub for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Featuring live video feeds from New York and other cities, the site has transformed how protests are covered and observed. When protesters held a general assembly in Zuccotti Park, the gathering is usually live-streamed across the world. When police raided the park early on Tuesday, the raid was caught on live stream, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: One of the co-founders of Global Revolution TV joins us now via, well, what else but video stream. His name is Vlad Teichberg. He is a former derivatives trader who gave up a life in the financial world to work on video activism.
Vlad, it’s great to have you with us. Talk about Global Revolution TV and why you left Wall Street to occupy Wall Street.
VLAD TEICHBERG: Well, I guess, in some ways, occupation is a state of mind. So, a lot of people ask me about the Wall Street experience. People should keep in mind that I was working on Wall Street and developing a lot of this stuff for years, since 2001, basically.
But getting to Global Revolution TV, this project started officially with the beginning of the New York occupation, although similar versions of this project have been done in the past for other actions and revolts and so on. The way it basically works is that, at this point, actually, there’s probably close to 200 Occupies which are broadcasting what’s happening at the general assemblies and the camps, basically the direct democracy process in the local communities. What Global Revolution basically does, it’s an aggregated channel. It basically restreams stuff coming out of all these different Occupies, in a sense focusing the world’s eyes on specific issues coming up in specific locations.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Vlad, talk about your decision to leave Wall Street and to take this course that you’ve been taking now in terms of helping the people’s movements get out their word.
VLAD TEICHBERG: Well, basically, for me, personally, that decision came in late 2001, early 2002—late—yeah, late 2001, early 2002, after 9/11, when the country started going very far to the right, so to speak, when all this—there was a group of people—I was one of them—we formed the first version of this, which was the Glass Bead Collective. We basically started using culture [inaudible], or modern culture, to start challenging the framework under which we were moving to the right, to [inaudible] the population at large.
AMY GOODMAN: Vlad, you were born where?
VLAD TEICHBERG: I was born in Russia, Moscow.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about how you ended up in the United States and how your family influenced what you’re doing today.
VLAD TEICHBERG: Well, we came to the United States actually in the early ’80s, in ’82. And basically, for all practical purposes, my parents were thrown out of Russia. And the reason they were thrown out of Russia is because my dad got entangled in an affair where he basically exposed that on the Soviet—the entrance exams for students entering the universities in Soviet Union were rigged against Jews, in the sense that Jews were getting special exams on the oral sections. And the reason my dad got involved is because he was tutoring kids, in general, for entrance, these exams, and he noticed all his Jewish students were being flunked, and put out the questions. It got up to some other people, and they got up to some other people, and that ended up in the New York Times. And then, at that point, the Soviet Union was not kidnapping any more martyrs, per se, so they basically gave him an option to leave, versus going to the gulag.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Now you—talk to us a little bit about the international dimension of this movement. You traveled to Spain and were there as the movement, the people’s movement in Spain, developed. And you were inspired by the Arab Spring. What about this international dimension?
VLAD TEICHBERG: Well, I think it’s very important for people to understand—people think of Occupy Wall Street as like an American revolution. It has its roots, though, in the Arab Spring. Obviously it inspired a lot of things. And it has very direct roots in the Spanish revolution. So just in terms of chronology, the Spanish revolution started in May in this year, about five months after the Egyptian revolution started. And it involved very much similar—it was in some ways very similar to what we have in the States right now. Spain also has a pseudo-democracy. Spain doesn’t have like an [inaudible] dictatorship the way Egypt did. And Spain had a much less violent revolution than Egypt did. Nobody died in the streets as things went on. But a lot of things were similar in terms of like to push towards direct democracy, setting up of general assemblies, making culture of consensus. All of those things were present in the Spanish revolution. I happened to be there right before it started. I got to Spain three weeks before the Spanish revolution started, so I got to participate in the whole process from the very beginning.
AMY GOODMAN: And then talk about coming to Zuccotti Park and exactly the system that you have set up, both at Zuccotti but also in training people all over the country, and how Global Revolution TV works.
VLAD TEICHBERG: Well, basically, we believe that one of the fundamental aspects to this protest is setting up a functioning media center out of the protest, because it allows many people to work together to push out the message of what is being done, why it’s being done, and so on. So, in Zuccotti, when we got in, like one of the first things we did was we got a generator to set up some basic power, because they cut off all of the city power from the park. And we’re basically setting up on two tables in the park, which set up a basically media center, which was basically a bunch of people doing video and a bunch of people doing twittering and so-called social media. It involved not just twittering; it involved all kinds of social websites. It involved a lot of writing and a lot of communicating via text. And those two—and all those people basically worked together for the next month or so trying to push out the message. And about a week and a week and a half into the protests, we finally broke through the mainstream media wall. At least the event was no longer boycotted or blocked. And, you know, the rest was history.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Vlad, you talk about that you spent years on Wall Street. What did you do on Wall Street specifically? And could you tell us about this—it must have been obviously a transformation.
VLAD TEICHBERG: Well, yeah, my job was—
JUAN GONZALEZ: At one point you decided, “What the heck am I doing here?” And you’ve embarked on this new course in your life.
VLAD TEICHBERG: Well, my specific job was I was a derivatives trader. I was basically working for large banks, betting basically their money on these derivatives products. And my job was sort understanding how these products worked, really [inaudible] to the level of models, that used to price them, but also figuring out what models didn’t work and so on.
For me, the philosophical transformation was the—basically the whole globalization philosophy that was being pushed in the early mid-'90s, that would ultimately be—ultimate equalizer of the world turned out to be faulty because of the effective multinationals. Towards the late ’90s, I mean, I think a lot of people came to the same conclusion: globalization was actually doing more harm than good, and there was more inequality in the world. And by late—by late ’90s, it was very, very clear that that was the case. And that's pretty much when I started shifting out of being a supporter of this Ayn Rand approach to looking at the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Vlad, I wanted to play for you—I wanted to talk about the issue of what’s happening with journalists and go to this issue of press freedom and Occupy Wall Street. On Thursday, the Washington-based Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights criticized the arrest and assault of journalists during the Occupy Wall Street protests by police in recent weeks. The organization cited the arrests of at least seven journalists this week, including reporters from National Public Radio, the Associated Press, TV New Zealand, New York Daily News. At least 26 journalists have been arrested nationwide since the Occupy protests began, according to a tally by Josh Stearns of the group Free Press.
Earlier in the week, New York Press Club wrote a letter criticizing the New York Police Department’s treatment of journalism covering the protests. On Thursday, we asked Gabe Pressman, who is a veteran New York journalist, president of the New York Press Club Foundation, to read the organization’s letter. Gabe Pressman is a legendary New York journalist who had been a TV reporter in the city for over 50 years.
GABE PRESSMAN: This is the letter that the New York Press Club sent to Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
“On Tuesday morning, November 15th, as police officers acted to remove Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park, several reporters protested that they were the victims of harassment and that their rights under the First Amendment were violated.
“A few were arrested or detained.
“The actions of some police officers were not consistent with the long-established relationship between the NYPD and the press.
“The brash manner in which officers ordered reporters off the streets and then made them back off until the actions of the police were almost invisible is outrageous.
“We want the department to investigate the incidents involved in this crackdown on Zuccotti Park and we want assurances it won’t happen again.
“Sincerely,” and I sign my name, president of the New York Press Club Foundation and chairman of the Freedom of the Press Committee.
AMY GOODMAN: Gabe Pressman, as he said, president of the New York Press Club Foundation, reading the letter of the organization to the Mayor. Vlad Teichberg, your final comment on police moving in and arresting journalists?
VLAD TEICHBERG: Well, there was a most huge attempt made to block out press. They blocked out the map on Google Maps. They ground-roaded choppers, news choppers, the media-restricted air space. And they physically pushed all the press out of the—out of the area. I don’t have much to comment about NYPD behavior. I mean, aside of assaulting press, they assaulted hundreds of people in the park that day. So I think, you know, the record speaks for itself. But what I want to say is that attempts to censor press in the modern day and age are problematic at best. Even though all—they took all the corporate media out, the live-streaming process inside the camp showed the whole world what was going on. And because they censored the press, that actually focused even more attention on division from the inside. So, in a day and age where everybody has a camera, we should be asking ourselves a question: isn’t everyone else a journalist? And if everyone else is journalists, then the rights are given—that supposedly are reserved for the press should probably be reserved for everyone.
AMY GOODMAN: Vlad Teichberg, I want to thank you for being with us. It’s interesting. Yesterday I was down at Occupy Wall Street right after the Wall Street action at Zuccotti Park, and as a police officer was pushing me back, and I said, “I’m press,” he said, “Yeah, everyone is press.” Vlad Teichberg, co-founder of the Global Revolution TV, a live-streaming website that’s aired live footage from Occupy Wall Street in New York and other sites over the past two months, former derivatives trader on Wall Street, now occupying Wall Street. Thanks so much for being with us.Walgreen, the biggest U.S. retail drugstore chain, is considering decamping to Switzerland in a quest for bigger tax breaks, just two years after reaping a hefty package of Illinois tax credits in exchange for keeping corporate jobs in the state.
Such a move, through a maneuver called an inversion, would cost the U.S. treasury $4 billion in tax revenue over the next five years, according to a new report by Americans For Tax Fairness, a tax reform advocacy group. It also may prompt other U.S. retailers, which typically pay high tax rates compared with large multinationals like Apple and General Electric, to seek foreign acquisitions in order to dramatically lower their bills.
Americans For Tax Fairness calculated Walgreen's possible tax savings based on determinations by outside analysts, who figured the company could lower its rate to about 20 percent from the current 35 percent if it were to incorporate in Switzerland. (Reincorporating abroad would not necessarily mean substantive changes in where company personnel and operations are housed.)
Because Walgreen's bottom line is significantly bolstered by taxpayer-funded Medicare and Medicaid drug benefits, accounting for one-third of all pharmacy sales, relocating offshore would represent an especially egregious exploitation of the leaky U.S. tax code, Americans for Tax Fairness concludes in the new report.
"Our research shows that Walgreens relies heavily on the U.S. taxpayer for its profits, and that an inversion would deprive our country of significant resources while giving the company an unfair advantage over its competitors," the report says.
A Walgreen inversion may be possible next year, should shareholders approve the purchase of the the Swiss company Alliance Boots, Europe's largest pharmaceutical wholesaler and retailer. In 2012, Walgreen bought a 45 percent stake in the company. At a meeting in April in Paris, some Walgreen shareholders pushed for an inversion, touting the potential tax savings, according to the new report. This seemed to prompt a shift in tone from company executives, who had previously downplayed the possibility of an inversion.
"We’ve never been a proponent of paying more taxes than we have to," said Rick Hans, a Walgreens vice president, at a later conference, according to the new report.
On Wednesday, in response to the report, Walgreens issued a statement. "As we’ve said before, we continue to analyze a number of issues as we move toward the window for exercising the second step of our transaction with Alliance Boots, and we will do what is in the best long-term interest of our company and its shareholders," spokesman James Graham said in an email. Inversions are possible when U.S. companies incorporate in another country, so long as 20 percent of company stock is owned by a foreign entity. After the inversion, the original U.S. company becomes a subsidiary of the foreign parent company, yet the foreign company is controlled by the shareholders of the original U.S. corporation.
The tax savings of moving a corporate address abroad can be enormous. Companies are no longer on the hook for paying U.S. taxes on profits earned abroad, potentially a huge benefit for companies with big overseas sales. Walgreens, because its stores are located primarily in the U.S., would likely realize big tax savings in a different way: By shifting large amounts of debt from its foreign operation to its domestic operation in order to offset profit, said Frank Clemente, the executive director of Americans for Tax Justice.
Recently, the U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer tried -- and failed -- to acquire the British drug company AstraZeneca, a deal at least partly motivated by tax savings that might be realized through an inversion.
Over the last decade, tax aversion has become a standard corporate business practice. A recent study found that Fortune 500 companies have created a whopping 7,827 offshore shell companies to stash nearly $2 trillion in places like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands in order to avoid paying U.S. taxes. One common way U.S. companies exploit such shell companies is by transferring patents or trademarks abroad, and then paying their subsidiary licensing fees for the right to use those patents, thus reducing domestic profit.
U.S. retailers, though, typically pay taxes at or close to the 35 percent corporate rate. That's because they book all or most of their revenue in the U.S. and have few options for making it seem as if that revenue was earned elsewhere.
Though it is likely that Walgreen will complete its purchase of Alliance Boots, it is difficult to evaluate the odds the company will attempt an inversion. The New York Times has reported that at least one shareholder, the CtW Investment Group, cited the risk of removal from the S&P 500 and other stock indices as an argument for why the company should remain headquartered in the U.S.
The CtW group owns less than 1 percent of Walgreen's shares.Like most, I generally assume everything Apple does will be a winner.
How could I not? Their track record is amazing, and from the iPhone to iPad, MacBook Air to the app store, the company has, without a doubt, the highest batting average in the entire business world, let alone that of tech.
But not even Apple can hit a home run every time, and every once in a while turns in a bloop single such as iTunes Radio (before Beats), the first generation Apple TV and last year's attempt at a native podcast app.
Where will HomeKit fall on Apple's field of dreams? Even if you are only a casual observer of the smart home industry, you know most expect a big hit. It's this year's biggest story in the space, even though it's yet to happen. The excitement for HomeKit is palpable, with the entire industry waiting to see if Apple's effort to bring the company's trademark simplicity and straightforwardness to the smart home will create a new golden age for the connected home and, finally, bring home automation to the mainstream consumer.
It's a lot to expect of an effort that, according to my sources, Apple itself has fairly modest expectations for out of the gate. It also led me to think about what would happen if HomeKit fails to meet expectations. Not that I expect it to - in fact, I expect Apple and HomeKit to eventually be a very important part of the broader smart home - but I do think it's worth at least considering what could make Apple's foray into smart home fall drastically short of expectations.
Here are a few ways I think such a scenario could happen:
HomeKit Doesn't Make The Smart Home Simpler
Apple's motivation behind HomeKit is it wants to make iOS devices the central control point for the smart home. In other words, make switching costs to another operating system even higher.
Most of us are ok with locking ourselves further into the Apple ecosystem, but a part of the bargain is that we get something in return. That something with HomeKit is a simpler, most cohesive smart home, a smart home that simply works without heavy installation, expensive subscription fees and more. But if Apple's effort here is something akin to, let's say, iTunes for most of the past decade (a pretty clunky piece of software), then there's a chance it could actually be more difficult and consumers decide to stay away.
Apple Brings Closed Approach To A Market In Need of Openness
As we all know, when entering new product categories Apple likes to own the "full stack", which often means creating their own ecosystem and inviting others to join. In the smart home, such an approach is impossible since openness and interoperability across various device types is required.
In fact, if there's one consistent theme that I've been hearing from smart home execs the last few months, it's that the industry needs to embrace openness and interoperability if this industry is to ever deliver on its promise. These folks know a bunch of competing standards and proprietary products from companies with clashing agendas will cause significant harm and delay the adoption of the technology as consumers tune out. Apple likely can create a de facto standard with HomeKit, but ultimately it needs to play nice with other technologies (as it has shown it is doing with Insteon).
Reliance On Siri Proves Annoying
It's clear that HomeKit will make fairly extensive use of Siri, but most voice control integrations with our in-home lives so far have proven either super annoying (read Xbox One's Kinect voice commands) or not ready for primetime (like Amazon's Echo). Siri is further along than both of these with iOS, but I'm not entirely convinced Apple will get a voice-controlled home right out of the gate.
HomeKit Proves Too Limited
From what I've heard, Apple has had quite a steep learning curve with the smart home. There are a significant number of moving parts and the industry's evolving very quickly, so it's probably right to expect the first version of HomeKit will be fairly limited in nature compared to what the vision eventually calls for. But if the goods delivered don't meet the high expectations and deliver consumers, the high burden Apple is putting on HomeKit partners could cause some to see the price of entry as too high and pull support.
The bottom line is HomeKit will likely expand the smart home market and will make it much more approachable. But before HomeKit is nominated for smart home's MVP of 2015, let's first see how it performs in its rookie season.
Michael Wolf is a smart home analyst for NextMarket and host of the Smart Home Show. Keep up to date with the smart home with his Smart Home Weekly.AS A special-forces agent in the French Navy, Michel Malalo has clandestinely entered several African countries by sea to extract endangered French nationals. Almost all the enemy fighters he encountered carried the AK-47, a widely used assault rifle renowned for its rugged reliability. But the AK-47 has a serious drawback: glint, which gave Mr Malalo an advantage in firefights. Made with steel, the AK-47 reflects light. “It's flashy—and from afar,” says Mr Malalo, who took advantage of glint giveaways when shooting at the enemy. Mr Malalo, who left the special forces uninjured six years ago, says the French assault rifle, the Famas, is superbly non-reflective even in bright light.
Developing new metal alloys to reduce rifle glint is just one facet of the effort to develop better camouflage, concealment and deception technologies that is under way at defence contractors, military research bodies and university laboratories. Most of this research is being conducted in America and Europe. Much is classified. The results are often remarkable.
Even the most common form of camouflage—the coloured patterns printed onto combat fatigues—is being given a high-tech twist, as designers work with new software that incorporates neuroscientists' understanding of human vision. Pattern-generation software analyses a large number of photographs of a given theatre of operations. By crunching meteorological data on typical lighting and visibility conditions, combined with information about the colours and predominance of shapes visible in cities, fields and wilderness areas, the software proposes new, improved patterns. “It really does get technical,” says Réjean Duchesneau, a lieutenant-colonel with NATO in Casteau, Belgium, who helped design a Canadian camouflage pattern called CADPAT.
Some camouflage designers, including those at America's Army Research Laboratory, also study the reflective and light-absorbing properties of materials common to an area, such as sand, cement and foliage. As well as being used by the camouflage-generation software, this information is used to manufacture fabric inks with the desired optical properties. Similar software optimises colours and patterns for vehicles and aircraft. The ability to customise camouflage for particular theatres has increased the use of temporary camouflage, which is painted on hardware before missions and washed off afterwards.
For decades most fatigues, now referred to as battledress uniforms, incorporated wiggly patterns of solid colours known as tiger stripes. But research in the field of “clutter metrics”—the study of how well observers locate and identify objects—has recently discredited tiger stripes. With the help of eye-tracking devices that follow iris movements to determine where subjects are looking, researchers have determined that fabrics with small squares of colour, known as pixels, are harder to see. These new pixel patterns are now worn by many Western armies, including those of the United States, Britain, Canada, France and Germany. Canada has improved its camouflage so much in recent years that to spot soldiers in some conditions, observers must be 40% closer than they would have to have been in 2000.
“Adaptive” camouflage that changes rapidly in response to the environment is also in the works. TNO, a Dutch defence contractor based in Soesterberg, is using thin, textile-like plastic sheets embedded with light-emitting diodes (LEDs). A small camera scans the environment, and the colours and patterns displayed on the sheet are changed accordingly. The material is not yet flexible enough to be worn comfortably by soldiers, but it is being tested in Afghanistan with Saab Barracuda, a Swedish maker of camouflage equipment.
Pieter Jacobs, TNO's chief technologist, says the defence ministries of Canada, Germany and the Netherlands, which have funded the development of the technology, consider such “chameleon” sheeting to be an urgent requirement. Maarten Hogervorst, a vision neuroscientist at TNO, says its performance is formidable. A tank draped with the sheeting and parked in front of a grassy slope displays an image of grass on its exposed side, for example.
Another kind of adaptive camouflage is based on flexible plastic decals. A small camera, powered by a solar cell, senses the colours and patterns of the surroundings. The surface of the decal is a crude computer display which then replicates these colours and patterns. The US Army wants to use this approach to wrap artillery and munitions containers. Daniel Watts, who leads the project at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), says it works well but is still too expensive for battlefield use.
Some like it hot
Concealing things on the battlefield does not just mean hiding them visually. A lot of research is also being done to reduce thermal signatures, too. Infra-red and thermal-vision equipment can reveal a soldier's heat signature at a large distance. Such equipment is becoming less expensive and is now so readily available that the Taliban in Afghanistan are well equipped with it—unlike a few years ago, says Hans Kariis, a senior technologist at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, a government body in Stockholm.
Fabrics designed to block human heat-signatures are improving rapidly. John Roos, a retired US Army colonel in Newport News, Virginia, recently observed a night-time test of an infra-red “stealth” poncho developed by AAE, a small defence contractor based in Fullerton, California. It was the most impressive infra-red protection he had seen. The man disappeared like “a black void”, Mr Roos says. (The head of AAE, Rashid Zeineh, declined to discuss the fabric's composition.)
America's existing heat-blocking garments already provide a remarkable combat advantage, says Mr Roos. They are similar, but inferior, to the AAE stealth poncho, he says. During some night operations, American soldiers may be heard approaching while remaining concealed in the dark. “You can imagine what that would do to enemy morale,” Mr Roos says.
One way to block body-heat signatures is to use particles called cenospheres—tiny hollow spheres of aluminium and silica that can be woven into fabrics. A leader in the field, Ceno Technologies, in Buffalo, New York, is developing a cenosphere body-paint for the face and hands which does not block necessary perspiration. Britain's Ministry of Defence is testing it.
Researchers at the NJIT, meanwhile, have developed insulating decals that can be applied to hot objects—even firing artillery cannons—to mask their heat signatures. Even if the heat signature cannot be concealed entirely, decals can be placed so that they alter the signature's shape. Mr Watts says his team has been successful in partially insulating tanks so that observers with night vision see the shape of a car.
Illustration by Derek Bacon
This is a useful trick, because entirely eliminating a vehicle's heat-signature can be extremely difficult. Intermat, a Greek supplier of concealment materials to defence contractors including British Aerospace, Lockheed Martin and Thales, produces a foam coating that also smothers heat signatures. Bill Filis of Intermat says that selectively applying a one-centimetre layer of heat-insulating foam can make an armoured personnel-carrier resemble a motorcycle when viewed through thermal-vision goggles. “Make him wonder, and this buys you time,” Mr Filis says.
Some thermal coatings are as thin as a coat of paint, so they can be applied to aircraft. But warplanes present an additional problem. When flying high to avoid anti-aircraft fire, white condensation trails, or “contrails”, can form “a giant arrow in the sky pointing to where the plane is,” says Charles Kolb, chief executive of Aerodyne Research in Billerica, Massachusetts. Researchers at the firm, which is a contractor to America's air force, are examining the thermodynamic processes that lead to the formation of contrails, in the hope of reducing them using chemical additives.
Even as people, weapons and vehicles become harder to spot, however, new detection technologies are also being developed. In the spring of 1999 NATO warplanes flew more than 38,000 sorties over Serbia, in a bombing campaign that succeeded in pushing Serbian forces out of Kosovo. But surprisingly little damage was done to Serbian materiel. Duped NATO pilots had destroyed dummy tanks, artillery and other items of military hardware made out of wood and tarpaulins. Much of Serbia's real military kit was hidden safely under foliage, which interferes with standard radar.
Engineers at Lockheed Martin, a large American defence contractor, have designed a radar system called FOPEN, short for foliage penetration. It became operational in 2005, but still requires further development and is deployed on just one active American warplane so far. But Lockheed Martin's FOPEN programme manager, Robert Robertson, says the radar “will see whatever man made” under a leafy triple canopy, or under netting designed to foil conventional radar systems.
“Stealth” aircraft, designed to avoid detection by radar, have been around since the 1970s. Radar systems illuminate the target with radio waves and then look for reflections, so absorbing incoming radiation, or deflecting it in a totally different direction, can shrink an aircraft's radar signature dramatically. Half a dozen countries now build stealth aircraft, at great expense.
A new type of radar system, however, is capable of spotting such aircraft. It relies on the proliferation of mobile-phone signals. When a plane flies through an environment filled with such signals, the “aircraft shadow in this chatter” becomes visible, says John Pendry, a radar expert at Imperial College in London. Mike Burns, the president of MSE, a small defence contractor in Billerica, Massachusetts, says stealth bombers have indeed been detected against backgrounds of mobile-phone radiation because “a hole” appears in the constant chatter of signals.
This technique can be used only in populated areas, with lots of mobile phones. But it has an edge over standard radar, in addition to being able to spot previously invisible aircraft. It is “passive”, because it uses ambient radiation to illuminate the target. This means the target aircraft cannot tell that it is being watched (whereas it can with traditional radar). In short, it is the radar-detection system, rather than the aircraft, that has become invisible. It is just the latest example of the arms race between concealment and detection.I was looking over this part of the docs:
http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/form/form_collections.html
Except in my case each tag is a question has a unique label for each question.
How can I create unique labels for a collection form?
QuestionType:
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType; use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface; use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolverInterface; class QuestionType extends AbstractType { public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options) { $builder->add('Answer', 'choice' array( 'choices' => array( '' =>'select one', 'yes', 'no') )); } public function setDefaultOptions(OptionsResolverInterface $resolver) { $resolver->setDefaults(array( 'data_class' => 'Acme\AcmeBundle\Entity\Question\Question', )); } public function getName() { return 'question'; } }
Questionare Collection:
class BriefQuestionaireType extends AbstractType { public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options) { $builder->add('Questions', 'collection', array( 'type' => new QuestionType() ) ); } public function setDefaultOptions(OptionsResolverInterface $resolver) { $resolver->setDefaults(array( 'data_class' => 'Acme\AcmeBundle\Entity\Question\Questionaire', )); } public function getName() { return 'briefquestionaire'; } }
I want to be able to do something like:
$builder->add('Questions', 'collection', array( 'label' => 'Q1:Have you ever...?', //I'd like to use unique but static questions so that I can reuse the questions again later.` 'type' => new QuestionType() ) ); $builder->add('Questions', 'collection', array( 'label' => 'Q2:Have you also...?', //I'd like to use unique but static questions so that I can reuse the questions again later.` 'type' => new QuestionType() ) );
However the above overwrites the previous label. So that only the label Q2:Have you also...? appears.
Hopefully now that it's more clear, that's what I meant when I said I wanted unique labels (which are just static questions) that have a yes/no choice selection.The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for the South Los Angeles, Long Beach and Whittier areas as a powerful new storm moves ashore.
The warning is expected to be in place for at least 45 minutes.
Radar shows heavy rain falling in Long Beach, with the storm moving in at 35 mph to the northeast. There were also reports of thunder and lightning across the region.
Forecasters said the storm was capable of producing a tornado, but there was no evidence at this time that any tornadoes have developed on land.
[Updated at 1:03 p.m.: The tornado warning was extended to Orange County. In Seal Beach, officials were urging people to get off the beach. In San Pedro, the Los Angeles Fire Department reported major street flooding in areas near the harbor and ocean.
In East Long Beach, flood waters rose above some streets and were filling the grass areas in front of some homes. There were reports of power outages, though exactly how widespread they were is not clear.
The Orange County Sheriff's Department is checking a report that a car driving on Pacific Coast Highway might have been damaged by the storm, but officials have not confirmed this.
Huntington Beach lifeguards said no waterspouts -- or offshore tornadoes -- have been spotted. The beaches were mostly empty while waves surged, lightning struck and wind reached gusts of 52 miles per hour, said Huntington Beach |
per cent of the roads. The work was assigned to nine departments. The maximum repair work was given to the public works department (PWD), which comes under Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya. It said it has completed repair work on 66,039 km of the total 85,000 km of roads assigned to it. The State Highways Authority had been given a target of 1,189 km of which 70 per cent work (713 km) is complete.
The National Highways Authority of India had been tasked with repairs of 60 km of roads, of which 81 per cent work (48.85 km) is completed. An official told IANS the Panchayati Raj department has performed abysmally and only accomplished 6.56 per cent of the target till June 15. Of the 3,890 km of roads assigned to it, only 255.12 km has been repaired. Officials said that besides lack of coordination, resource crunch was one of the main reasons for failing to meet the target. Similarly, the Mandi Parishad has faired badly and only 1,811 km of the set target of 10,193 km has been repaired. However, under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), the results are good. Of the 1,703 km, some 1,624.91 km has been repaired, an official further said.
Also watch:
The sugarcane department asked to work on 3,716 km roads has only met 12.31 per cent of the target (457 km). The municipal corporations and other urban bodies had been assigned to repair 6,455 km roads but have managed work on only 1,071.09 km. A senior Minister in the state government conceded that work has been “far from satisfactory” and said he was hopeful the Chief Minister would not only note the laxity but crack the whip.
“The system has been subverted by the past governments and for sure it will take time to ensure that tasks are done and timelines met,” he said. The poorest performance was shown by the state’s irrigation department which has so far not even started work on the 9,668 km it was tasked with. Interestingly, both the PWD and Irrigation department, which have fared badly, are headed by Keshav Prasad Maurya. Maurya however has assured that roads will be fixed soon. Chief Minister Adityanath had promised pothole-free roads by June 15 and said action will be taken against the departments that fail to meet the deadline.Despite a stern warning to the North, Mrs Clinton also extended a hand Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the United States is watching North Korea very closely to see if it ends "provocative language and actions". Speaking in Japan, Mrs Clinton promised that the US would offer North Korea aid if it eliminated its nuclear programme. It comes amid mounting speculation that Pyongyang is preparing to test-fire a long-range missile - a move Mrs Clinton said would be unhelpful. Mrs Clinton is in Japan on the first leg of an Asian tour. The US secretary of state also announced that Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso will meet President Barack Obama at the White House next week. Mr Aso will be the first foreign leader to visit Mr Obama, a reflection of the emphasis the new US administration wants to put on its ties with Asia, analysts say. This is also the first time Asia has been the initial trip for a new US secretary of state since the 1960s. Olive branch Despite her stern warning to North Korea, Mrs Clinton also extended a hand. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. "I have said on several occasions that if North Korea abides by the obligations it has already entered into and verifiably and completely eliminates its nuclear programme, then there will be a reciprocal response, certainly from the United States," she said. Mrs Clinton said it was up to North Korea to decide whether it wanted to abide by its promises to denuclearise. On Monday, Pyongyang asserted its right to "space development", fuelling reports that it plans to launch a missile test. The Bush administration removed the North from its list of state sponsors of terrorism last year. Analysts say that has decreased leverage over Pyongyang, and the reclusive government may believe it can gain more by raising tensions than by accepting an olive branch. Representatives of the US, South Korea, North Korea, China, Russia and Japan will hold security talks in Moscow at the end of the week as part of efforts to re-start the six-party talks intended to bring an end to North Korea's nuclear programmes. Economic difficulties Mrs Clinton began the second day of her regional tour with a visit to a Shinto shrine - a peaceful monument dedicated to Emperor Meiji, who is considered to be the founder of modern Japan. Mrs Clinton says balance and harmony infuse America's role in the world She said the harmony and balance represented by the shrine would set the tone for the foreign policy of Barack Obama. Mrs Clinton also met US embassy officials, and signed an agreement to move about 8,000 US Marines on the Japanese island of Okinawa to the US Pacific territory of Guam. She earlier described America's relations with Asia as indispensable, in comments welcomed by Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone. Her visit comes at a time of intense economic and political stress for the Japanese government of Prime Minister Taro Aso. His popularity has plunged to new lows, his finance minister has resigned, and the economy has shrunk so much that a minister likened the situation to the end of World War II. Mrs Clinton said she was "absolutely confident" the two countries could navigate through the economic difficulties. Mrs Clinton will visit Jakarta, followed by Seoul. Her final stop will be Beijing.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionSo you’ve aced the Activities and terminated the Targets. Now it’s time to crush the Challenges. The Challenges are located in the menu, at the bottom of the Quests screen. In order to get the achievement “The Challenge King” you need to complete every last one of them! There are a total of 65 of them to do, so let’s get started!
Saints Row 4 Challenges – Non-Specific Awesomeness
Challenge: Distance Super Sprinted – You’ll likely get this just by playing the game normally. All you’ve got to do is sprint, and that’s the preferred mode of transportation in this game! Related Achievement: And I Ran… Just keep running.
Challenge: Super Jump Air Time – Again, another one that’s a piece of cake. Related Achievement: Don’t Look Down. Both are probably going to unlock early.
Challenge: Telekinesis Catches – Tricky! You can’t do this until you’ve gotten the reward from Silver medal’ing all of Genki’s MOM. Once you have it, you need stuff to get thrown at you. Wardens will do this, and you can spawn a Warden by raising your notoriety to the max after you’ve fought the first one. One of their attacks is to grab an item and throw it at you with their TK power. You have to catch it.
Pro Tip This is pretty easy if you lure the Warden to an area where they can see you, but can’t hit you directly. If you stand behind a low wall, or have a small hill between you and the Warden, the object will bounce off the wall/hill and ricochet into the air. This gives you extra time to line up and catch it. I found it easiest to aim directly at the Warden, and then hit the TK button when he moves his arms outwards to throw it. The timing takes practice, but once you have it down, catching stuff should be straightforward.
Challenge: Alien High Notoriety Time – Piss off aliens, run around a bit. This is another one you’re likely to just get from playing.
Challenge: Aliens Taunted – Check your controls to find out what button Taunt is, and then do it a bunch while aiming at aliens. You have to be pretty close in order for it to count. If you move a bit while taunting, you can break the animation early, which helps to move on to the next target quicker.
Challenge: Audio Logs Collected – Completing sidequests for Matt Miller will give you the Collectable Finder, which will make these show up on your mini-map. Pro Tip You can also cycle the main map to “Collectables” in order to set waypoints from the map screen. Handy! Incidentally, if you want to listen to the logs again, they’re on the computer on the ship, next to the shark statue above the pool table on the lower deck.
Challenge: Distance Travelled in Alien Vehicle – Grindy :( Ugh, why would you ever travel in a vehicle in this game? This is an insane amount of travel, as well. The easiest thing to do is to get a Void (the Alien VTOL), put it in flight mode, and fly it in a circle by rubber banding your left stick (or leaving something heavy on your “A” key for PC users) while it is either level or aimed slightly upwards. Still, this takes a good 6 to 8 hours worth of spinning in circles.
Update: I’ve had reports from readers that they had significantly shorter times for this one – on the order of half an hour to an hour instead of 6 to 8 hours. I don’t know if this has been patched or not, but at any rate, it’s good news for those of you out there who have yet to complete it!
Challenge: Distance Travelled in Mech Suit – The Mech Suit is part of the plot in a couple of sections. Once you’ve got it, you can play Mech Suit Mayhem on the map. If you don’t get this naturally from playing the plot missions, just play this Mayhem a couple of times and you’ll unlock it no problem. You can also wait until the point in the plot where it unlocks for your garage.
Challenge: Text Adventure Collected – Same as the Audio Logs above – use the Collectible Finder on the main map to spot these, and go grab them. They look like little old-school computers. You can then play the text adventure from the same computer on the ship. There’s no challenge for “winning” the text adventure, though.
Challenge: Time Spent With Homies – This is easy to get from the start – just call Kinzie and go do something that isn’t a mission. Collect the collectables, fly around in an alien vehicle, etc. Related Achievement: Back in the Day – make sure the Homie you picked is one of the ones from Saints Row 3 – Kinzie works fine.
Challenge: Zinyak Statues Destroyed – Just another Collectible challenge. Bring a pretty tough weapon, I like the Disintegrator or the Dubstep Gun. Both make short work of statues.
Saints Row 4 Challenges – General Killin’ Stuff
Challenge: Destroy Alien Vehicles – Alien UFOs (Void VTOLs) go down in one hit from your Blast power. Similarly, you can sometimes take out more than one Alien Jet Bike (XOR) with a single hit from Blast. You can even use Buff and then jump close to the bikes to take them out. Or, you could, y’know, shoot them or something boring like that. Those things are practically crashes waiting to happen.
Challenge: Destroy C.I.D.S – CIDs spawn with portals, the “sniper” aliens, and murderbots. They’re the little floating orbs that put shields on other aliens. Blow em up. The Bounce Rifle works pretty well if you’ve got a CID in a group of other aliens. Just aim for one that the CID isn’t protecting.
Challenge: Destroy Murderbots – Murderbots spawn at moderately high notoriety after you’ve encountered them for the first time in a plot mission. Some have gatling lasers and others have mine launchers. Both can be exploded for great justice.
Challenge: Destroy Portals – Portals hang in midair and spawn enemies. Do enough damage and they’ll close up and stop spawning.
Challenge: Kill Aliens – Aliens! They’re everywhere. This counter doesn’t count Murderbots, CIDs, or similar. However, it does count the gang members that spawn during the plot and during Super Power Fight Club. See the section on “Super Power Kills” for more info about farming aliens through the Super Power Fight Club method.
Challenge: Kill Wardens – Grindy :( Wardens spawn after you’ve fought at least one in the main plot. They’ll arrive and replace any other enemies when your notoriety is maxed out. You have to use your super powers to take their shield down, and then hit them with your weapons to weaken them. Then, you have to do a button-mashing quick time event to finish them off. You’ve got to take down 20 for the challenge, which is a lot of notoriety raising and button mashing. Related Achievement: Zoo Keeper. Same requirements as the challenge, just 25 total.
Pro Tip Bring a powerful, fast firing weapon to a Warden fight. There are a lot of things that work here, but avoid things like the Inflato-Ray, the Disintegrator… anything that needs to charge up or requires precision aiming is probably going to be at a disadvantage. The Blast power works well to take their shields down, as it works at range and has a broad area of effect. Pick the Freeze element, since if it hits you it doesn’t effect you. Redditor Brokenglass126 suggests using a fully-upgraded Dubstep Gun – hold the trigger down to fire it continuously, and use your Blast power while it is firing.
Saints Row 4 Challenges – Kills With Special Weapons
Related Achievement: Experimental Tech, 25 Alien kills with the Bounce Rifle, the Dubstep Gun, the Abduction Gun, the Singularity Gun, the Inflato-Ray, and the Disintegrator. BIG FAT WARNING: I had major trouble doing this after I’d upgraded the Inflato-Ray to explosive inflations. I’d suggest avoiding that upgrade until after you’ve done this achievement.
General Advice: Since most of these kills need to be Alien kills, I’d suggest doing these while you’re doing other Alien kill-related things like Virus Injections, Flashpoints, Beacons, and so forth.
Pro Tip I actually farmed most of these on one Virus Injection activity, by leaving the area before I’d reached the kill count, and then going back and starting it again. If you’ve already done all of these, try to find a relatively tall building where you can avoid the enemies that don’t count for this, like CIDs, Murderbots, etc. Also remember that maxing your Notoriety will bring a Warden out, which you may not want to deal with.
Challenge: Bounce Rifle Kills – The Bounce Rifle is good against groups of enemies, as it will ricochet around between targets, killing several at once.
Challenge: Dubstep Gun Kills – This one has a pretty high kill count, so I’d suggest upgrading the Dubstep Gun with the Explosive Wubs upgrade before doing this.
Challenge: Targets Abducted – The abduction gun is unlocked by completing one other challenge. Fully upgrading the Abduction gun helps for this, as it makes it fire very fast.
Challenge: Targets Blackholed – Again, max this gun out first. This one doesn’t have to be against aliens, so I suggest you start the on-foot Mayhem which features this gun, and then running to the military base in the southeast. Infinite soldiers spawn here, and you can just shoot the gun from the bridge onto the base over and over again to quickly max this one out.
Pro Tip Even after you’ve Blackhole’d all these soldiers, you’re still going to have to kill 25 aliens for Experimental Tech, and this gun recharges very slowly even fully upgraded. If you have the “Extra Gateway Ammo” upgrade, just kill some aliens, then visit the gateway and switch out this gun for the RPG, and then switch back. It will be back in your inventory, fully charged and ready for destruction.
Challenge: Enemies Disintegrated – The Disintegrator is quite good against the XOR hover-bikes the aliens use – just line up and headshot the alien riding it.
Challenge: Inflato-Ray Kills – The Inflato-Ray is really not a great crowd control weapon until it’s fully upgraded, and as I mentioned I think fully upgrading it to “explosive kills” breaks the Experimental Tech achievement! The aliens that ride the XOR hover-bikes or who are on the turrets of the other alien vehicles are pretty easy to kill with this weapon.
Challenge: Tentacle Bat Beatdowns – Ah, floppy purple bat, how we’ve missed you! Go slam the bat into any alien that gets in your way – even without much in the way of upgrades, it’s still almost a 1-hit kill agains the easier aliens.
Challenge: Mech Suit Kills – The Mech Suit is used in a couple of plot missions, and in Mech Suit Mayhem. It’s also a garage vehicle you can call in after a certain point in the plot. Only Alien kills seem to count for this.
Pro Tip One easy way to round this out is to play the hard Mech Suit Mayhem and look for them. Most of the high-value targets (including the Voids that fly overhead) count as alien kills. The alleyways off the main road are littered with them.
Saints Row 4 Challenges – Kills With Super Powers
General Advice: Most of these require you to kill aliens specifically – not normal, everyday citizens, and not police, murderbots, CIDs, vehicles, and so forth. As you progress, it’s going to be harder and harder to get alien kills via Notoriety – just too much other stuff spawns.
Pro Tip The best way to get aliens to kill with super powers is… to play Super Power Fight Club. If you play the “Hard” instance of this, the second wave is “King of the Hill.” An infinite number of gang members with baseball bats will spawn. These guys count as Aliens for the purposes of your challenges! Just don’t capture the hill – fight the infinite gang members with your powers instead. When time runs out, restart the activity and repeat.
WARNING: tiddy experienced (in the PC version) that failing the activity reset his challenge progress. I’ve completed challenges and then exited out or failed the activity and I’m fairly certain I still got credit. However, to be on the safe side, you may want to test this theory and/or quit out of the activity early to avoid losing progress.
Related Achievement: There is a “global” achievement for the Super Power kills catgeory which is I Am Become Death. I’d leave this one until you have all the other achievements/challenges, since you’ll make good progress towards it just by doing the others. Again, Super Power Fight Club makes this easier. You can get at least a couple hundred alien super power kills from farming the “King of the Hill” wave in this activity until you run out of time.
Challenge: Aliens Super-Kicked – Just walk up to an alien with a weapon out, and hit the melee button. You’ll blow his gonads into next year. Lather, rinse, repeat for 10 kills. This one might be easier to do outside of the “Fight Club” trick I mentioned above – the melee doesn’t seem to work well for this while in that activity.
Challenge: Death From Above Kills – The DFA power is unlocked via the main quest. To use it, hold the “Aim” button while in midair, and then press the “Shoot” button when you’ve lined up your shot. You’ll need 100 alien kills for this one. Related Achievement: Fist Meet Ground, 100 kills with this power.
Challenge: Superpowered Beatdowns – Sprint up to an alien, and then stop sprinting just before you hit them. Keep your forward momentum, and hit the melee button. You’ll get a little animated cutscene where you suplex them or similar. Do this to 10 aliens, although you may want to practice on civilians until you get the hang of it.
Challenge: Telekinesis Kills – Pick up and throw an alien against a wall, repeatedly if required. Power upgrades that increase the recharge rate make this go faster. Related Achievement: Here! Catch! – 100 kills with TK. Just keep going!
Challenge: Throw People With Telekinesis – You’ll unlock this one no problem while going for the challenge and achievement above.
Challenge: Vehicles Super-Kicked – Kick a vehicle by meleeing near a vehicle with a weapon equipped. This can be done against civilian cars, no need to piss off the aliens more than nessesary.
Challenge: Arc Lightning Hits – This is pretty easy to do with the Lightning element for Buff, which you can get from doing sidequests. Just activating it once during the King of the Hill round of Super Power Fight Club ought to do it.
Challenge: Enemies Mind-Controlled – Mind Control is an element for Telekinesis that you get from doing side quests. Just use it on enemies to get credit for this.
Challenge: Fire Element Ignitions – For this, you’re going to need the Buff power, which you get via the main quest. When you activate it, it will ignite nearby enemies. Related Achievement: Bringin’ the Heat, 100 aliens killed. Use the Super Power Fight Club trick I mentioned at the top of this section. Note that they have to die and not just get ignited for the achievement.
Challenge: Freeze Shatters – Any of the “Freeze” element powers works for this. Blast is the one you’ll have from the start, but later you’ll get Freeze as a Buff element. Related Achievement: Chill Out, 100 aliens shattered. Freeze Blast + Tentacle Bat FTW!
Challenge: Gravity Float Kills – Gravity is an element for the Stomp power. Get a group of enemies together, do a Gravity Stomp, and then use the Bounce Rifle to kill them all quickly.
Challenge: Ground Stomp Stuns – The Stone element for the Stomp power is what you need here. Just hitting them with it is enough. Related Achievement: Pounding the Pavement, 150 alien kills. This goes really quick with the Super Powered Fight Club trick I mentioned at the top of this section.
Challenge: Health Stolen – Life Steal is an element for the Telekinesis power, which you can get from side quests. With this element selected, grab aliens and you’ll suck their life. You can then throw them and grab another.
Challenge: Shrunken Enemies Squished – This is an element for the Stomp power which, again, you can get from side quests. Once you’ve stomped, then just walk over the shrunken enemies. It can be a bit tricky to do this during the King of the Hill round in Super Power Fight Club, but the number of these you need is so small it shouldn’t matter much.
Saints Row 4 Challenges – Guides That Are Elsewhere
If you look at this list, I’ve left some out. That’s because we’ve already got guides for those! Here’s where to find them.
Activities have their own challenges for Silver and Gold, but we covered those already – Jump to the Activities Guide There we’ve got guides to Blazin’, Genki’s MOM, Insurance Fraud, Mayhem, FIght Club, and Rift activites.
have their own challenges for Silver and Gold, but we covered those already – There we’ve got guides to Challenges – completing challenges is itself a challenge. Holy recursive challenges, Batman! I guess you could click here to get to the Challenges Guide, but since you’re already there… uh… you might create an infinite loop and destroy the space-time continuum as we know it. Or you might just click and see this same text again. Fair warning.The Oakland Raiders are an up and coming team that got much better. With the best quarterback in the AFC West, Oakland has playoffs in their 2016 future.
We’re tackling each team in the league, traveling alphabetically to debate their biggest offseason issues. Dan Salem and Todd Salem debate in today’s NFL Sports Debate. Two brothers from New York yell, scream, and debate sports.
TODD:
Let me throw this question out there and see how it is received. Are the Oakland Raiders the best team in the AFC West?
I know, I know; they finished a far and distant third to the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs last year, but it is easy to think that both of those teams got worse. Meanwhile, Oakland, who was up and coming and on the rise to begin with, clearly has gotten better heading into the NFL Draft.
The Raiders added the best offensive lineman on the market in Kelechi Osemele. They added one of the better second-tier linebacker/pass rusher options in Bruce Irvin to pair with the incomparable Khalil Mack. Then they signed who could be the best cornerback on the market in Sean Smith while also bringing back Donald Penn and some other pieces, including the upside of Aldon Smith.
After all that, Oakland still has cap room to work with and fewer holes than some of its competitors. In fact, I see very few holes in general on this roster. Maybe the team needs another offensive lineman, but who doesn’t? You want to say it could use a play-maker at tight end? Well, there are only about four of those in the NFL and New England has two of them. Perhaps the defense could use an upgrade at nose tackle or safety, but there are inklings that it is pursuing Reggie Nelson to fill the latter. And the NFL Draft is still upcoming.
In actuality, Oakland’s defense is still not as good as Denver’s or Kansas City’s, but Mack makes up a lot of the difference, and the Raiders should have a superior offense to both of those teams if Derek Carr, Amari Cooper and company take that next step. It’s weird and fun and exciting that Oakland is on the rise. What are the Raiders’ odds for a division title?!
DAN:
I am so ready to jump on the Oakland Raiders bandwagon, but their odds of winning the AFC West division are no better than 50/50 right now. As for the playoffs, that is a very different story. Two things stand between Oakland and a winning record good enough for a wildcard berth, the running game and the defense.
The Raiders have done a lot to address defense thus far, but you have grossly understated how great Denver and Kansas City were on that side of the football last season. The Broncos were first in the NFL, the Chiefs were seventh in the NFL, and the Raiders were way down at 22nd overall last year. That is a rather large gap to close, but its by no means insurmountable. Both Denver and Kansas City ranked in the top ten for takeaways in 2015, as well. I love the improvements that have happened already in Oakland, but I don’t see their defense being better than both the Chiefs and Broncos. I see the Raiders defense being good enough and better, which is perfect considering the potential looming across the ball.
Offense is what will push Oakland to a winning record in 2016, but the running game must improve. If the Raiders can steal Ezekiel Elliott in the draft, that will make this unit a beast to stop. The Raiders were a woeful 28th in rushing yards and 24th in rushing touchdowns last season. I’m not saying they need to be top ten in the league, but better than average is necessary to win more than ten football games.
The real question is whether Oakland has the best quarterback in the AFC West. After Philip Rivers put up a clunker of a season last year, I’d say they do. Derek Carr is the difference between the Raiders continuing to muddle around a.500 record, or elevating into the playoffs with ten plus victories. I believe they do it. Their schedule is completely a question mark at the moment. If Indianapolis, Atlanta, Buffalo, New Orleans, Baltimore and Tampa Bay remain average or regress, then the Raiders’ have a nice and easy slate of games. Their hardest opponents all travel to the Black Hole, so fans of the silver and black have good reason to believe the playoffs are in their team’s future.As a therapist, the number-one goal I hear from my patients is: "I just want to be happy." I ask, "What would being happy mean to you?" The answers range from "Everything I wish for will happen" to "I will feel good all the time" to "I won't ever feel sad or disappointed."
These patients are deeply misguided: believing that bliss is a permanent, attainable state is both unrealistic and emotionally dangerous. Awful things occur that we cannot control, and that will and should at least temporarily affect how we feel.
A utopian world would be like I Love Lucy: it would be possible to have a minor stress of the week resolved in 24 minutes
My happiness-seeking patients are also, sadly, doomed to fail. It's a time-worn paradox: the more you obsess over whether you are happy or happy enough, the unhappier you are. As I've witnessed from years of counseling patients, contentment emerges as a byproduct of a good life, not from the pursuit of it being your life's purpose.
Here are some of the most common myths my patients believe about happiness — and how I help my patients move past them.
1) They keep saying, "I'll be happy when..."
When Philip (all patients' names are changed) began therapy, his heartfelt belief was it would be impossible to enjoy life until achieving X goal. After achieving X goal, there'd be a brief spike of joy before he sank back into gloom, anxiety, and self-doubt. So he'd set Y goal, hoping the elusive happiness he longed for would follow.
As we worked together, Philip came to realize his hypercritical father, an acclaimed heart surgeon, had drummed into his head that he wasn't worthy of being accepted and loved unless he did great things. Philip told me, "Growing up, getting a single or double in Little League wasn't enough. According to my dad I had to hit a home run to deserve to feel proud and happy."
Philip was able to call his now-retired father and say that these impossible standards had left him unable to enjoy life. After this conversation, Philip told me, "Dad was mortified. He said he'd always been proud of me but he raised me the way his father raised him."
Nowadays Philip is able to choose goals he wants rather than ones he desperately needs to reach. "Since how I feel about myself isn't dependent on whether or not I publish a novel or get a skydiving certificate, I can enjoy the ups and downs along the way."
2) They believe problems should come and go quickly
A utopian world would be like I Love Lucy or The Big Bang Theory: it would be possible to have a minor stress of the week that is resolved in 24 minutes. In the real world, of course, we're confronted with traumas and tragedies —traumas and tragedies that we can't be inoculated from by reaching a permanent happy state.
Peter began therapy a few weeks after his father died from lung cancer. After months and months of grieving, Peter was back on an even keel. He'd always miss his dad but resumed the sweeteners of daily life — seeing movies, spending time with his fiancée, playing basketball. "I'm cured — I'm good," he told me. I responded, "I'm so glad you're feeling better, but life doesn't stay fixed."
A month later Peter received a negative work review. He came in to our session, crying, "I can't deal with the stress of this. I need things to be easy. I can only handle being happy!"
I encouraged him to allow his resurgent grief to wash over both of us. He said a few weeks later, "I thought it was smart to try to always feel good, but I realize that's impossible. If I'm generally in a good place I can deal with bouts of depression. Bottling up bad feelings or pretending they don't exist will just land me back where I started."
3) They think a four-star meal or an Apple Watch will make them happy
Many of my patients get wide eyes when they see people with bigger cars, bigger houses, more expensive wardrobes, and the latest gadgets. They think, "If I had that, I'd be happy!" This fantasy is partly due to canny advertising presenting us with the equation that expensive things = lasting happiness.
Kara fell for this fairy tale. She started therapy after a serious shoe shopping addiction left her in debt. She sighed, "When I felt lonely or depressed I'd log on and buy more Christian Louboutins. It felt great. Only the high wouldn't last long, and what I bought mostly stayed in the closet."
We worked hard to get her off this hedonistic treadmill. Expensive purchases offer a fleeting pleasure that vanishes shortly after the box is ripped open.
Kara said, "My parents never had time for me. Which made them guilty. It got to the point that I could blackmail them into buying me anything I saw on TV that looked exciting. But I realize now the thrill was getting them to think about me long enough to whip out their charge card. For those few minutes, I mattered."
What she craved was attention and love, not things. My patient sold her Imelda Marcos-esque shoe collection and now avoids shopping websites. "I know now I can't buy happiness," she said. "My parents were distant. Boo hoo. I'm done punishing myself."
Kara now owns something that can't be bought with the click of a mouse: contentment in who she is and how she lives her life rather than in what she possesses.
4) They think the only way to be happy is for everything to be perfect
Being a pet owner has taught me nearly everything I know about being happy. When Shea (he's a Mets fan wrapped in a terrier/schnauzer/Yorkie's 10-pound body) and I go for a walk, he doesn't know or care about the destination. There's always time to stop for a sniff, leg lift, or frenzied barking jag at a pigeon. Each aspect of his experience is cause for tail wagging.
However, Shea also shows me what happens when this enjoy-the-moment mindset is abandoned. The local dog park has two sections separating the big breeds and the wee ones. Shea is perfectly content in his half until there is action on the other side. Then he runs to the fence between the Mutts and Jeffs and barks piteously, inconsolably at the dogs he can't join. I say, "Shea, you have three buddies right here begging for your attention!" No dice. In that moment Shea has chosen misery.
"I'm cured — I'm good," he told me. I said, "I'm so glad you're feeling better, but life doesn't stay fixed."
For a long time, so did my patient Tina. She told me a week after returning from a much longed-for vacation to Hawaii: "What's wrong with me? I was so looking forward to my trip to Oahu. Once I was there, nothing lived up to my dreams. The view from my terrace wasn't gorgeous enough, there was rain one day, we couldn't get reservations at the restaurant I was dying to try..."
As we talked, Tina came to see that Oahu wasn't at fault — it was her longtime pattern of obsessing over minute details that weren't perfect rather than appreciating what was present. "I didn't enjoy my trip of a lifetime as much as I should have, but hopefully now that I see how I ruin things for myself I can make better choices."
5) They confuse stability with happiness
My patient Jim lived a safe life. He enjoyed his job, had a supportive circle of friends, and loved his apartment. Yet he spent session after session saying, "What's wrong with me? Why am I so scared to approach a pretty woman and ask her out?"
We discussed his fear that he couldn't survive the few minutes of anxiety he would feel walking up to his potential date. "Why is it easier to beat yourself up day after day because you played it safe?" I said. "It doesn't matter whether the woman you ask out says yes. You'll be able to say to yourself, ‘Yes, I can do this!'"
Inevitably came the week when Jim rushed in excitedly: "I asked someone out at a Starbucks! She said no, but just like you said, Sherry, it felt great not to let anxiety rule me!"
The next women he asked out said yes. They only went on one date, and Jim still finds it scary to approach someone. But he is increasingly confident that he's moving past this once-insurmountable hurdle.
6) They buy into their parents' standards for what happiness is
This is a pattern you've probably noticed in the patients I've described so far: they are often haunted by their parents' visions of success. This was true of Jenna: six months after her small business went under, although she'd landed on her feet financially she couldn't find her emotional footing. "What was I thinking? Nothing ever works out for me. I was born under an unlucky star."
I said, "I know this was awful, but let's explore the origins of your all-negativity-all-the-time mindset."
While growing up whenever Jenna had a big dream, her mother derided it. "Mom was a Depression baby," Jenna said. "I know she was looking out for me in her own way, but her constant reinforcing that nothing I tried would ever succeed made me believe nothing ever would."
I said, "Despite all that, you started your business. And then it didn't work out, which seemed like confirmation that the world is determined to keep you small. But that you started it shows your inner warrior spirit."
Jenna smiled for the first time in the session: "I never looked at it that way. But I am a strong, determined woman."
"Don't forget talented!" I reminded her.
"Yes, I am that! And I learned so much from my business that I can use in another venture I've been mulling..."
Jenna had subconsciously inherited her mother's oft-repeated vision of happiness: dreaming big leads to disappointment, so better to keep expectations low. Jenna realized her mother's defeatist (though well-intentioned) idea of happiness needn't be her own. Having big ambitions can be a good thing. Rather than being the end of the world, disappointment can be something to build from and start anew.
Sherry Amatenstein is a couples therapist in New York City, as well as the author of three books on relationships.
First Person is Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.Netflix has an almost unimaginably large content library. So large, in fact, that it can be pretty daunting. How |
knees so we're eye-to-eye.
JOE: But I guess the initiation would be wearing the "sock" [a wardrobe item that protects an actor's modesty in a nude scene].
ALEX: I put it on him. [Laughs] Someone had to show him, you know?
TV GUIDE MAGAZINE: That sounds romantic.
JOE: Alex and I did this Valentine's Day shoot. There's an animal involved.
ALEX: And a big body of water.
JOE: Water, an animal, lots of nudity and lots of screaming.
TV GUIDE MAGAZINE: Should fans expect the show to delve into new sexual territory this season?
JOE: We do some werewolf sex this year for the first time.
STEPHEN: It's quite interesting. There are different ways of... Um, yeah, I'm going to stop now.
TV GUIDE MAGAZINE: You guys have to be naked a lot. Who works out the most?
STEPHEN: Joe's insane.
JOE: Yeah. I work out twice a day, six days a week. I eat constantly.
STEPHEN: I do three days a week. I just don't want to watch this show 20 years from now and look at myself and say, "Who is that white blob?"
ALEX: I do three days a week, too. But with Joe, it's all about the pecs. He can make them dance.
JOE: Alex hasn't looked me in the eye once. I'm like, "Up here, Alex. Up here."
For more with the men of True Blood, pick up this week's issue of TV Guide Magazine, on newsstands Thursday, July 14! Check out our video below:
Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!“There was a ton of anger on the left and many progressives looking for something to do,” Mr. Eldridge told me in an interview. “Particularly on social media, the existing political media was pretty slow to respond.”
That page quickly grew to have 1.1 million followers, and has expanded beyond graphics and news stories to include efforts like a Facebook bot that helped more than 100,000 users send faxes to their representatives. For Mr. Eldridge, the return on investment has been shockingly high.
“We’ve spent in the low six figures to reach, on average, 10 million people a week,” he said.
Donor excitement about social media organizing, he added, is a “natural evolution toward a skepticism of TV and paid media, where you can spend a lot of money very quickly and not be sure what you’re getting for it.”
Photo An image from Milo Inc., a media outfit built around the alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.
The ubiquity of social media, coupled with the low cost of production, has tempted donors from both parties. Palmer Luckey, the co-founder of the Facebook-owned virtual reality company Oculus, scandalized Silicon Valley last year by revealing that he had given $10,000 to Nimble America, a group that planned to place right-wing memes on billboards, T-shirts and other products. Mr. Luckey, who subsequently left Facebook, explained in a statement that he “thought the organization had fresh ideas on how to communicate with young voters.”
Nimble America has since folded, according to a representative who responded to an email sent to the group.
Wealthy donors aren’t newcomers to partisan media start-ups. The Huffington Post was conceived after John Kerry’s loss to George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election, and was supported at its outset by a slate of Democratic boosters including Arianna Huffington and the venture capitalist Kenneth Lerer. The Daily Caller, a conservative web publication, got its start in 2010 with $3 million in funding from the Republican megadonor Foster Friess.
What distinguishes the current wave of donors is a focus on social media — Facebook in particular — and a willingness to fund newcomers without ties to the media establishment.
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John Sellers, a left-wing organizer and former Greenpeace activist, started a Facebook page called The Other 98% several years ago to promote his views on environmentalism, corporate greed and other progressive causes. The page has five million followers, and its nonprofit affiliate has received funding from donors including Open Society Foundations, a group backed by the progressive billionaire George Soros.
Civic Ventures, an organization founded by the Seattle venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, has paid partnerships with several popular left-wing Facebook pages, including The Other 98% and Occupy Democrats.
Zach Silk, the president of Civic Ventures, credited these pages with building support for some of the organization’s key issues, including the “Fight for 15” movement, in which fast-food workers advocated a higher minimum wage.
“There’s real soul-searching going on” among donors, Mr. Silk said, “and a real interest in finding these other mediums to communicate.”
Photo An image from Milo Inc.
“You don’t need a complicated website with hundreds of white papers,” he added. “You need quick, memeable, shareable content.”
While some social publishers are structured as nonprofits, many are for-profit businesses that more closely resemble internet start-ups. Milo Inc., which has nearly 20 employees cranking out content for Mr. Yiannopoulos’s 2.2 million Facebook fans, claims to have raised $12 million from a group of investors in order to “cultivate an entire next generation” of conservative internet personalities.
BuzzFeed reported last month on documents that suggested that Robert and Rebekah Mercer, who contributed heavily to the Trump campaign, were supporting Mr. Yiannopoulos in his efforts. But Alexander Macris, the chief executive of Milo Inc., told me that while the group had pitched the Mercers on a potential stake, the investment hadn’t materialized. (Through a spokesman, the Mercers declined to comment.)
Conservatives, it is generally acknowledged, have so far had the upper hand in the viral content wars. Mr. Trump spent many millions less than his opponents did on traditional TV advertising, but benefited from an army of amateur creators who flooded social media with pro-Trump messages.
The edgy, boundary-crossing humor beloved by the “memelords” who fill Reddit and 4 Chan was a natural fit for the Trump campaign’s loose-cannon messaging style, and it worked. According to a study by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, who analyzed high-performing social media posts during the final two months of the campaign, nearly two-thirds of the most popular election tweets were either anti-Clinton or pro-Trump.
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Now, some Democrats are hoping to close that gap by building their own viral content studios. Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn, and Mark Pincus, a co-founder of Zynga, announced this year that they had spent $500,000 to establish a group called Win the Future, which would, among other things, allow users to vote for popular user-generated messages to be turned into real-life billboards in Washington.
David Brock, the well-known Democratic operative, announced last year that he was raising $40 million to support a network of left-wing organizations that would rival Breitbart, the conservative digital publisher. Shareblue, Mr. Brock’s viral news outfit, has amassed 1.4 million Facebook followers by specializing in what it calls “practical, factual content to delegitimize Trump’s presidency.”
Donor funding is no guarantee of success for partisan publishers — as with all viral internet content, there are limits to what money can buy. But given the outcome of the presidential election, Democrats may have no other choice than to enter the meme wars.
“This was the missing piece of the progressive infrastructure,” said Jess McIntosh, Shareblue’s executive editor, who worked as Mrs. Clinton’s director of communications outreach during the 2016 campaign. “Everyone understands that what gets shared online matters now.”
Correction: August 6, 2017
An earlier version of this column misspelled the surname of the right-wing commentator behind Milo Inc. He is Milo Yiannopoulos, not Yiannopolous.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Dr Vickie Hawkins, executive director of Doctors Without Borders: Attack on hospital is "absolutely devastating"
The UN says the situation in Syria's city of Aleppo is catastrophic, after dozens of people were killed in attacks on targets including a hospital
Air strikes on and around the Medecins Sans Frontieres-backed al-Quds hospital killed at least 27 people, while more than 30 died in other attacks.
UN envoy Jan Egeland said the next days would be vital for the humanitarian aid lifeline for much of Syria.
The violence has left a partial truce hanging by a thread.
UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura warned the cessation of hostilities agreed between non-jihadist rebels and government forces on 27 February was now "barely alive".
Separately, the Syrian government reported that 150 US troops had arrived in the town of Rmeilan in Syria's predominantly northern Kurdish province of Hassakeh, denouncing it as an "illegitimate intervention".
US President Barack Obama said last week he was deploying 250 troops to Syria to help certain rebel groups fight so-called Islamic State (IS).
'Millions in danger'
Mr Egeland, the head of the UN humanitarian assistance to Syria, said he had been briefed on "the catastrophic deterioration in Aleppo over the last 24-48 hours... No-one doubts the severity of the situation."
He warned that the humanitarian lifeline for much of the country was at risk.
"I could not in any way express how high the stakes are for the next hours and days.
"So many humanitarian health workers and relief workers are being bombed, killed, maimed at the moment that the whole lifeline to millions of people is now also at stake."
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said at least 14 patients and three doctors had been killed in the air strike on al-Quds hospital.
Among those killed was Mohammed Wasim Moaz, one of the city's last paediatricians, MSF said.
An MSF representative, Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, told the BBC Dr Moaz had worked at the hospital since 2013.
Mr Zabalgogeazkoa said: "He kept it going, was always there and always worried about the needs of the people. He was honest and very committed. He worked in conditions you cannot even begin to imagine."
Local sources blamed war planes from the Syrian military or from Russia, which is supporting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, for the attack.
The Syrian military denied targeting the hospital. A military source was quoted on state TV as saying: "Such news is merely an attempt to cover up terrorist crimes which target peaceful citizens in Aleppo."
An activist at the scene, named Zuhair, told the BBC: "It was an air strike by two rockets, heavy rockets from [a] Russian air strike.
"Near the hospital, one building on five floors just crumbled and just crashed down and we don't know how many dead will be under these ruins."
However, Russian news agencies quoted the Russian defence ministry as saying it had carried out no air strikes in Aleppo in the past few days.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption A doctor in Aleppo explains why he and his team must operate underground and in constant fear
US Secretary of State John Kerry said he was "outraged" by the hospital attack, adding: "It appears to have been a deliberate strike on a known medical facility and follows the Assad regime's appalling record of striking such facilities."
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on both the US and Russia to exert pressure to stop the violence, and demanded a credible investigation into the hospital attack.
Monitoring groups said at least 20 people were killed in other attacks on rebel-held areas in Aleppo on Thursday, while at least 14 died in rocket strikes on government-controlled neighbourhoods.
The upsurge in violence comes amid reports that the Syrian army, backed by Russian air power, is gearing up for a major offensive in Aleppo.
Analysis by Jim Muir, BBC News, Beirut
One of the reasons why the "cessation of hostilities" is now at death's door was reflected in the fact that from the outset it was not called a ceasefire or even a truce, because several factions were excluded, including not just the Islamic State militants but also the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
Nusra fighters are present in almost all combat zones, and are mixed up with other groups such as Ahrar al-Sham that Russia is now pressing to have added to the international terror list.
That has meant that hostilities have continued and intensified in many areas, with the government able to claim its attacks are legitimate.
Now state forces are reported to be building up in Aleppo as violence escalates there, raising fears that a long and costly all-out battle for the contested city may be looming.
That would put paid both to the lull and to the Geneva peace talks, prompting Mr de Mistura to urge the US, Russians and others to press their clients on the ground to ease off, so that stalled negotiations have a chance of resuming.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Attacks elsewhere in Aleppo on Thursday left more than 30 people deadThis Callaway Camaro C8 Supernatural 400 is an extremely clean and rare two-owner example with 15,887 miles. The car is one of only five convertibles out of 18 Callaway C8’s produced from ’94-96, and was the only 6-speed convertible built in ’95. The original 383ci LT1 V8 engine is the optional 435HP spec over the standard 404HP. Interior and exterior present well with very few faults noticeable in the images provided. Described as a strong driver by the seller, the car is said to handle very well with upgraded suspension and Brembo brakes. Original paperwork and records are included in the sale.
Originally a stock 1995 Camaro Z28 that was delivered new to Callaway Cars in Old Lyme, CT, the car was converted to its current form at a cost of $35k. A custom ‘CamAeroBody’ designed by Paul Deutschman included new front and rear fascias, functional side-vented body panels, and Callaway badging, while the 383ci stroked LT1 V8 was enhanced with Callaway performance components that increased output to 404hp.
Upgraded suspension and brake systems designed to handle the additional horsepower were added as part of the conversion, and the car is advertised as pulling 1.03g in lateral acceleration. The Callaway engineered lowered suspension is said to handle superbly by the seller, and includes Koni adjustable shocks with Callaway Springs, trailing arms, stabilizer bars, and panhard rods. The car is fitted with larger Brembo brakes with cross-drilled rotors in front, and 17″ OZ lightweight racing wheels.
Overall, the exterior is in excellent condition with paint, exterior rubber, and trim all appearing fresh. The seller notes that there are a few small blemishes on the wheels, and that there have been a couple small touch ups on the front fascia that are hard to find.
Inside, charcoal gray leather seats and upholstery show very little wear commensurate with the mileage. Note the Callaway anodized aluminum shift knob. Carpets, dash, and door cards are also in excellent condition, and appear new at first glance. The black soft top is in similar shape and operates as it should, though there is no boot. The car is also optioned with a remote radar detector system.
The original GM radio was replaced with a period Alpine CD radio by the first owner, and is the only interior modification. In addition to all the Callaway options installed, the car also comes equipped with the Z28 options such as A/C, power windows, power locks, power seats, cruise control, and tilt wheel. All gauges, interior lights, and power options are said to function properly.
The Callaway 383ci stroked LT1 v8 engine sits in a very clean engine compartment and was ordered with the optional engine upgrade to 435hp (over the standard 404hp) and a Callaway/Hurst 6-speed manual transmission. Callaway stainless steel headers increase performance while adding an aggressive exhaust note. A Callaway strut tower brace and extensive frame cross-bracing gives the chassis greater rigidity than a stock fourth generation Camaro. The seller has installed a newer cat back exhaust to Callaway spec.
Underneath, the car shows no signs of corrosion in the pans or frame, as evident in the many underbody images provided in the gallery below. The seller describes the car as pulling strong with 412 lb.ft of torque, and shifting and steering very smoothly. The lowered suspension and aerodynamic shape are said to give the car excellent handling. The history file includes original documents, service records, and a few media items from the automotive press.General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy called North Korea 'the most urgent threat'
A top US general has called North Korea 'the most urgent threat to regional stability' following the rogue regime's second ICBM test.
'If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing,' General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces commander, said Saturday.
'Diplomacy remains the lead. However, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worst-case scenario,' O'Shaughnessy said.
The general's remarks came as the US flew two B-1 supersonic heavy bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday in a show of force against North Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un laughs as he reviews the results of a missile test earlier this year. The regime on Friday tested a missile apparently capable of reaching the US mainland
The Friday launch of a Hwasong-14 is believed to be seen in this photo from the North Korean government. O'Shaughnessy said the US is 'planning for the worst-case scenario'
The bombers were escorted by South Korean fighter jets as they performed a low-pass over an air base near the South Korean capital of Seoul before returning to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the US Pacific Air Forces said in a statement.
It said the mission was a response to North Korea's two ICBM tests this month.
North Korea on Friday tested a Hwasong-14 for the second time this month, reaching an altitude and distance in the test that defense experts believe indicate the missile could reach the continental United States, including Los Angeles and Chicago.
That would leave North Korea only the technical challenge of miniaturizing a nuclear warhead that could withstand reentry in order to back leader Kim Jong Un's incessant nuclear threats against the US.
A US Air Force B-1B Lancer is seen in a Friday show of force overflight of the Korean Peninsula
US Vice President Mike Pence said Sunday during a visit to Estonia that the US and its allies plan to increase pressure on North Korea to end its nuclear program.
'The continued provocations by the rogue regime in North Korea are unacceptable and the United States of America is going to continue to marshal the support of nations across the region and across the world to further isolate North Korea economically and diplomatically,' Pence said.
'But the era of strategic patience is over.'
'The president of the United States is leading a coalition of nations to bring pressure to bear until that time that North Korea will permanently abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile program,' Pence said.by system failure
In the early 70s, the Watergate scandal forced US President Richard Nixon to resign. This was the only one, so far, resignation by an American president. Only the fact that the "president's men" broke into the offices of the Democratic party to photograph documents and install listening devices, was enough to create a big scandal that went down in history, and shocked the American public.
This was shocking of course, not because interceptions were something new, but because Americans were used to justify such practices only in cases where the security of the US was threatened, mainly of course, by the communist threat, as they were "trained" to believe since the McCarthyism era. The Watergate was a scandal that went down in history, exactly because every US government since then, permanently downgraded in the eyes of the US citizens, as proved that ultimately was not oriented exclusively to defend the US against external enemies, but also to stay in power, using every means against political opponents.
In the post-civil war Greece, mainly during 50s, 60s and 70s, interceptions of citizens from para-state agents and all kinds of informers had become a routine. Indeed, the Greeks who lived during that time have plenty, often grotesque, stories to tell around this issue. This phenomenon, which peaked during the seven years of junta, has influenced Greek society in such a degree that even today, even the younger generations who have no memories of such situations, "inherited" the syndrome of distrust against state institutions, from the older ones. This is something that governments exploit because the citizens take for granted the para-state practices and gradually become familiar with them.
Therefore, over the decades, Western societies began to get used to the idea that interceptions is a common practice of governments. After the attacks of September 11 of 2001, things changed very quickly. Western societies are "trained" not to be shocked by cases of interceptions. Within the Western neo-rationalism, is included the necessity of interceptions for security reasons.
As technology has made it possible to monitor millions of phone calls, the acceptance that any phone can be monitored, comes naturally. Despite the assurances of the head of the NSA, that intercepts refer to governments and not citizens, most of us have been "trained" to view as natural the fact that our telephone conversations, e- mails or any other form of communication with others, such as through social media, can be monitored.
Some examples of ways in which governments are "training" citizens
Controlled leaks of possible interceptions so that citizens to become familiar with them
Controlled leaks are very useful, as the leaking information is usually something which almost everyone suspects. So, for example, the revelation that the telephone conversations of the embassy of an Arab country were recorded by NSA or Mossad, is something that more or less everyone expects. It's not a big revelation. But in this way, people gradually "trained" to take for granted the interceptions between governments. The recent claim of the ex-MP with PASOK socialist party, Theodoros Pangalos, that Greece spied on US Ambassadors, is coordinated with this direction, giving an excuse to the American side and trying to downgrade the omnipotence of the superpower to monitor everyone without itself be monitored.
Exploiting conspiracy theories
Governments are usually characterize some revelations or uncontrolled leaks as conspiracy theories. On the other hand, conspiracy theories, whether are real, or inaccurate, or constructed, play their own role in "training" citizens and getting used to interceptions, and this is something which governments exploit.
Inaccurate information about the capability of governments to conduct interceptions
Controlled information that reaches the media and reproduced by them, may include the overestimated capability of governments to monitor, for example, an extremely large number of phone conversations. Even if there is such a possibility, such huge amount of data is extremely difficult to be processed. However, the technology is evolving rapidly, and possibly will allow processing of large amount of data in very short time, in the near future. When technology will allow this, people will have already become familiar with the idea that any conversation can be investigated and processed any time.
Where did scandals go?
The media increasingly avoid using the word "scandal" regarding interceptions. It is more likely for you to hear the word scandal for the extramarital relationships of a famous Hollywood star, than for the fact that the NSA intercepted the main communication links that carry data of millions of users of Google and Yahoo. This is also a tactic within the "training" of societies. Since people must become familiar with monitoring of everything, the word "scandal" should disappear from such cases.
Technology has created a pluralism of easy and fast communication, but also opened new channels for interceptions. This is another parameter which makes interceptions a common situation in people's minds.
In fact, during recent months have been revealed so many scandals of interceptions, in Greece and abroad that citizens, not only become familiar with them, but often bypass them and focus on other events, with some exceptions, including isolated and spasmodic protests. Perhaps nothing is eventually accidental.The Crew will use its top spot in Major League Soccer's allocation order, and likely soon. That was the message yesterday from coach Gregg Berhalter. With reports in recent days indicating that U.S. national team midfielders Jermaine Jones and Sacha Kljestan are set to return to MLS and sign with Chicago and Los Angeles, respectively, Berhalter said any such deals would have to pass through the Crew first.
The Crew will use its top spot in Major League Soccer�s allocation order, and likely soon.
That was the message yesterday from coach Gregg Berhalter. With reports in recent days indicating that U.S. national team midfielders Jermaine Jones and Sacha Kljestan are set to return to MLS and sign with Chicago and Los Angeles, respectively, Berhalter said any such deals would have to pass through the Crew first.
And when presented with the possibility that other teams might see the Crew as unable or unwilling to use its top spot in the allocation order and therefore did not see it as a viable contender for certain players, Berhalter bristled.
�We can get anyone,� he said. �As long as ownership says �let�s do it,� we can get anyone. We�re in the position. We play good enough football that anyone would want to come play with us. I think that spot is very valuable to us for that reason. To say that we�re just a placeholder in that, that�s not true.�
Berhalter said the Crew had been contacted on Wednesday on behalf of a prominent member of the U.S. national team.
�I don�t want to say names, but I got a call about a guy who wanted to specifically come to Columbus,� Berhalter said. �A big national-team player, and I thought that was interesting. All of a sudden we�re getting calls where people are coming to us.�
Sources have indicated to The Dispatch that the player is Kljestan, who plays for Anderlecht in Belgium. Asked whether the Crew has been in contact with Kljestan, Berhalter declined to comment and also did not specify whether the Crew was interested in the player who had approached the club.
Kljestan, 28, has made 46 appearances for the national team but began his career with Chivas USA, for whom he made 114 appearances from 2006 to �10. He is a native of Anaheim, Calif. A message to his agent was not returned.
On Twitter, ESPN analyst Alexi Lalas suggested that midfielder Mix Diskerud could be the player who contacted the Crew.
MLS� allocation order determines �which MLS club has first priority to acquire a U.S. National Team player who signs with MLS after playing abroad, or a former MLS player who returns to the League after having gone to a club abroad for a transfer fee,� according to the league�s official roster rules. That means the Crew would have first dibs on players such as Jones, Kljestan or Diskerud.
But there is a loophole: Teams can bypass the order by signing a national team player to a designated player contract at an undisclosed financial threshold determined by MLS.
The summer transfer window during which MLS clubs can sign players under contract in other leagues ends on Wednesday. Berhalter said last week that the Crew was down to a list of finalists and has said he is confident the Crew will sign someone before the window closes.
Two players who have been in deep discussions with the Crew are no longer in talks, sources toldThe Dispatch. One is from Sweden and the other from South or Central America.
�What we�re trying to do here is represent a club that players want to come to,� Berhalter said. �They want to play the type of soccer that we�re playing, they want to get treated the way we�re treating players, and that�s positive in my eyes. I think we�d be in contention for anyone coming back.�
ajardy@dispatch.com
@AdamJardyWhen December rolls around each year, I look at my holiday decorations to see what I can apply a Star Wars makeover to. It seems like there’s an endless number of crafts to make such as stockings, tree skirts, and ornaments. This year I turned my eye to snow globes. I’ve put a tauntaun in a jar of fake snow, but I’ve never taken the next step and added water. I learned that snow globes are surprisingly simple to make, and I want to make one for every shelf in my home. I started with a Hoth snow globe because of obvious reasons and because it’s one of my favorite planets in the Star Wars universe.
All supplies except the miniatures can be found at your local craft shop. Check the soap-making section for the glycerin. And as far as those miniature Star Wars toys, you’ve probably noticed from my DIY posts that I have an affinity for them. I use Micro Machines, loose pieces I pick up in used toy stores, Fighter Pods, Disney Parks Collectors Packs (they’re blind bags) — basically any miniatures I see. I’ve found eBay to be a great resource for amassing a stash of tiny toys.
Supplies:
Water tight jar
Glitter in the color of your choosing or Diamond Dust
Water
Few drops glycerin
Glue gun and hot glue
Miniatures like an AT-AT, a tauntaun, a wampa, a snowspeeder, an Imperial probe droid, or Darth Vader
Miniature pine tree
Optional:
Platform for figures, like a bottle cap or toy stand
Mod Podge
Remove all labels and residue. Hot water usually does the trick. Then, make sure the jar is actually water tight. Check it a few times. If it does leak but only a small amount, you may be able to seal it with hot glue.
Take the lid off your jar and experiment with your figures until you set a Hoth-inspired scene you’re happy with. You can include a single AT-AT or as many miniatures as you can stuff in. I chose an AT-AT, Han Solo on a tauntaun, a small pine tree, and an Imperial probe droid. Pose all the figures on the base and make sure the jar fits over them. Once you’ve ensured that, see if you need to add a platform for the figures to stand on. I flipped the base from a Funko Pop! figure over and used it to give my Hoth scene more height. You can sub in anything plastic for the platform.
Use hot glue to secure your figures to the lid or your platform. Let them dry completely. If you’re using a platform that’s not white, you can conceal it by applying Mod Podge on all the bare areas and covering it with glitter or Diamond Dust. Lightly press the glitter or Diamond Dust into the Mod Podge and set it aside to let it dry completely. As an example, the above picture shows how the base looks without the figures on it. Remember that you want to glue on the figures first though and work around them.
While the lid with your characters is drying, attach a miniature Imperial probe droid to the inside of the jar with hot glue. Mine is from the Star Wars Micro Machines pewter collection (they only look like pewter, they’re plastic). Hold the probe droid in place until it’s secure. Give it a few minutes to ensure it’s completely dry.
Fill the jar almost to the top with water and add a few drops of glycerin. The glycerin will help the glitter swirl more slowly. Sprinkle in glitter in the color of your choosing and/or Diamond Dust. As long as the figures attached to the jar’s lid are secure, put the lid on the jar and flip it over. You’ll have a snowing Hoth wonderland.
Glitter doesn’t photograph well so I amped them up in this photo.
Jars work well for this project (especially those with lids that screw on), but if you want more of a classic snow globe look, you can order snow globe kits online.
If you don’t want the whole snow globe effect, you can create a wintry Hoth scene by adding in more Diamond Dust or other fake snow and none of the water and glycerin. Add Diamond Dust into the jar, carefully put on the lid with the toys attached, and flip it over. Tada, mini diorama! You can see instructions for that process at my blog.
Happy Hothidays, everyone! If you make a Star Wars snow globe, please share links to photos in the comments or send them to me on Twitter.
Amy Ratcliffe is a writer obsessed with all things Star Wars, Disney, and coffee. You can follow her on Twitter at @amy_geek and keep up with all things geeky at her blog.CBS aired its long-awaited feature on the prosecution and imprisonment of former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman this evening at 7:00. In a stunning move of censorship, the transmission was blocked across the northern third of Alabama by CBS affiliate WHNT, which is owned by interests of the Bass Family. Those who were in the zone of censorship or who missed it, can catch the whole segment here:
The CBS piece, for which I was repeatedly interviewed, came through on its promise to deliver several additional bombshells. The most significant of these was the disclosure that prosecutors pushed the case forward and secured a conviction relying on evidence that they knew or should have known was false, and that they failed to turnover potentially exculpatory evidence to defense counsel. The accusation was dramatically reinforced by the Justice Department’s failure to offer a denial. It delivered a fairly elaborate version of a “no comment,” and even that came a full twenty-four hours after it had conferred with the prosecutors in question. The gravity of the accusations made and the prosecutors’ failure to deny them further escalates concerns about the treatment of the former Alabama governor.
Republicans Lead the Attack
But the show was dominated by one of 52 former attorneys general from 40 of the 50 states who have called for a Congressional probe of the conduct of the Siegelman case, former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods. He leveled a series of blistering accusations at the Bush Administration’s Justice Department. With the Alabama G.O.P. this evening issuing a near-hysterical statement in which it characterizes the CBS broadcast – before its transmission – as an anti-Republican attack piece, it was notable that Woods, like the piece’s other star witness, is a Republican. Not just any Republican, either. Grant Woods is co-chair of the McCain for President leadership committee, and a lifelong friend and advisor to the presumptive 2008 G.O.P. presidential candidate. Woods is also godfather to one of the McCain children.
Attorney General Woods has this to say about the Bush Justice Department’s prosecution of Siegelman: “I personally believe that what happened here is that they targeted Don Siegelman because they could not beat him fair and square. This was a Republican state and he was the one Democrat they could never get rid of.”
In other words, not being able to beat Siegelman at the polls, Woods believes that his own party corruptly used the criminal justice process to take out an adversary. This is an extraordinary, heavy accusation. Not something that a senior Republican would raise easily about his own party. And the facts back the accusation up, beginning to end.
Crimes for Democrats, Fundraising as Usual for the G.O.P.
Start with the notion that the conduct that figures in the accusations is actually a crime. The basic charge is that businessman Richard Scrushy gave $500,000 to the Alabama Education Foundation, a vehicle Siegelman created to run a campaign for a state education lottery, and Siegelman in exchange appointed him to the state’s hospital oversight board.
WOODS: You do a bribery when someone has a real personal benefit. It’s that you’re exchanging an official public act for a personal benefit. Not, “Hey, I would like for you to help out on this project which I think is good for my state.” If you’re gonna start indicting people and putting them in prison for that, then you might as well just– build nine or ten new federal prisons because that happens everyday in every statehouse, in every city council, and in the Congress of the United States. PELLEY: What you seem to be saying here is that this is analogous to giving a great deal of money to a presidential campaign. And as a result, you become Ambassador to Paris. WOODS: Exactly. That’s exactly right.
Indeed, Karl Rove pursued financing for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 and again in 2004 by organizing a special elite status—called “Pioneers” and “Rangers”—for persons who donated or raised $100,000 or more for the campaign. These donors understood that if they wanted to be appointed to a government office, like an ambassadorship, they only had to ask for it.
So how many Bush-Cheney donors in amounts of one hundred thousand and more were appointed to government offices or to positions in the Bush-Cheney transition team? The answer is one hundred and forty-six (146). And in how many of those cases did the Justice Department initiate investigations of corruption? The answer is zero (0). The Justice Department’s rationale is that this crime is one that can be committed by Democrats alone. When a Republican does it, it’s normal campaign fundraising.
False Evidence
But even if we accept that it’s possible for the Bush Department to create a new category of “Democrats Only” Crimes, we still have the basic fact that the evidence on which the Siegelman conviction was secured was false, and was known by the prosecutors to be false from the beginning. Indeed, the evidence of this is now so overpowering that the Justice Department refused to answer charges on camera, just as it has resisted Congressional demands to turn over documents and wrongfully failed to comply with FOIA requests. The key testimony at trial came from a man named Nick Bailey, who, unbeknownst to Siegelman, was a crook. He never contested that fact. And he’s now in prison, where CBS interviewed him – notwithstanding the Justice Department refusal to authorize an interview. The prosecutors nabbed him and then told him he could get a light sentence if he worked with them to nail Siegelman, their real target. This very process is a perversion of the justice system, which as former U.S. Attorney Jones very properly says, requires that prosecutors investigate crimes and not people. But it gets still worse. Bailey testifies that he saw a check change hands at a meeting at which Scrushy’s appointment to the oversight board was decided. This is the evidence that landed Siegelman in prison. And it was false. And the prosecutors knew that it was false.
JONES: They got a copy of the check. And the check was cut days after that meeting. There was no– there was no |
the electoral fraud, a move which suggested the possibility of urging new elections. In the face of this absurd and evident electoral fraud, a historic deed, the Electoral Observer Mission (EOM) of the OAS had recognized days before that on account of the fraudulent vote it was unable to ratify winners. But the words of the Mission and the OAS had little echo in the news media throughout the region.
The OAS ought to exercise, by means of an extraordinary effort, every pressure that it can bring to bear and of which it has already given great demonstrations in the extremely personal campaign of Almagro against the government of Venezuela. But the fraud in Honduras is so scandalous, that Almagro would have absolutely no problem with regard to moral legitimacy should he exercise even a small iota of the energy in the case of Honduras as he has wasted against the democratically elected President of Venezuela.
The same argument applies to the agencies of international cooperation. It is their moral and professional obligation to exercise every pressure of which they are capable, considering all the money they have sent to Honduras, to see to it that the fraudulent election of November be annulled and that new elections be called. This time there ought to be an iron grip control over the process to avoid a new fraud. It does not matter who wins in Honduras, the candidate of the left or of the right. But the will of the electorate ought to be respected as sacred.
Face to face with corruption.
If one scratches the surface just a little bit one discovers, in the political and institutional classes in Honduras (over informal conversation at the table, a working dinner, or an academic interview), the immediate emanation of the acidic smell of corruption. One knows everything; everyone knows. The information is so concrete, so openly obvious, that the international observer feels a strange taste on the palate, thinking about the officers of the Embassy of the United States, the functionaries of the OAS, the experts of the agencies of international cooperation, privy, on a daily basis, to the same conversations, to the same scandalous revelations. Why the inaction?
Here are some clues. Months before, interviewing ex president Manuel Zelaya, I asked him: “We all analyze the causes of the coup against your government, but, what do you yourself think, President, led to your ouster?
Zelaya responded firmly, quickly. “It was on account of Cuba and Venezuela.” He was indicating that they did not oust him by force from elected office on account of the issue he advanced before the Constituent Assembly or the struggle to reform the Constitution so that the president could be re-elected. This is the official version of those who backed the coup. Zelaya hit the nail on the head when he indicated that the political and financial class of Honduras, its power intact after two centuries, would never allow a reformist government (either of the left or the right, but principally progressive, as we can glean from recent events) to survive in Honduras. Even less would these elites allow a government inspired by Chavista or Castrista Bolivarianism, which they identify as the enemy of the socio-economic and political model that guarantees their situation of privilege. The political structure of Honduras, entrenched in the corporate power of the country, is a rigid construct that has never been reformed by a popular revolution, civil war, or process of independence and colonial reform as has the rest of the Americas. In this sense, the social structure of Honduras is much like a neo-feudalism that denies the democratization of access to power and that remains rabidly opposed to the integration of new social and political groups.
Irony: President Hernández was re-reelected without a coup
Zelaya has good reason to think this way. He comes from an area of large landowners of Honduras; he was a man of the traditional elite, to the great surprise of the sector to which he had belonged. Just a few years after having ousted him, the same right wing group around the National Party of Juan Orlando Hernández proceeded, once again in full view and scrutiny of the OAS, of the U.S. and of the international aid community, to authorize his own re-election by means of a Supreme Court selected by the President himself.
Without constitutional reform. Without a plebiscite. Without a coup. Without a world scandal. In truth: the silence of the international community is difficult to comprehend.
All of the national and international actors that condemned the consultative plebiscite of Zelaya to ask the Honduran people about reforming the Constitution to permit re-election in 2009 maintained an iron silence when president Hernández did the same thing in 2015. There was no condemnation from the OAS. There were no threats of applying the Democratic Charter and no call for the suspension on Honduras from the Permanent Council. The U.S. did not punish the members of the golpista regime and their functionaries with economic sanctions nor suspend their travel visas. Not one notable effect.
One irregular act among many
This is not the first time the battered Constitution of Honduras has been tarnished by machinations perpetrated by the will of the elite who are in power. The country goes through an enormous institutional scandal each year, authorizing, for example, golpista Roberto Micheletti to be a potential candidate in the presidential election despite being clearly and literally disqualified (presidents of Congress are not able to be candidates for president). But the Constitutional Court of the Supreme Court in 2008 simply ignored the same Constitution and authorized Micheletti to be a potential candidate. Reform by decree.
There are deeds of the past decade that border on the absurd. The same Constitutional Court, in 2008, prevented then Vice President Elvin Santos from being a potential presidential candidate, because he had been an interim president when Manuel Zelaya left the country. In the primary campaign, Santos found an incredibly ridiculous solution. He named Mauricio Villeda as his candidate-representative, while disseminating in the media that by voting for Villeda, electors would actually be voting for him (Santos) under the banner of the Liberal Party. If Villeda won, Santos would be the candidate. Amazing.
U.S.: A billion dollars, into the void.
The subject of the U.S. is separate chapter. The country to the North has spent an impressive sum of $1.2 billion on Honduras between 2005 and 2016 (source: USAID). It is on Honduran territory that the United States has one of the largest military bases of Central America, Palmerola. This was the same base where the plane carrying Zelaya had stopped during the 2009 coup in route to expel him from the country. Generous amounts of security related funding flows from the U.S. to the Honduran armed forces and police. And despite this flow of international aid, Honduras is sunk (an irony of the meaning of its name in Spanish: “depths”) in a critical security situation that in some ways constitutes a humanitarian crisis. Thousands of Hondurans are assassinated every year (60 to 88 murders per 100 thousand inhabitants, according to sources, one of the highest rates on the planet). The drug mafia is mixed up with the State and its institutions in a form more profound than Mexico. The police are feared by the prosecutors and ministers, and the gangs terrorize the population in every corner of the country. I have witnessed how lawyers who work for the Judiciary, do not identify themselves to agents of security in the streets in order not to fall victim to possible ambushes perpetrated by the same police.
In an act that does not have an explanation, the injection of resources of the U.S. for the police and armed forces of Honduras, the same forces that ousted Zelaya, is not conditioned with regard to results. The same drug mafias, gangs and assassinations continue without respite notwithstanding the hundreds of millions of dollars spent to no effect. And with a U.S. military base a few kilometers from the capital of the country. Another scandal that does not seem to penetrate the corridors of Washington DC.
A painful poverty
The population of Honduras is so chronically poor, that the traveler can find adults in a grave state of malnutrition, as I saw personally in the Montaña de la Flor, where the vestiges of indigenous tribes survive. In this zone, even the police eat once a day, and the population sometimes goes more than a day without food. According to the World Bank, 66% of Hondurans live in poverty. A social stain on all of the Americas. A shame for the Honduran financial elite.
This entire spectrum of social realities is a product of a political reality that is harmful and toxic to the Honduran population, a reality that emanates from the very political class in power, supported, sometimes by mere inaction by the U.S., the OAS and the international cooperation community. It appears the experiment of the left represented by Zelaya has significantly radicalized these three establishments. These three actors had mostly decided simply to look the other way in the face of the recent electoral fraud, with the aim of maintaining the most conservative status quo. Already there are several former presidents of Central America subject to judicial processes for flagrant corruption fighting to escape jail. As the electoral irregularities denounced by a report of the Observer Mission of the OAS demonstrates, Hernández has won some years of protection in power, but if the rumors being discussed over the tables of Tegucigalpa or San Pedro Sula are certain, the days of impunity are numbered. Such is the case should an ethical and morally legitimate position somehow be taken by the international community.
Translated into English by Frederick Mills, Professor of Philosophy, Bowie State University.
This article was originally published by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.In May 2017 we got one more book about Modern C++! A Few weeks ago I got a copy from Packt Publishing, and today I’d like to write a few words about the book. In short: it’s a very good book! :)
But let’s see what’s inside…
The Book
Modern C++ Programming Cookbook
by Marius Bancila
About Marius: his blog, @mariusbancila
His post about the book being published
source code available at PackPub site
The Structure
The Book is intended for all C++ developers, regardless of their experience. Beginner and intermediate developers will benefit the most from the book in their attempt to become prolific with C++.
Experienced C++ developers, on the other hand, will find a good reference for many C++11, C++14, and C++17 language and library features that may come in handy from time to time.
There are 11 chapters, around 550 pages, and over 100 recipes!
1. Learning Modern Core Language Features
Using auto, type aliases, uniform initialization, scoped enums, and even structured bindings (C++17)
2. Working with Numbers and Strings
Performing conversions, handling numeric types, user defined literals, string_view (C++17)
3. Exploring Functions
Deleted functions, lambdas, map and folds, higher order functions, functional programming
4. Preprocessor and Compilation
Conditional compilation, preprocessor hacks, enable_if (SFINAE), constexpr if (C++17), attributes.
5. Standard Library Containers, Algorithms, and Iterators
Using vector, bitset, algorithms, searching, writing a custom iterator
6. General Purpose Utilities
Time intervals, measuring time, hashing, std::any, std::optional, std::variant (all from C++17), visitors, type traits.
7. Working with Files and Streams
Reading and writing from/to files, serialization of objects, filesystem (C++17)
8. Leveraging Threading and Concurrency
Threads, locking, async invocation, implementing parallel map and fold, tasks, atomics.
9. Robustness and Performance
Exceptions, noexcept, constant expressions, smart pointers, move semantics.
10. Implementing Patterns and Idioms
improving factory patterns (by avoiding if…else statements), pimpl idiom, named parameter idiom, NVI, attorney-client idiom, thread-safe singleton.
11. Exploring Testing Frameworks
Writing tests in Boost.Test, Google Test, Catch
My View
As you can see with the book, we get a lot of useful recipes. What I like from the outset, is that there are topics from C++11, C++14, and even C++17. Thus the book is up to date (even further than the current C++ status!). The author explains clearly what changed between C++ versions. I know how hard it is to pick out all of those little nuances in the standard versions, so it’s a solid advantage of the book.
A few of recipes that caught my attention:
Enabling range-based for loops for custom types - very handy if you work with non standard library containers.
Creating cooked user-defined literals
Using string_view instead of constant string references
Using fold expressions to simplify variadic function templates.”
Chapters about functional programming
Providing metadata to the compiler with attributes
Serialization
C++17 library features: any, variant, optional and also filesystem.
,, and also filesystem. Patterns like attorney-client idiom.
Chrono
For example, with chrono I’ve found some beautiful code, take a look:
using namespace std :: chrono_literals ; auto d1 = 1h + 23min + 45s ; // d1 = 5025s auto d2 = 3h + 12min + 50s ; // d2 = 11570s if ( d1 < d2 ) { /* do something */ }
Isn’t this clean and expressive? The code is possible thanks to chrono_literals (available since C++14) and User Defined Literals (C++11).
The cookbook style is well suited for ‘modern’ learning when you want to quickly pick a topic and read - without the need to read from beginning to end. Here, depending on your knowledge level and experience you might want to read the whole book, or just choose several recipes. I like such an approach. I am a fan of cookbooks as I’ve reviewed some of them previously (like here,here and here)
With this book, we get a lot of ‘meat’ inside. There’s no theoretic/bloviated chapters, waffling or something like that… you get an actionable recipe that you can use in your code, experiment. Of course, recipes are often connected - in one chapter in particular they go from the most basic up to advanced areas.
I believe it was also quite hard to decide what to include in the book. In theory having ‘all’ recipes for C++ would take like 2000… or 3000 pages. Still, I think the book is well organized, and you get most of the useful stuff from modern C++. Of course, I’d like to ask for more :)
The selection of topics tries to cover all needs. If you need some specific/advanced parts then you can pick up other books like Effective Modern C++, C++ Concurrency in Action, Discovering Modern C++.
Summary
Final mark: 4.5/5
Pros:
Clear structure
Cookbook style, so read what you need
Chapters usually starts with some basic recipes and then increase the level of complexity.
Concise examples and details of how it works, so not just functions headers.
Modern coding standard, even with C++17 stuff!
C++11, C++14, and C++17 - with clear distinction, explanation of what have changeed, etc.
It doesn’t have much ‘intro to C++,’ so you can just jump into intermediate topics! It’s not another basic beginner’s book.
There are useful ‘tips’ here and there
Cons:
A few typos, repetitions, one missing function description
Chapter about unit testing frameworks could be shorter, but maybe other devs find it useful.
Some recipes are questionable: but that depends on the view/experience. For example: using bitset. And I’d like to see more performance topics in the performance chapter.
Overall, I like the book. With its clear structure and well-written recipes, it’s a good addition to any C++ bookshelf. It’s well suited for the target audience: even if you’re an expert, you’ll get a chance to refresh your knowledge and update it with C++14/C++17 content. And If you’ve just finished some beginner book, you’ll find here topics that will move you forward.
I am impressed how Marius ended up with such a good book, especially as it’s his first one as far as I know. I think the second edition of C++ Cookbook will be just perfect :)
Giveaway
The Giveaway has ended!.
Here are the winners:
Rene Aguirre
Josh Kelley
Cloud Force
Congratulations!NEW YORK – The recent arrest of Sheldon Silver the powerful speaker of the Democratic-dominated New York State Assembly is only the latest in a series of events that has raised the volume on calls for ethics and political reform in New York State.
New York Gov. Cuomo has said he will hold up budget negotiations if the state legislature doesn’t approve measures that would “disclose to the public all the outside income lawmakerst receive, from whom, for what and whether there is any connection to the state government or the office that they hold.” Historically state legislators have been considered part-time ‘citizen-legislators’ – many having income outside their legislative salary. Former Speaker Silver’s arrest stems from approximately $6 million he received from law firms he was associated with.
Cuomo’s recent proposals include, full disclosure of all outside income, politicians convicted of corruption would forfeit their state pensions, greater restrictions on per-diems and campaign finance reform. “Public finance is the only option to ensure democratic access to the system,” Cuomo said at a recent talk at New York University. But Cuomo has also faced criticism that earlier attempts he made at ethics reform have fallen short, including the establishment of the Moreland Commission, tasked with investigating corruption in state government that he disbanded before it had completed its work. His decision to shut-down the commission is now being investigated by federal prosecutors. Commission files now in the hands of the U.S. District Attorney led to the arrest of Silver.
Before it was disbanded the Moreland Commission’s main proposal to end corruption in politics was the establishment of a robust system of public financing of elections and many have renewed that call in wake of the recent scandals urging Governor Cuomo, whose proposed budget currently includes public financing, to not bow to pressure to remove it. Many have also called for an end to outside income for state legislators. Both reforms are viewed as fundamental if corruption and corporate-influence on politics in New York state are to be addressed.
Many have viewed with scepticism the state government’s ability to reform itself with a governor who himself has close ties with corporate donors and a Republican-controlled state senate that has vigorously resisted progressive reforms. But public disgust is high and U.S. District Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office arrested Silver, hinted at more to come.
Photo: APJorge Posada, making the rounds on his book tour, had this to say about PED guys and the Hall of Fame on CBS This Morning:
Strassmann then brought up Roger Clemens and [Alex] Rodriguez, both former teammates of Posada who were known to be cheating. He asked the five-time All Star if those guys should be allowed in the Hall of Fame. “No,” he said bluntly. “I don’t think it’s fair for the guys that have been in the Hall of Fame that played the game clean... I don’t think it’s fair. I really don’t. I think the guys that need to be in the Hall of Fame need to be a player that played with no controversy.”
Posada wouldn’t have his 2009 World Series ring without Alex Rodriguez. Or some of his earlier ones without Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte. Who, it’s worth noting, was not brought up here because no one ever thinks to bring up Andy Pettitte when PED guys are mentioned even though there is just as much PED dirt on him as there is on Clemens. When you “aw shucks” your PED “confession,” however, you get a lot more leeway. Even if it was just as disingenuous as everyone else’s.
That aside, Posada is entitled to his opinion on this. And it helps him that his opinion seems to fit pretty squarely in with the majority of fans and people in and out of the game. But I would be curious to see how he gets on with A-Rod, if at all, when he’s back in the Yankees clubhouse before having his number retired later this year.CAIRO -- A former Cairo police officer has been arrested and charged with attempting to illegally purchase a weapon.
State police arrested 42-year-old Anthony Neeley Tuesday night in Pulaski County. He is being held at the Tri-County Detention Center,
Court records accuse Neeley of trying to purchase weapons illegally at the Cairo Police Department back in March of this year, where he was working as an officer there at the time.
Prosecutors accuse him of abusing his position as an officer by attempting to purchase weapons from an evidence custodian. Law enforcement officials say Neeley had tried to purchase guns.
The Cairo Police Chief was unavailable for comment and officers with the department refused to answer questions about the case.
Terry Riddle runs the Mound City Police Department and said Neeley had recently worked as an officer there.
However Neeley was suspended for his involvement in a bar fight with a former Mounds Police Chief back in August, according to Riddle.
Neeley is no longer employed at the Mound City Police Department.
Because local law enforcement know Neeley, a special prosecutor with the Illinois Office of State's Attorneys is handling the case.
Prosecutors refused to comment on the investigation, but say Neeley could face three to five years in prison.
Neeley's next court appearance will be Monday, December 21 in the Alexander County Courthouse.During our recent discussion of the Los Angeles Dodgers Top 20 prospects list for 2017, a reader asked me to weigh in on lefty Grant Dayton, who was rated as a Grade C+ prospect but outside the Top 20. Dayton is something of a special case and a pitcher I've had my eye on for several years. Let's explore.
Dayton pitched three years of college baseball at Auburn, with so-so results: a 4.66 ERA in 249 innings with a 217/49 K/BB and 289 hits allowed. He threw strikes but wasn't dominant, falling to the 11th round in the 2010 draft and selected by the Miami Marlins.
The Marlins moved Dayton to the bullpen and he was immediately successful, dominating Low-A, and High-A, and Double-A. He continued to throw strikes as he did in college but his dominance ratios took a huge leap forward, with a 12.43 K/9 in 2011, 10.65 in 2012, and 13.26 in 2013. Despite this, he didn't receive much attention on prospect lists.
I wrote him up in the 2014 book with the following comment:
You seldom see Grant Dayton mentioned as a prospect. Despite his relative anonymity, his performance record in the minors is excellent. An 11th round pick from Auburn in ’10, he’s racked up first-rate K/IP and H/IP ratios at every level and usually throws strikes. He’ll vary his fastball anywhere between 88 and 94 MPH, he has a good slider, he has a good changeup, and hitters just seem to have a really tough time getting a read on him. His stuff is better than the typical LOOGY type and I suspect he’ll be an effective source of relief innings. The Marlins have a lot of material with which to build a bullpen, and Dayton looks like one of the better bricks. Grade C+.
The numbers were terrific and he was almost unhittable when I saw him in person. Why didn't he get more attention?
He had another good year in '14, this time in Double-A and Triple-A, though his control slipped a bit. He posted a 3.13 ERA (the worst of his career to that point) and walked 26 in 72 innings, while striking out 79. There was still no major league promotion. For 2015 I wrote this:
Nobody ever talks about this guy as a prospect. I’m really not sure why. The numbers are there and when I’ve seen him the stuff has been at the very least in the decent category and sometimes more. He can hit 93 with his fastball, his slider has some bite to it, and his control is generally good. He had some gopheritis at times in the Pacific Coast League but that isn’t exactly unusual and hasn’t been an issue for most of his career. He’s 27 now but still strikes me as a plausible bullpen piece. Grade C.
He was finally liberated in 2015, traded to the Dodgers for lefty Chris Reed in July. And after another round of strong pitching in 2016 (2.42, 91/11 K/BB in 52 innings) he finally got a chance in the majors.
And as you know, he made the most of it. MLB hitters were not more successful than Double-A and Triple-A hitters. In 26 innings he posted a 2.05 ERA with a ridiculous 39/6 K/BB.
Dayton's fastball topped out at 95 in the majors with an average reading of 92. It plays up because of his command. He relies primarily on the fastball but his secondary pitches are solid enough, with a curve in the 70-80 MPH range and a change-up in the 80s. He can hit any velocity marker between 69 and 95 MPH, giving him a lot of options. He's had no trouble with platoon splits and gets right-handers out as well as lefties.
At age 29, he is not a classic prospect age-wise. But he's also not exactly a "pop up out of nowhere" guy. He has always been an effective pitcher. The only time his ratios slipped was when he first reached Triple-A and saw a rise in his walk rate, but he quickly corrected that. He has a career 11.51 K/9 in the minor leagues, while giving up less than three walks per nine innings. There's nothing especially weird about his delivery. no obvious mechanical red flags to scare scouts off. He's always been healthy. There doesn't seem to be anything negative in his makeup.
So how did this guy get missed?
I think there was some groupthink going on here. When I first noticed Dayton dominating hitters a few years ago, there seemed to be a lot of skepticism about his ability to pull it off at higher levels due to his non-elite fastball. The Marlins didn't seem particularly impressed, and if you focused on "inside sources" you might not think much about him.
However, the strikeouts kept coming, and it wasn't like he was throwing 84 MPH or something; his velocity was always decent and it slowly but steadily ticked up. As noted the numbers were there, and if you saw him in person you could see that the hitters just could not pick him up.
So that's Grant Dayton. I think he's for real, and he always has been.A man who says he was bitten twice by an unleashed dog in a Centretown park is accusing the city of operating an unsafe facility.
John Dacombe, a dog owner himself, walks to and from work through McNabb Park at the corner of Bronson and Gladstone avenues. He says he's been bitten twice by the same unleashed dog in recent months.
"When it happened again last week the owner was present," Dacombe says. "I confronted the owner who claimed it was my fault for walking through an off leash dog park, which it clearly is not an off leash dog park."
The signs at the entrance to McNabb Park say dogs are not allowed in the park from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday to Friday. The signs say dogs are allowed in the park from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on weekends, but only if they're leashed.
The McNabb Park also has no gates, unlike an off leash dog park on Elgin Street, which is completely enclosed and secured by double fences.
Dogs only allowed off leash weekends from 6:30 p.m.-7 a.m., city says
Dacombe says he was frustrated because the city didn't seem to know what to do.
"When bylaw attended last night, [they said] they could not ticket anyone who was standing around with their dogs off leash... because they don't know the status of the park, even though the signage has been here for years stating it's a no-dog park most of the time," he says.
Dacombe says he's considering suing the city.
"I was bitten by a dog in a park that clearly states no dogs at the time it happened and so far the city has taken no action against either that dog or any of the off leash dogs in the park. So as far as I'm concerned, the city is liable for injury to my person," he says.
In an emailed statement sent Thursday, the city says the signage at McNabb is correct. The statement added that dogs are only allowed off leash on weekends from 6:30 p.m. to 7 a.m.
There are currently no signs at the park about allowing dogs off leash.
Poll questionIt is unlikely you can negotiate away the test, because it is something they have decided to expect in the interview process.
Personally, I would agree that their process is flawed - see e.g. A programming task is scaring off candidates, should we ditch it? for much discussion on appropriateness of such a test. Although stannius comments that at least this company has not used a long technical test at an early stage as a cheap filter, so is behaving with more respect of candidate's time than some.
Your counter-arguments are probably not going to hit the mark because of this, and are IMO not worth raising.
I have solid evidence of proficiency in language X by pointing to my side work (in github) over the past 3 years, spanning 100's of hours of my own personal time
How does the interviewer know this without detailed study of your projects, and some kind of evidence that the contributions are actually yours? An in-house test will solve a problem that the interviewer is familiar with and should be able to judge required skills from. In short it is less effort and risk for the company to use a standard test.
Given my desire to convey myself as a rigorous, test-heavy software engineer, it will likely take me ~6-8 hours to complete the exercise. In other words, to put my true face forward, I don't expect to complete the work in ~4 hours unless I give it less than 100%.
I too find that these tests can take longer than suggested, although it varies a lot with different employers. I don't see a valid argument for not attempting the task here though, just a complaint that it is "too much work", and also a potential red flag that you will take double estimated time on real tasks in future because you expect to take your approach to test-driven development ahead of whatever the company thinks is appropriate.
to be honest, I'd rather use my personal time to continue studying my current "curriculum" of side projects, namely more advanced features and OSS in language X
What you want to use your personal time for is not something the interviewing company takes into account, any more than for instance your commute time should you accept the job.
The company may be wrong in their assessment of how useful the interview task is (or they lack appreciation of decent tests and your hobby work). They may not consider how much of a barrier the interview task is to getting good candidates. However, confronting them with that opinion before they've decided to hire you may give the impression you are argumentative, and is likely to reduce your chance of being hired.
Ultimately, you have to play their game by their rules, or decide it is not worth it.
Once you are hired, you may find yourself with enough good will and trust that you can give some feedback on their interview process. Although I suggest waiting until you are either asked or you feel you have built up enough trust that you can speak frankly on the issue. Future hires, and maybe even the company, may thank you if so.Simple methods are improving yields of cassava and other staples, but conflict complicates life for farmers in North Kivu
Buganga, a pretty village surrounded by lush green hills dotted with banana trees, is a picture of rural tranquility; it contrasts starkly with the dusty streets and bustle of Goma, a city in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Josephine Mwamini has just helped her husband to harvest haricot beans, which lie in a heap drying in the sun. Sitting on a plastic chair in the shade of a tree outside her home, she speaks of her satisfaction with the harvests of the past two years after new techniques boosted yields on the small plot where her family grows beans, peanuts and maize.
"I'm very happy, the new methods have helped a lot, we have more to eat and we sell what is left over," she says.
It's the same story for the 2,000 farmers organised into groups of 30 in farmer field schools as part of a project involving World Vision. Learning about improved techniques has enabled them to increase yields: where once they harvested two bags of cassava, now they get 15. They plan to form business associations designed to improve farmer access to markets.
Through these associations – essentially collectives – farmers pool resources to build storage facilities, strengthening their bargaining power when buying seeds and equipment from suppliers. At the other end, the farmers' groups get better prices by cutting out the middleman and selling directly to markets in the nearby town of Minova and even further afield in Goma, a couple of hours' drive on a bumpy road that twists and turns around Lake Kivu.
The project places much emphasis on empowering women. Its elements include the use of radio programmes to discuss issues such as violence against women, the introduction of labour-saving devices – machines to slice cassava, for example – and training women to become community leaders.
The techniques adopted through farmers' field schools are strikingly simple. A similar approach has been successfully applied elsewhere, benefiting smallholder farmers from Kenya to Uganda, and from Ethiopia to South Sudan.
Planting in a straight line, instead of scattering the seeds randomly, is key. The plants, whether cassava or cabbage, should also be spaced appropriately so the roots have sufficient room. In Buganga, the new cassava plants, with their broad leaves and pink-reddish stems, are spaced 25-30cm apart.
It is striking that such simple techniques can be so effective. The villagers in this area of North Kivu province are fortunate in that the volcanic soil here is highly fertile. In dry areas of Kenya, other simple methods such as drip irrigation, where water is released drop by drop directly on to the roots of the plant, are also of tremendous help.
Given that the adoption of these methods can go a considerable way towards alleviating hunger – a major objective of the If campaign launched last week by more than 100 NGOs – one wonders why they are not used even more widely.
In the past two years, increased yields of groundnuts, cassava, beans, maize and other crops have been the good news for the villagers of Buganga. But life is anything but simple in DRC, a land ravaged by recurrent outbreaks of fighting between indisciplined, underequipped and underpaid government troops and a proliferation of militias, where the state is so weak that people are left largely to their own devices.
In the latest flare-up of violence in the area in December, army troops retreating before the M23 rebels – whom the UN says are backed by neighbouring Rwanda – forced the villagers to carry their supplies and pick cassava leaves, tomatoes and cabbage for them to eat. In short, they stole the villagers' food. The fighting has subsided, but fears linger as a weak government in Kinshasa holds talks aimed at striking a durable peace deal with the rebels.
In the longer term, the area of North Kivu has been hit by a disease known as "banana wilt", which is killing banana trees not just in the eastern Congo but in Rwanda. The effects are clear to see in Buganga, where the tree trunks have rotted.
In this part of DRC, the picture for food security is mixed: farmers are seeing encouraging results as they adopt simple methods recommended by NGOs, but renewed conflict is causing disruption and disease is killing off a vital crop.
• This article was amended on 30 January 2013 to correct references to South Kivu, which should have been to North KivuEvery “Dance Moms” fan vividly remembers the day Maddie Ziegler infamously forgot her routine on stage at regionals and the hysterics that followed.
“I’ve never done this before!” Maddie told the competition's showrunners while in tears during the Season 2 episode “Abbygeddon.” “Can I please go again? Please? Please? Abby’s gonna hate me!”
Two years after the shocking episode aired, the show’s star, ALDC coach Abby Lee Miller, is now coming forward to say the dancer’s forgetfulness was a ploy staged by the Lifetime series’ producers.
According to a report from Radar Online, Miller, 47, revealed the shocking confession in a passage from her new tell-all book/parenting advice guide, “Everything I Learned About Life, I Learned In Dance Class.”
“In one episode, Maddie supposedly forgot her dance, but in reality, it was all set up by production,” Miller writes. “They set the ball in motion at the beginning of the week so that Maddie didn’t have enough studio time to finish learning her solo.”
Miller goes on to assert that Maddie, now 11, and star of Sia’s music video “Chandelier,” was barred from learning her routine by producers. According to the coach, the girl was forced to leave her Pittsburgh dance studio after learning only six to four counts of her lyrical solo, leaving her no choice but to learn two-thirds of the routine the morning of the competition.
Aside from Maddie’s last-minute dance lesson, Miller also blames the program’s jib camera operator, claiming the “Dance Moms” crew member held the equipment too close to the performers on stage, purposely interfering with their steps.
“The other thing you don’t see in the episode is that the job camera operator didn’t know what he was doing and two kids before Maddie and two kids after Maddie fan off-stage because they forgot their dances. That never happens,” Miller said. “I think that was absolutely criminal on the part of the job operator, the director, the producer and all involved.”
Despite several of her ALDC students forgetting their routines at least once over the three-year course of “Dance Moms” history, Miller insists that Maddie’s forgetfulness was by the far the most upsetting.
“I don’t want to ever see that happen to a kid,” she |
is a patch of grass owned by the Office of Public Works, which sits, scattered with rubbish, at the corner of Church Street. Another is a site behind a fence on Benburb Street, owned by the Law Society of Ireland.
The OPW didn’t reply to questions about the site’s value, and their plans for it. Kathy McKenna, who handles PR for the Law Society of Ireland, said in an email: “The plan is to integrate this site into the existing Blackhall Place campus at some point in the future.” She didn’t give details of when this might happen.
The Law Society’s site is currently advertised online as a available to rent for film companies with rigs, or as open storage, or as a car park. “Any potential user would have to apply for the appropriate planning permission. However, there has been little interest in this offering over the past number of years,” said McKenna.
The Law Society is “conscious of its social responsibility regarding the appearance of the site,” she added, and there are plans for another art installation on the boundary fence in collaboration with the arts organisation The Complex.
Further along the Red Line at smaller sites towards the city centre, there are some newish notices hooked onto fences, indicating intent to apply for planning permission.
On 6 November 2015, a notice went up at 144 Abbey Street Upper to announce plans by AXA Ireland Limited to carry out a five-year improvement scheme, including some landscaping to make a garden on the site.
Down towards Heuston Station, Tuath Housing Association is working on a feasibility study to use the abandoned Ellis Court for social housing.
“Put Up or Move On”
At Dublin City Council’s Central Area Committee meeting on Tuesday morning, councillors agreed to write to those responsible for three of the biggest sites on the Red Line from Abbey Street to Heuston Station– the OPW, the Law Society, and NAMA – to ask them to set out their plans.
“I think they should kind of put up, or move on,” said local councillor Ciaran Cuffe, of the Green Party, who put forward the motion.
Back in 2014, a Dublin City Council presentation tallied up roughly 90,000 sqm of property that could have been developed but hadn’t, on the strip that runs along the Red Line from Abbey Street to Heuston Station.
Today, there are small pockets of change, but the big picture remains much the same.
Whether it’s financial issues or legal issues that are stymieing development, it shouldn’t be an excuse, Cuffe said. “Legal issues require lawyers... get the lawyers on and move on. I’m sick and tired of the legal issues thing being used to leave stuff empty for 25 years.”
Cuffe said he intends to keep the pressure on the owners of the underused sites along this stretch of the Red Line.Researchers at Queensland Institute of Medical Research have claimed of making a breakthrough that could lead to a potential cure for AIDS.
According to a researcher David Harrich scientists have discovered how to modify a protein in HIV so that, instead of replicating, it protects against the infection. Harrich said,"I consider that this is fighting fire with fire. What we've actually done is taken a normal virus protein that the virus needs to grow, and we've changed this protein, so that instead of assisting the virus, it actually impedes virus replication and does it quite strongly." Harrich added that modified protein cannot cure HIV but it has protected human cells from AIDS in the laboratory.
"This therapy is potentially a cure for AIDS. So it's not a cure for HIV infection, but it potentially could end the disease", he said. Over 30,000 people have been diagnosed with HIV in Australia. If clinical trials are successful, one treatment could be effective enough to replace the multiple therapies they currently need, ABC News reported today.
"Drug therapy targets individual enzymes or proteins and they have one drug, one protein," Associate Professor Harrich said. He added that they have to take two or three drugs, so this would be a single agent that essentially has the same effect.
"So in that respect, this is a world-first agent that's able to stop HIV with a single agent at multiple steps of the virus life cycle."
He said that the new treatment has the potential to make big improvements in the quality of life for those carrying HIV. I think what people are looking for is basically a means to go on and live happy and productive lives with as little intrusion as possible."You either have to eliminate the virus infection or alternatively you have to eliminate the disease process and that's what this could do, potentially for a very long time."Harrich said animal trials are due to start this year and early indications are positive", Harrich said.He said,"This particular study is going to have some hurdles to jump through, but so far every test that we have put this protein through has passed with flying colours.
PTI
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.Jay Leno continued his humorous attacks on the White House Friday.
In the middle of a lengthy set of opening monologue jokes about the various scandals plaguing Barack Obama, the NBC Tonight Show host said, “We wanted a president that listens to all Americans - now we have one” (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):
JAY LENO: Well, let's see what's going on. Hey, Snoop is back in the news. Not Snoop Dogg, Snoop Obama. Yeah, Snoop Obama. A big change at the White House today. They closed the gift shop and opened a Verizon store. Yeah.
Well, this has become a huge controversy after it was revealed that the National Security Agency seized millions of Verizon phone records, and of course this has caused a panic among civil libertarians, constitutional scholars and cheating husbands everywhere. Oh my God.
How ironic is that? We wanted a president that listens to all Americans - now we have one. Yeah.
Actually, President Obama clarified the situation today. He said no one is listening to your phone calls. The president said it's not what the program is all about. You know, like the IRS isn’t about targeting certain political groups. That's not what it's about!
I mean what's going on? The White House has looked into our phone records, checking our computers, monitoring our e-mails. When did the government suddenly become our psycho ex-girlfriend? When did that happen? When did that happen? When did that happen?
You know, I'll tell you, if Obama wants to put this snooping thing to good use, how about spying on the IRS next time they throw a $4 million party. Why don't you do that one? Yes, exactly, exactly. Find out about that. Yeah.Nearly two centuries ago, Sébastien Érard made a name for himself designing and manufacturing a line of exquisite pianos that would bear his name. It just so happens that one of those pianos, after 6,000 miles of travel, and 140 years making of music, led me on an adventure through the secret bookshops of Lima, Peru. Here’s how it happened.
The piano’s journey
This piano embodies the legacy of Érard’s ingenious designs and dedication to craftsmanship. It was carefully assembled, with painstaking precision, way back in 1875 and emblazoned with the Érard family name. Only one year later (as I found through a little detective work), it was sold in Paris to a man by the name of Vicomte Marco del Pont.
It is currently unclear which particular member of the Marcó del Pont family purchased the piano, however he was likely related to Francisco Marcó del Pont, the final Spanish imperial governor in Chile, who was captured around 1917 and imprisoned in the struggle for Chilean independence.
Perhaps the Marcó del Pont family was able to maintain positive relations in Chile, enough so that the piano’s purchaser—or a descendent—oversaw the piano’s incredible journey across the sea, from France to the Chilean coast. I don’t yet know much about its life between then and now, except that at some point, a Chilean ambassador gave the piano away as a gift. This I was told by Carlota, the owner of the El Virrey bookstore in Lima, Peru, whose family was the recipient of said gift. I am touched by how this piano, a symbol of human creativity and camaraderie, rests quietly as a monument to reconciliation among different peoples.
This is where I came upon it in 2015, where it still stood. Flanked by legions of dusty hardcovers. Ready for a little TLC.
A chance discovery
I first met the piano back in October, near the beginning of my time in Peru. My wife was looking for books for her anthropological studies, so we hunted down this book shop, El Virrey. When we arrived, to our surprise, the piano was resting there magesticaly—waiting for us.
Pianos are artifacts. They’re creatures that have evolved and changed over many years. They hold stories and histories.
As noted in the previous post, during my first encounter at El Virrey I tried to talk to Carlota, who was running the shop, with my broken Spanish. Then, with a little interpretation from Diego, her friendly employee, I found out she was the daughter of the man who had received the piano from the Chilean ambassador.
I told her about my mission here with FPF, and she was excited by the idea, sharing what she knew of her incredible piano’s history. We bonded over music and books and the spirit of intercultural understanding. I wanted to fix this piano up for her. And it needed it. Badly.
Unfortunately, since I didn’t have my tools, and was leaving Lima the next day, I couldn’t tune it up just then. I promised I would return in November.
So I did.
Our reunion
I was excited to come back to Lima, so I could revisit El Virrey and the Érard, this time with my tools in tow.
When I finally got to the shop, neither Carlota nor Diego, the people I had previously spoken with, were there. Fortunately, Daniel, the employee on duty, was well aware of my project and my plans. So I happily got to work.
Here was the evidence, inside this intrepid instrument, like a living fossil.
The piano was in rough shape. It was out of tune, with a tired action, and full of the marks of its age. Still, I took my time and gave it the attention it needed. I disassembled things, section by section, and searching the insides, I found a masterpiece of design that was intriguing to explore. Though the piano’s action functions exactly like modern pianos, the particulars of implementation and structure are unique and fascinating.
Érard invented the repitition lever, the last major improvement to how the modern piano action functions, and made many other contributions to the development of pianos as we know them now. How intriguing to see the concepts he introduced implemented more directly as he envisioned them, using the materials and techniques available in this intermediate period. Here was the evidence, inside this intrepid instrument, like a living fossil. Who knows how long it had been since someone had seen these inner workings. I was honored.
Our adventures continue
My wife was still on the hunt for several rare books for her own work, and she became fast friends with the team running the shop. As I brought the piano back into tune, and started to wrap up, some new information came our way.
We thanked the swashbuckling piano that had brought us all here together.
Our friends, Diego and Daniel, told my wife that if she really wanted to dig deep into the stacks of elusive literature in Peru, there was more than just El Virrey. In fact, there were several secret book shops in town that we would never know existed. They were hidden in the shadows of neighborhoods that we shouldn’t visit alone at night.
And they offered to take us to them.
That evening, we found ourselves winding through clandestine roads and alleys, our guides ushering us into rooms lined from floor to ceiling with a panoply of printed gold. We pored over stacks and piles. We wondered at these nooks of Lima that visitors rarely find. We thanked the swashbuckling piano that had brought us all here together.
The keys to new connections
This is the heart of our ambassador program.
Sure, we tune pianos. That’s our gig. But we’re interested in so much more than that.
Pianos are artifacts. They’re creatures that have evolved and changed over many years. They hold stories and histories.
This is where I came upon it in 2015, where it still stood. Flanked by legions of dusty hardcovers. Ready for a little TLC.
Every time we come upon a new piano, prepared to perform a careful and caring surgery upon it, we also meet its owners. Its current owners, yes, of course, but also the ghosts of each previous owner, of everyone who previously touched its keys.
We find connections. Cultural connections. Global connections. Personal connections. We learn about literature and history and foreign diplomacy. Along the way, we learn a little bit about ourselves.
After 14 decades, this world-traveling piano is still having adventures. And its helping us to have some, too.
About this series: Floating piano has come to be internationally known, and thanks to the internet we’re getting inquiries worldwide about our top-rated apprenticeship program. This has inspired us to try to connect with international piano lovers in person via some transcontinental traveling. Eathan Janney, lead technician and founder of FPF will be visiting Peru to search for human connections through pianos. Meanwhile our star apprentices Daniel DiMaggio, Bimol Karmaker and Tom Erickson are manning the ship at home in NYC, ready to tune your piano to the highest standards.
As a “Goodwill” Ambassador, FPF assigns itself the task of connecting with piano owners in various locations and exploring the histories of their pianos. We will document these adventures and stories, and as a gesture of good will, offer to tune the pianos for free. Piano tuning is our business, but we are also fascinated with the non-transactional aspects of a piano tuning visit: the interaction with a piano owner, the sharing of music, the caring for an object that has a life history of its own. Music is a global phenomenon that exists outside of the physical, political, and national boundaries that may separate us. We would like to highlight these factors by making connections through pianos and sharing these stories with you.
Special thanks to playwright Chad Eschman for collaborating on this post.What on Earth are pycnofibers?
You wait month to publish a paper and then two come along in as many days. So with the baby killing theropods now dealt with, we can turn to pycnofibers.
Yes, finally that term all pterosaur workers have been waiting for has been established. Pterosaur ‘hair’, ‘body fibers’, ‘fur’ and the rest can be consigned to the bin to be replaced by the term pycnofiber. A new paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B led by Alex Kellner (pictured), however redescribes some of the soft tissues from the wonderfully preserved anurognathid pterosaur Jeholopterus from the Yixian and sets this problem to rights by coining the term pycnofiber. It really is more of a housekeeping issue than anything else, but a useful one. Of course that’s hardly the main thrust of the paper in which we discuss the structure of the main wing as well as the pycnofibers themselves with both new observations and some more UV work from Helmut Tischlinger.
For those not keeping up, pterosaurs (among a great deal of other known soft tissues) were basically furry. Some at least (and given the sparsity of their preservation quite possibly many, or even all) were covered in some kind of integumentary fiber that looked really quite like fur. The best known of these is Sordes pilosus (the ‘hairy devil’) which is often mentioned round about this point as the best, but not only, example.
However being, well, pterosaurs one could hardly call their ‘fur’ fur, or hair for that matter, these being the preserve of synapsids (and by extensions, mammals). Nor (despite some calls for it) could they be considered protofeathers as there is no established homology between them and saurischian protofeathers and feathers (or for that matter ornithischian dermal structures). This has left pterosaur researchers with a problem – these are clearly different things and we refer to the quite often but with no-one having gone out onto a limb and named them, we were left with a variety of half-names all of them convoluted or presented in quotation marks.
This has been an issue for a while and I actually ended up discussing the idea of having a formal name (or at least acronym) for them to try and clear up the confusion with Daves Unwin and Martill not too long ago. (Ultimately they rejected my Pterosaurian Integumanraty Structures as forming the inappropriate acronym PISs, though I felt this a. wasn’t the point, and b. was quite pleased with my purile effort, though the ideas to have *something* persisted). Fortunately however this search is now over and the pycnofiber is born.
We of course also talk about other things in this paper, first off confirming that in this specimen the wing membrane attaches at the ankle and also that despite the short tail, there is a broad uropatagium (the rear wing) present. For the first time we observe actinofibrils (those fibers that support the wings) lying in multiple layers (not just a single one) and these tend to cross each other a little, though they are essentially subparallel. This tells us something about the structure and to a lesser extent function of the wing.
I won’t go in to this in more detail, not for lack of interest but simply because it rapidly gets very technical after this and requires quite a mountain of background knowledge of pterosaur anatomy and several decades worth of debate about various minor issues some of which are at least clarified here. I also have more things I want to say based on this work that will be going into another paper or two that I’m working on so understandably I don’t want to splash it around the web while I’m still writing it, so sorry if this report is a bit underwhelming. If you are really desperate to read into all this you can of course just read the paper since that’s kinda the point of publishing them.
Alexander W. A. Kellner,, Xiaolin Wang,, Helmut Tischlinger,, Diogenes de Almeida Campos,, David W. E. Hone,, & Xi Meng (2009). The soft tissue of Jeholopterus (Pterosauria, Anurognathidae, Batrachognathinae) and the structure of the pterosaur wing membrane Proc. R. Soc. B : 10.1098/rspb.2009.0846
Share this PostNot content to diminish American power on his watch, Barack Obama seems dead set on a course of action to ensure that he locks in that sadly reduced America for his successor.
For some years the Chinese have been aggressively pushing their influence into the South China Sea. This is not some obscure region. Forty percent of the world’s trade and fifty percent of all energy trade passes through that area. Also at stake are undetermined quantities of oil, natural gas, and minerals on the sea bed. (full run down)
The key terrain here are the Spratly and Paracel Islands. These are tiny and mostly uninhabitable. A large number of them are only visible at low tide. These are the competing claims. Pay special attention to the red line that marks what China claims as territorial waters:
The area is hotly contested. In 1974, Vietnam and China fought a short naval action for control of the Parcels which Vietnam lost. They had a rematch in 1988, with the same results.
To bolster its claim, China has set about building artificial islands and putting bases on them.
(Lots more photos like this.)
Finally, after nearly seven years in office, the Obama administration was goaded into action. The idea was to conduct a “freedom of navigation” exercise near the Chinese artificial island of Subi Reef:
The idea was that the USS Lassen, and Arleigh Burke-class Aegis-equipped destroyer would transit the area near Sufi Reef and do so in a manner that indicated the South China Sea was considered international waters. This is important. A warship transiting another nation’s territorial waters, under the concept of “innocent passage,” may not do anything associated with military activity. No sonar, no launching of aircraft, no activation of fire control radar, no use of firearms, etc.
Now, the administration is preparing to endorse what the military calls enhanced “freedom of navigation operations,” which would have American ships and aircraft venture within 12 nautical miles of at least some artificial islands built by Beijing. Washington believes that a crucial principle is at stake in the dispute over the South China Sea — the international laws and rules that serve as the foundation of the global economy. … “If one country selectively ignores these rules for its own benefit, others will undoubtedly follow, eroding the international legal system and destabilizing regional security and the prosperity of all Pacific states,” Adm. Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in September. The admiral, who oversees U.S. forces across the Asia-Pacific region, said he favored sending ships and planes within the 12-mile zone to make clear the Chinese claims to “territorial sea” carried no legal weight. The patrols had been conducted routinely until 2012, before Beijing launched its vast land reclamation work. His comments drew an angry response from China’s Foreign Ministry, whichsaid Beijing “opposes any country’s attempt to challenge China’s territorial sovereignty and security under the pretext of safeguarding navigation” and urged the United States “to exercise caution in its words and deeds.”
What happened?
But over the last week, Pentagon and administration officials have struggled to explain exactly what the Lassen did when it sailed near Subi Reef, where China has constructed an island dredged from the sea floor. When questioned by Foreign Policy, officials offered conflicting accounts as to whether the ship took steps to directly challenge China’s maritime claims in the strategic waterway — or whether it pulled its punches, tacitly conceding Beijing’s position. Initially, officials insisted the Lassen carried out a freedom of navigation operation, which could mean the vessel operated sonar, had its helicopters take off from the deck, or lingered in the area. But other officials said they could not confirm it was a freedom of navigation mission and that the ship may have refrained from any helicopter flights or intelligence gathering — and instead simply sailed through without loitering or circumnavigating the area. Further adding to the confusion, the P-8 surveillance plane accompanying the Lassen appears to have stayed outside the 12-mile range of the man-made island, a boundary that delimits territorial seas and airspace. The administration’s mixed messaging has played out publicly in recent days on both sides of the Pacific. U.S. officials told Defense News over the weekend that the Lassen had merely made an “innocent passage” close to the artificial island at Subi Reef — a phrase with a specific meaning under maritime law that applies to sailing through other countries’ territorial waters. On Monday, officials repeated the same claim to U.S. Naval Institute News, saying the ship and an accompanying surveillance plane took steps that would signal acquiescence to Beijing’s claims.
In fact, the US Naval Institute writes that the USS Lassen did conduct an innocent passage:
The decision for Lassen to transit via innocent passage by Subi Reef was made by the White House from a menu of freedom of navigation missions presented by Pentagon and U.S. Pacific Command officials, several sources confirmed to USNI News on Monday. Under international maritime law, a warship is allowed to make an innocent passage through any nations territorial waters without prior notification if it does not conduct any military operations in transit — like activating fire control radars, firing weapons, conducting drills or transmitting propaganda. The U.S. does not recognize any of the expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea’s Spratly Island chain — not only by China but also by Vietnam and the Philippines — and believes its ships are within their rights to come within 12 nautical miles of any of the disputed features without having to honor innocent passage rules. Lassen’s innocent passage was meant by no means a U.S. recognition of any of China’s territorial claims based on their artificial islands, a defense official told USNI News on Monday.
The ambiguous nature of the USS Lassen’s mission is not good. At a time when our allies in the region are clamoring for our attention and China is hellbent on controlling a major marine chokepoint
If we do not assert the fact that the South China Sea is open to free transit of maritime traffic then not only will the Chinese be emboldened… more than they are… but also we increase the odds of an armed conflict between the various claimants of territorial sovereignty in the region.
Like so much else the Obama administration does, it is designed for public relations reasons. Just like the infamous “gutsy call” meme the White House started about the no-brain-no-choice strike against bin Laden, here the White House is trying to give the American public the illusion that it actually cares about our national security. And, like every other foreign policy venture this bunch of clowns has attempted for the past seven years, it is ill-considered, blundering, and it will inevitably lead to conflict."We are trying to get those people staying closer to the coast to move inland," said Tuvalu's acting police commissioner Titelu Kauani. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami warning for some 25 regional nations and territories including as far afield as Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, before cancelling it about two and a half hours later. But the warning centre cautioned that the tsunami may have wrought damage close to the quake zone and that it was up to local authorities in each country to give the all-clear to residents. "Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated," the centre said, without giving any indication of the size of the wave or whether it was capable of causing damage. "It may have been destructive along coasts near the earthquake epicentre," it said. "Danger to boats and coastal structures can continue for several hours due to rapid currents."
The alert came just eight days after an 8.0 earthquake hurled giant waves at Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga, obliterating entire villages and killing 177 residents and foreign tourists. No reports of Australian injuries There is hysteria, with people saying they have seen big waves coming Parliamentary secretary for international development Bob McMullan said authorities were continuing to monitor the situation. "At this stage there’s no reports of any problems for any Australians or any damage," he told Sky News.
"These are significant earthquakes affecting potentially both the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu immediately, and then you have the tsunami consequence. "So, we’ll have to do a lot of monitoring to be sure what’s happened on the smaller and the outlying islands." Staff from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) were trying to contact Australians in the affected areas, Mr McMullan said. "We need to be very careful to gather all the information but we’re contacting all the Australians. "Our consular contingency plans are swinging into effect again and as far as we can tell so far there’s no serious damage and there’s no impact on Australians to date."
A DFAT spokesperson said Australian diplomatic missions in Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Kiribati had been alerted. "Our missions are contacting registered Australians in the area to determine if any Australians have been affected,’’ the spokesperson said. "So far, there have been no reports of any Australians requiring consular assistance." "So far, there have been no reports of any Australians requiring consular assistance." The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre had earlier issued a tsunami warning for 11 nations, including Papua New Guinea, an oil and gas supplier, and the popular resort islands of Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. The two huge subsea quakes struck between Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, one measuring 7.8 magnitude and the other 7.1.
The first 7.8 quake struck 294 kilometres from Vanuatu's Espiritu Santo island at a shallow depth of 35 kilometres, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The second earthquake struck 330km from Luganville on Vanuatu's Espiritu Santo island at 9.18am, just 15 minutes after the earlier tremor. New Zealand Civil Defence urged all people to clear beaches in Northland and East Cape and if in boats, to get off the water, and has advised all fire, police and local councils to be on standby. Residents of the Vanuatu capital Port Vila fled coastal areas to higher ground, locals told AFP. A groups of Sydney high school students were in Vanuatu running lessons for locals when the tsunami warning hit.
The group of 33 girls from Wenona girls school - in North Sydney - had to move to higher ground this morning as soon as the tsunami warning was issued, school spokesman Mark Staker said. Principal Kerrie Wilde, in Sydney, had since been in contact with teachers travelling with the students and been told they were safe and well. The girls, in grades nine through to 11, had been in Vanuatu on a "service learning tour" since Saturday. "They work with local schools, the kids conduct lessons and run sports carnivals," Mr Staker said. Seventeen of the girls had been at Erakor, near Port Vila, and the other 16 were at Manua when the tsunami warning was issued.
There were six teachers with the students. The group are expected back on Saturday. An Australian tourist on her honeymoon in Vanuatu said locals were completely unaware of a tsunami alert. Leia from Bendigo in central Victoria, told ABC Radio that she only found out about warning after her brother in Australia called her. "The tour guide looked at me very strangely and with broken English was like: 'What do you mean?' "And I said: 'Don't you have tsunami warnings?' and he said 'No. We’ve never had to do this before'."
The Vanuatu tour guide then called the local weather station and Leia spoke with the centre and discovered they also had "no idea" about any tsunami threat. "It was very frightening to have the locals not aware of what was going on," she said. She said only those who had a radio with them would have known about the warning. It feels like the "calm before the storm", she said. Authorities in New Caledonia, a French territory, were evacuating people from the island's eastern shore and from the nearby Loyalty Islands to higher ground, local police said.
A resident of Luganville on the southern coast of Vanuatu's Espiritu Santo island said the quake had shaken the town, but there were no reports of damage or change in sea level. Loading "People were frightened and some ran out of the building onto the street because it was so strong," a Florence Cari, receptionist at the Hotel Santo told Reuters by telephone. "The sea has not changed but we don't know if something will happen." A reporter at the newspaper in Port Vila said people on Vanuatu's Espiritu Santo island were running for higher ground. "We have had reports that the kids are running into the hills," she said.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
May 3, 2015, 11:45 PM GMT / Source: NBC News By Jacob Rascon
By the end of 2015, the chronically homeless population of Utah may be virtually gone. And the secret is quite simple:
Give homes to the homeless.
"We call it housing first, employment second," said Lloyd Pendleton, director of Utah's Homeless Task Force.
Even Pendleton used to think trying to eradicate homelessness using such an approach was a foolish idea.
"I said: 'You guys must be smoking something. This is totally unrealistic,'" Pendleton said.
But the results are hard to dispute.
In 2005, Utah was home to 1,932 chronically homeless. By April 2015, there were only 178 — a 91 percent drop statewide.
"It's a philosophical shift in how we go about it," Pendleton said. "You put them in housing first... and then help them begin to deal with the issues that caused them to be homeless."
Chronically homeless persons — those living on the streets for more than a year, or for four times in three years, and have a debilitating condition — make up 10 percent of Utah's homeless population but take up more than 50 percent of the state's resources for the homeless.
The Homeless Task Force reported it costs Utah $19,208 on average per year to care for a chronically homeless person, including related health and jail costs. Pendleton found that to house and provide a case worker for the same person costs the state about $7,800.
'They're part of our citizenry. They're not them and us. It's "we."'
"It's more humane, and it's cheaper," Pendleton said. "I call them 'homeless citizens.' They're part of our citizenry. They're not them and us. It's 'we.'"
For six years, Suzi Wright and her sons, DJ and Brian, shuttled among friend's homes, a van and the Salt Lake City homeless shelter.
After Utah gave Wright a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, she got a job as a cleaning supervisor at her apartment complex.
"It makes you feel a lot better about yourself, just being able to support your family," Wright said.
Those given apartments under the Housing First program pay rent of 30 percent of their income or $50, whichever is greater.
Army veteran Don Williams had been sleeping under a bush for 10 years when Utah offered him an apartment.
When he realized they weren't joking, he "jumped for joy," he said, laughing. "It was a blessing. A real blessing."
IN-DEPTHUPDATE: Johan Larsson and Matt Hackett were just pulled from the ice here in San Jose. Trade coming
I am hearing through reliable sources that there could be a big pending trade coming down with the Wild.
Houston Aeros goalie Darcy Kuemper has been sent to the Houston airport with his equipment bag packed, sources tell me. The kicker though is he has not yet been told where he is going or if he is going anywhere.
My gut tells me he may be coming here to San Jose. If that were the case, the Wild could be on the verge of trading Matt Hackett. That would obviously be part of a bigger trade.
More to come as this evolves, but I do still know the Wild is heavily going after Buffalo's Jason Pominville.We still love you Microsoft.
Seif El Shinawy Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 12, 2015
While this might be the right thing for Microsoft, close to ten thousand people lost their jobs through a memo.
Last wednesday Satya Nadella sent an email to all of Microsoft announcing what basically translates to ‘Ballmer messed up’. If you remember back in 2014 right before Steve Ballmer retired as CEO, Microsoft acquired Nokia for about $7 billion. I’m guessing the decision was made either because there were rumors that Nokia was going to make Android phones, or because Ballmer was taking a bold bet that the acquisition might actually help Windows phone succeed. Either way, it was a failed acquisition.
The direction Microsoft is taking is well thought out. They’re making the hard decisions and biting the bullet. We have to appreciate the fact that Nadella is moving on from fighting the smartphone war. There’s an obvious winner here, and it’s the iPhone. When people think of their next phone, it’s almost always an iPhone. The rest of the world uses Android.
Here are three ways I think Microsoft should go in order to stay relevant:
1- Advertise Windows software for the Mac.
2- Make a gaming console that is years ahead of it’s competition.
3- Help revive the web app development.
Advertise Windows software for the Mac.
One of the selling points of the Mac is that it can run both Windows and OSX simultaneously. Microsoft should take this and use it against Apple. Users who want to stick to the Windows ecosystem but love the Mac hardware will be glad to hear it, if it’s easy enough to install, and it aligns with Microsoft’s new “Windows as a service” vision.
Make a gaming console that is years ahead of it’s competition.
There’s only one way to blow Sony out of the console wars, and that’s to ‘wow’ gamers with something truly revolutionary, and would take Sony years to try to catch up. Seeing Microsoft’s efforts in the VR and AR feild makes me thing they’re on to something, but so is Sony.
Help revive the web app development.
The reason why Microsoft lost the smartphone war was because they could not convince enough developers to write native code for the windows phone platform. If they stand behind the latest web standards and enabled developers to get access to more native device features, web developers will be tempted to write apps that run not only on windows phones, but also on any android phone. It’s hitting two birds with one stone for all web developers, and it would push Apple to update Safari on mobile to meet the demand.
The bet that the smartphone is over, is wrong. Focusing on the Internet of Things, augmented reality, cloud processing, and virtual assistants is plausible, but not enough. Now get up, dust yourself off, and try harder Microsoft, some of us think you can make it.
Oh yea, and make better trackpads while we’re at it.
If you like this article, please hit that little heart below.Amazon isn't the only place where you can grab a NES Classic, though. Best Buy and Target have product pages up and running, but both websites indicate that you can only get a unit in store. You'll have to go to one of the big-box stores' locations to actually buy the device. GameStop's website wouldn't let us put one in our virtual cart either, but you can try ringing up a brick-and-mortar outlet to ask if they have any for sale. In the UK, stores have little to no stock and marketplace sellers are already offering the console at more than double its recommended retail price.
The NES Classic is a tiny version of the old console we're sure a |
699. Even though the price has dropped, it still has an extremely capable set of internal specs. It has set high expectations for this phone to be a great, clean, smooth Android experience. And it isn't. Not in any way. And in a world where you can get a OnePlus 5T for the same price — not to mention a Motorola phone for $200 — that runs circles around it with better software, you have a problem. Four or five years ago, Android phones were slow and unstable like this. But not today.While Ford, Ferrari and BMW debut all-new cars, reigning GTE-Pro/GT Le Mans champions Porsche have opted to update its existing 911 RSR to 2016 GTE regulations, a move that the German manufacturer will be hoping to pay dividends this year.
The updated 911 RSR made its public debut at the Roar Before the Rolex 24, with Marco Ujhasi, Overall Project Leader GT Works Motorsport providing Sportscar365 with an overview of the changes.
“The main task was to bring the car into the new regulations, as close as possible, and we did it,” Ujhasi told Sportscar365.
The updates have been focused on aero and safety, with the car now sporting a 100mm front splitter — with spoiler lip — along with a revised rear wing position, having been moved further back.
While cars such as the Ford GT are sporting large diffusers, the Porsche’s is only slightly bigger in size than last year, due to the location of the engine in the rear. The shape of the exhaust has also been re-shaped.
The final visual difference are new side plates, located below the doors, which all GTE cars have adopted. Ujhasi said it’s one area of new flexibility in the regulations that allows a change from the production car.
On the safety side, the car now features a revised roof hatch, new seat, safety net — which is now mandatory in WEC — as well as anti-intrusion panels installed in the doors.
Mechanically, the 911 RSR remains relatively untouched, with the same 4.0-liter flat-six engine, drivetrain and suspension.
The only difference for 2016 is a 0.3 mm larger air restrictor, per IMSA’s initial Balance of Performance, and a switch from E85 to E20 fuel in the U.S.
“You’re always looking for the right balance,” Ujhasi said. “When you look at what changed, compared to last year, on the front, you can imagine what we can do on the rear.
“So it’s nothing. We’re not talking about one or two tenths. It’s mainly the same car.”
The pair of CORE autosport-run, Porsche North America-entered chassis are brand-new but Ujhasi said existing cars could be upgraded to 2016-spec.
Additionally, IMSA and WEC-spec cars will be nearly identical in specification for the first time in more than a year. There were IMSA-specific aero changes given to the U.S.-based 911 RSRs in mid-2014.
The only difference between the two cars in 2016 will come with IMSA’s new BoP data acquisition system, which is mandatory on all GTLM and GTD cars this year.
While the system costs upwards of $20,000 to outfit on each car, according to Ujhasi, it’s aimed to provide a more equal playing field between the large diversity of GTLM machinery.
“In the end, it’s definitely necessary and we really support this,” he said. “But with the sensors, if you put enough effort into it and knowledge, BoP is definitely possible and that’s a good thing for this year with all the definitions of the performance windows and so on.
“We are really a step forward to do the BoP based on objectives and I hope it will work out and everyone will look at the stuff we have in the car. We are completely open to this and share everything we can.
“Like I said last year, the sport can’t survive if BoP isn’t working.”Scottish Championship leaders Rangers were held to a surprise draw by bottom club Alloa Athletic.
The Ibrox side were utterly dominant for long periods but a mixture of wastefulness and inspired goalkeeping from Scott Gallacher kept them at bay.
Jason Marr's headed goal from an Alloa corner looked like it might give the home side a shock win.
But Rangers eventually levelled after relentless pressure, Michael O'Halloran netting his first goal for the club.
The result will give Alloa renewed hope as they struggle to keep their second-tier status intact. Jack Ross's side are now nine points from safety.
All the talk before the game was about the pitch, which had recently been narrowed by nine yards. It gave the game a congested feel, but it was a lively start.
After an early Harry Forrester effort went wide for Rangers, Alloa went up the other end and Ryan Finnie's drilled effort flew past the post.
O'Halloran netted Rangers' leveller
Forrester would go closer soon after, but his effort hit the post. Team-mate Jason Holt also struck the frame of the goal after neat interplay with Barrie McKay.
Rangers were in complete control of the match with their quick passing game causing Alloa plenty of problems, but too often they were guilty of over-playing in the final third.
A lack of precision was also in evidence as a back-heeled effort from Martyn Waghorn went wide of the post from just a few yards out.
The same pattern continued early in the second half, with Rangers creating chances and failing to take them. Holt had an effort well smothered by Gallacher. Andy Halliday then fired in a shot from the edge of the box, but again it was wide of goal.
Alloa would make Rangers pay for their profligacy. First a Dougie Hill header was tipped over by Wes Foderingham and, from the resultant corner, Marr's header found the net.
Substitute Billy King stung the palms of Gallacher with a near-post effort, but there was a certain flatness from the visitors as Rangers struggled to find a response. Danny Wilson managed to fire a shot through the congested ranks of Alloa defenders, but again Gallacher made the save.
Eventually Rangers found an equaliser, and it came from recent signing O'Halloran. An earlier effort from the former St Johnstone player had been well saved by Gallacher, but there was nothing the Alloa keeper could do about the strike which the forward fired into the net, much to the relief of the massed ranks of Rangers fans behind the goal.
A winner almost came, James Tavernier's header brilliantly tipped over by Gallacher.There’s a rumor going around that actress Anne Hathaway frankly discusses anal sex in an upcoming interview with Esquire Magazine. The quote, which is completely fabricated, is so amusing that there’s no way it can be true. Hathaway is incorrectly quoted as saying:
Anne reportedly says that “every woman should try it, otherwise they miss out on something amazing.” She also (allegedly!) speaks about the significance of the first time and how anal penetration makes her feel feminine in a “very special way.” Is this true? Did Anne really say this?
[From Evil Beet]
I knew this uh, smelled false but it’s a story we couldn’t pass up, so I contacted the editors at Esquire through their online form. They let me know that this isn’t true and it sounds like they don’t even have an interview with Hathaway coming up. They said through e-mail: “That interview does not appear in an upcoming issue of Esquire magazine.”
So we have our answer. We also have a rather controversial topic and one there’s no way I’m going to make a personal comment about.
As for Hathaway, she did reveal in early 2007 that she’s suffered with bouts of anorexia and depression in the past, but that’s about as personal as she’s been in interviews. She prefers to talk in Hallmark card speak when it comes to discussing her long term relationship with a notorious con man. There are also photos of her faux-fellating her conman ex, Raffaello Follieri, but she seems to have been more than aware that she was being photographed at the time.Earlier this week, the Columbus Crew soccer team played what could be their last home playoff game in front of their loyal fanbase. The owner of the Crew, Anthony Precourt, announced on Oct. 17 that if ownership cannot secure a new stadium deal in Columbus, the franchise will be relocated to Austin, Texas in 2019.
Precourt has also said that “dramatic changes” in attendance and other revenue streams will need to occur if the team wants to stay.
Precourt, leader of Precourt Sports Ventures, based in San Francisco, moved to Columbus and bought the team in 2013 from the Hunt Family, who had owned the club for their entire existence. Though there has been an increase in ticket sales since Precourt acquired the club, the Crew still ranks 20th of 22 teams this season for attendance, averaging about 16,000 fans per game over the last three years.
It must be understood that the MLS is ultimately a business and if the Crew is failing to bring in revenue then something must change. However, every resource should be spent first to try and keep the Crew in Columbus.
Columbus is a historic piece to the story of the MLS. The Crew was one of the original MLS teams, and before the current days of fanbases like Atlanta and Seattle packing the stands, they set the standard for a loyal fanbase. Crew Stadium (now Mapfre Stadium), was not only the first soccer specific stadium in the United States, but has also been a de-facto home field for the US Men’s National Team. Some of the most important matches in USMNT history have been played at Crew Stadium, including the four consecutive “Dos a Cero” victories over Mexico.
The MLS is growing and expanding, and while that is good for the league, it must be sure to not forget its roots. The city of Columbus was a trendsetter in the early days of American soccer and fanbases like Portland’s “Timbers Army” or Atlanta’s “Resurgence” took note from the Crew’s “Nordecke.” Other franchises have also followed in the footsteps of Columbus, as cities like Chicago and Kansas City built soccer specific stadiums copying the layout of Crew Stadium. The Crew is integral to the history and foundation that built the current MLS, and Precourt shouldn’t destroy this foundation with a move to Austin.
The move would be heartbreaking for the city of Columbus and would destroy the integrity of the foundation the league was built on. It is also difficult to find the economic benefit from the change for both Precourt and the MLS.
While Precourt complains about the attendance and fan base in Columbus, nothing indicates he will do any better with the franchise in Austin. The MLS already has two franchises in Texas, FC Dallas and the Houston Dynamo, and while both are fairly competitive teams, neither have brought in droves of fans. In fact, neither team has had above-average attendance over the past two seasons, and this year both finished in the bottom five of all teams in the league. Austin is a smaller market than Dallas or Houston, closer to the mid-major market blueprint that most MLS teams follow, but who is to say that the team could really thrive there? The Austin Astex, the only professional soccer team to call Austin home, last played in the United Soccer League (USL) in 2015, a league considered second-tier to the MLS, and had an average home attendance just over 3,000 people.
Nothing indicates that another team in Texas will do that well economically, so does it really make sense for the team to move to Austin?
On top of this, the move completely undermines the MLS’s expansion goals. Currently, if a team wishes to join the MLS, they have to pay a heavy expansion fee, close to 150 million dollars. This huge cash infusion gets allocated across the league. These fund allocations have helped MLS rapidly improve quality of play, as teams are able to use this money to buy better players.
So, what sort of precedent would this move set? One who wanted to own an MLS team could get out of paying a large fee by buying buy a team that’s not performing economically and move them to a mid-size market like Austin. The process for expansion would be disincentivized by this move, which would hurt the MLS. It would decrease the cash invested in the league, and wouldn’t help the MLS expand their markets, but rather shuffle them around to different places.
MLS has a history, and has been extremely crucial to the development of American soccer in the past two decades. If the Columbus Crew is removed from the MLS, then the country will lose such a crucial piece of the MLS story. Without the Crew and the Hunt Family many of the thriving MLS clubs today would have no foundation to stand on. With that in mind, one must hope that there will be many more matches to be played in Columbus, Ohio.
AdvertisementsMore Bernie civil rights photos found! Posted by dektol on February 11, 2016 · 80 Comments
The slander that Bernie was not a very early leader for African American civil rights got so outrageous that persons went into the archives of the University of Chicago and changed captions on Danny Lyon’s 1962 photos, claiming it was Bruce Rappaport standing in Bernie’s clothing leading the demonstration in the Ad Building. These newly discovered pictures, including close up photographs of the student activists show us exactly what Bernie was and what he remains.
Here at the University of Chicago, in the winter of 1962, students led by Bernie Sanders and others have occupied the hallway of the Administration Building, spending the night inside. The Chancellor cannot get into or leave his office. Bernie is leading a protest against the discrimination practiced by the University of Chicago against African Americans in it’s extensive housing. This protest for equal rights for African Americans is the first sit-in to be held in the north as part of the great 1960’s civil rights movement. Bernie is the real deal. And voters, all voters know it. Feel the Bern.
Another University of Chicago student, not Bernie, at the first sit-in held in the north.Bill Paxton is one of the two individuals to be killed by the three biggest science-fiction film villains there are. He has been dealt the card of death by an Alien, a Predator and a Terminator. These deaths might make him into a legend of sorts.
Before we get into watching him die three times over, it should be noted that he has a favorite death phrase: F**K! If you are sensitive to this word or are to young to have it blasting at the insane volumes that these deaths call for, take care with the video in this article.
Now, if you don't recall Paxton from any of those films it's OK. He has been in Weird Science, Twister, True Lies, Titanic, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Apollo 13 and more on top of the trio mentioned above.
Check out Paxton and his glorious deaths below:On The Wilder Side:
The Green Party of California called an appeal court’s decision to hold up same-sex marriages until at least December so the 9th Circuit can rule on the constitutionality of Prop. 8, a mistake, and another attack on the rights of a discriminated class of citizens.
The decision Monday froze same-sex marriages, which were due to resume Wednesday after U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker’s historic overturning of voter-approved Prop. 8 on Aug. 4. Upon examination of the claims of the defense, Judge Walker could find no credible evidence or argument that could hold up under empirical scrutiny.
Now, the 9th Circuit will hear the case in early December – and the ruling may not be made for months, according to court observers, with the prospect of the losing side appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Rather than allowing LGBTs to again enjoy what had unconstitutionally been taken from them, the Court adopted the most conservative route, and has prolonged the agony,” said Shane Que Hee, GPCA Platform Committee chair.
He went on to predict that same-sex marriage would become the law of land in California, noting “same-sex marriage will eventually win out because it ensures full equality.”
Unlike the largest political parties, whose candidates have flip-flopped on the issue, or just opposed same-sex marriage, the Green Party of California has always supported it in practice and in the party’s platform.
Judge Walker’s Aug. 4 ruling mirrors the goals and social philosophy of the Green Party of California, not only for the civil rights of our LGBT members but for everyone. Greens, as proponents of social justice, support equal representation under the law for everyone, and oppose social bigotry and intolerance, no matter how well funded or intimidating, Greens said.In Robert Reuter's letter to the editor ("Maglev is not the answer," Sept. 12), he identifies the great need to upgrade the Northeast Corridor's infrastructure. The proposal of an SCMAGLEV train system between Washington, D.C. and New York with an initial phase between Baltimore and Washington represents an opportunity to transform the mega-region. Undertaking this project, we will ensure that we can scale for future needs — both those we can foresee and those we cannot. With SCMAGLEV, we will choose a system technologically superior to conventional high-speed rail with extreme performance advantages. This system will drive economic productivity, benefit the environment and improve how people live and work. A variety of the points in Mr. Reuter's letter need to be clarified as much of what he writes about the SCMAGLEV proposal is misleading.
The B&P Tunnel is 141 years old. We agree that it is crucial to repair it as a safety measure. However, this will not have a significant impact on travel times. Speed restrictions of 30 miles per hour are in place for this tunnel stretching 1.4 miles south of Baltimore's Penn Station. Even if one were to improve the tunnel and lift the speed restriction, the tight curvature of the alignment south of the tunnel would still impose a major limit on the speed that could be achieved and would have only a modest impact on travel times.
While traditional, TGV high speed rail technology hit 357 mph in 2007 (4 mph less than the SCMAGLEV speed record), it took the TGV nearly 13 minutes to reach that limit. The SCMAGLEV takes just over 2 minutes to reach 311 mph. That makes for an enormous difference in travel times. Moreover, while the TGV top speed was achieved during tests that concluded in 2007, SCMAGLEV trains regularly run at 311 mph and above today.
Conventional high-speed rail systems face a speed/performance trade-off. Because the wheels and pantograph make contact with the rails and catenary, vibration and noise are significant the faster you go and can have a major impact on ride quality, noise, etc. In addition, when conventional trains are pushed to higher speeds, this necessarily increases maintenance costs with more frequent replacement of wheels, rails, catenary and pantograph, etc. due to the higher impact loads. By contrast, the SCMAGLEV train levitates and has no rails and no catenary, which means it is extremely stable at very high speeds and eliminates the wear and tear that a conventional system would experience.
The Shanghai Maglev Train is a very different technology from the SCMAGLEV system and is in many ways not comparable. We can't speculate on the rationale behind commercial decisions of Transrapid and SMT. However, we would point out that in Japan, a private company is funding the entire cost of the project from Tokyo to Osaka, a distance of more than 270 miles. This strongly validates the commercial viability of the technology. In contrast to a "fancy gadget," the SCMAGLEV train is the future of high-speed ground transportation in Japan. We think it's also the future of transportation for the Northeast Corridor.
Paul A. Tiburzi, Baltimore
The writer serves as counsel to The Northeast Maglev.
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To respond to this letter, send an email to talkback@baltimoresun.com. Please include your name and contact information.The Supreme Court left in place a ruling by a New York federal appeals court, which determined that song downloads are not "public performances" under copyright law. The ruling represents a victory for Yahoo! and RealNetworks, which have been locked in litigation with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers for several years over royalty payments. And it has potentially far-reaching implications for the digital music industry.
Musical works are subject to two distinct forms of copyright protection: a recording copyright and a songwriter's copyright. ASCAP is an association of songwriters that collects royalties when their members' songs are performed in public. The ASCAP royalty rates for terrestrial broadcasting and live performances are well established, but the rates due to songwriters for online music is still under dispute.
Also under dispute is exactly what counts as a "public performance" of music online. In ASCAP's litigation with Yahoo! and RealNetworks, both sides agreed that music streaming is a public performance, and that songwriters are therefore entitled to royalties for their streaming services. But ASCAP also argued that songwriters are entitled to compensation for music that users download.
A lower court ruled against ASCAP in 2007, and that ruling was affirmed last year by the United States Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit. The Second Circuit held that to count as a public performance, an electronic music transmission must be "contemporaneously perceived by the listener." Simply downloading a music file so it can be played back at a later time doesn't count.
ASCAP asked the Supreme Court to review the case. The request was opposed by the Obama administration, which argued that the Second Circuit's ruling was right on the merits and not in conflict with the rulings of other federal courts.
The Supreme Court apparently agreed, declining to hear the appeal without comment. That leaves the Second Circuit's ruling in place.
While the Supreme Court's decision not to intervene settles the download question, the case will continue on other fronts. The Second Circuit rejected the lower court's method of computing royalties, meaning the lower court will now have to come up with a new formula.Introduction
The Canon EF 135mm 2.0L is often referred to as being the “Lord of the Red Rings” and many think it is one of the – if not the – best and sharpest among all L-lenses. On the other hand the optical design dates back more than 20 years now, so let us find out how the lens performs when coupled with the 42mp A7rII!
Sample Images
Specifications / Version History
There has been a Canon FD 135mm 2.0 with a simpler optical design in the past, apart from that the current EF 135mm 2.0L is on the market since 1996 with unchanged optics and one of the oldest L-lenses in the current lineup. It has the following specifications:
Diameter: 83 mm Field of view: 18° (diagonally) Length: 112 mm Weight: 708g Filter Diameter: 72 mm Number of Aperture Blades: 8 Elements/Groups: 10/8 Close Focusing Distance: 0.9 m Maximum Magnification: 1:5 Mount: Canon-EF
You may also have a look at Canon’s official page.
You can get one used for 700$/700€ on ebay.com /ebay.de (affiliate links) or new for 1000$/960€ on Amazon.com /Amazon.de /B&H (affiliate links).
Handling / Build Quality
The lens is part of Canon’s L grade professional lenses so one would expect very good build quality and handling. Unlike the 70-200mm 4.0 L recently reviewed by me the outer casing seems to be mostly made of plastic, same goes for the filter thread. Nevertheless the lens feels very substantial and by no means cheap.
It takes about 120° to turn the very broad focusing ring from infinity to 0.9 m. The focusing ring is also not fly-by-wire and there is no slack when changing the direction of rotation (very) often seen on newer Nikon lenses.
Nothing moves externally and the focus ring is easily operated. In addition there is an AF <-> MF button and a focus limiter.
The lens hood is very big, very plasticy but is at least covered with velvet inside. A tripod collar is not available for this lens.
Personally I think the handling qualities of this lens are very good, but it is also about as big and as heavy as I want a lens for the A7 cameras to be (when using it handheld) and it is a better fit for the 2nd generation cameras in terms of balance.
Autofocus
I have only tested this lens with the Sigma MC-11 (300$, affiliate link). Which works quite good and snappy in decent lighting conditions as there is rarely any hunting even when going from infinity to the minimum focus distance.
In the dark things don’t look as great: there is much more hunting involved so I often switched to manual focus in the dark.
Vignetting
Wide open there is visible vignetting of roughly 1.7 EV, stopped down to f/5.6 it is negligible. There is also a Lightroom profile for correcting this.
Sharpness
infinity
Wide open the lens is fully usable right into the corners and only a tad less contrasty compared to f/2.8 to f/11 but I wouldn’t hesitate using this lens wide open at all. This is still an excellent performance, even more so considering the lens design dates back 20 years now.
close focus
The performance near the minimum focus distance is excellent as well, even wide open with the 42mp A7rII and looking at 100% crops. In the center I can hardly see any improvements on stopping down further.
Flare resistance
This is definetly the weak spot of the lens. With the sun inside the frame there is a tremendous amount of ghosts, with the sun outside the frame veiling flare becomes a problem and the hood – despite being huge – doesn’t really help here.
Sony A7rII | Canon EF 135mm 2.0 L | f/5.6 | before no lens hood / after lens hood mounted
Coma
Wide open and stopped down to f/2.8 you can spot some slight coma in the corners. Stop down to f/4.0 and the problem goes away.
Distortion
There is only an absolutely negligible amount of pincushion distortion with no field relevance.
Bokeh
The very smooth bokeh is one of the main selling points of this lens. There is also hardly any distracting outlining and no onion-ring like structure in the light discs. Only the cat’s eye effect – describing light discs becoming ovals towards the borders and corners – is quite pronounced.
Sunstars
Between f/2.0 and f/4.0 the sunstars are not so great, between f/5.6 and f/16 they are quite decent. Compared to the 70-200mm 4.0L the performance is a little bit better here. But this is more of a personal bias, so you may come to a different conclusion when looking at the samples.
Chromatic aberrations
longitudinal
Longitudinal CA (loCA) are definetly present and I would even consider them a weakness of the lens. Nevertheless I would describe the performance here as average, there are many fast lenses which perform much worse.
lateral
Sony A7rII | Canon EF 135mm 2.0 L | f/8.0 | CA 100% crop before/after extreme corner
The lateral CA correction is almost perfect. You can spot a tiny hint of CA at one of the edges, but this is absolutely negligible in real world use.
Alternatives
Samyang 135mm 2.0 ED UMC:
Check out Jannik’s review. Better loCA correction, otherwise they look pretty similar to me. Also cheaper, even more so when taking the necessary adapter for the Canon into consideration.
Zeiss APO Sonnar T* 135mm 2.0:
Rumored to be one of the lenses with the highest resolving power you can buy today. Better loCA correction, bigger, heavier, way more expensive.
Sony/Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm 1.8 SAL ZA:
Check out Phillip’s review as I haven’t used this lens yet. A tad faster, bigger, heavier and more expensive.
Conclusion
good excellent sharpness wide open at all distances across the whole frame
bokeh
correction of lateral CA
distortion
build quality average vignetting
sunstars
price
size/weight not good flare resistance
correction of longitudinal CA
Even on today’s cameras the Canon EF 135mm 2.0L is still an excellent performer. Not only does it offer astonishing sharpness at all distances, it also manages to combine this with a wonderful bokeh and it has therfore already become one of my most favourite portrait lenses and easily so.
From a technical point of view the work against bright light is nothing to write home about. From my personal standpoint I sometimes like having a little flare in my portrait shots so this doesn’t bother me too much, but your mileage may vary here. The loCA correction could also be a little better, but as I am used to shoot portraits with the Nikon AF-S 85mm 1.4G things doesn’t look so bad here in comparison.
I also got word this lens does not work very well with the cheaper adapters, but I have only used it with the Sigma MC-11 personally and was mostly happy with it’s performance.
So, who is this lens for? Anyone, who looks for a very good, fast portrait tele with excellent sharpness and very smooth bokeh. A few years ago this lens was pretty much without competition. Today it might be worth taking a closer look at the Samyang 135mm 2.0, which also offers great performance at a cheaper price point, if you can live with it’s lack of autofocus.
You can get one used for 700$/700€ on ebay.com /ebay.de (affiliate links) or new for 1000$/960€ on Amazon.com /Amazon.de /B&H (affiliate links).
Sample Images
Further ReadingSix kids from Ferguson, Missouri, where Michael Brown was shot and killed, have something to say about the state of racism in a humorous video called "Hey White People: A Kinda Awkward Note to America by #Ferguson Kids" created by the T-shirt company FCKH8.com.
"Sometimes white people are like, 'But is racism still a thing?' Spoiler alert: Duh. Just because Beyoncé is on your playlist and you voted for Obama, doesn't mean that our generation has seen the end of racist drama," they say in a series of clips.
"All this focus on race makes me uncomfortable. Uncomfortable? Try being Black," the smart kids continue. They then run down facts about racial disparities in America — from stop-and-frisk numbers to employment discrimination.
"Do you know that employers don't even need to see the color of our skin for the discrimination to begin?" one girl said. "Resumes with Black sounding names, like Tenisha or Tyrone, are 50 percent less likely to get called in for a job interview than the exact same resume with white-sounding names."
The video also had some humorous parts. "Some of my best friends are Black," says one boy. Another boy claps his hands in applause at the fact. "You get a cookie," one of the smallest kids says and holds the reward up to the screen.
During the video, the kids wear T-shirts that declare, "Racism is not over, but I'm over racism."
The video is promoting a fundraiser for five different anti-racism causes. For every tee or hoodie sold, $5 will be donated to organizations fighting to make change, the website states.
Two days before he was set to begin college, Michael Brown, 18, was killed Aug. 9 by Darren Wilson, a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer. The tragic death has brought the issue of police brutality back to the nation's attention. The city of Ferguson has erupted in protests and cries for justice for the teen.
Follow Natelege Whaley on Twitter: @Natelege_
BET National News - Keep up to date with breaking news stories from around the nation, including headlines from the hip hop and entertainment world. Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.CHICAGO — The landscape of the National Hockey League’s transactional calendar is changing, and as the 2017 NHL Draft comes to a close, we find ourselves just trying to keep up.
There was a time when Trade Deadline Day featured non-stop deals, from morning ‘til night. Then a few general managers began to make their trades during the three- or four-day period preceding the deadline.
And as the cap system took hold and draft picks became the cleanest form of trading currency — as they arrive with no cap hit — the juiciest trades began to occur later on the calendar, on Draft Day.
This week in Chicago, we saw another shift.
Day 2 of this draft saw the Calgary Flames pull off a major deal, with Travis Hamonic the only real live player changing his address, and a bevy of draft picks filling out the trade. But on the much-anticipated Friday night, the St. Louis Blues’ involvement in a pair of deals that included first-round picks marked the only significant trades.
The biggest deals had already happened that morning.
The rite of spring — NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman stepping to the microphone amidst a chorus of boos, to state “We have a trade to announce!” — was by and large left wanting. Instead, the hockey insiders broke the news on Twitter all afternoon, as GMs jockeyed for the likes of Antti Raanta, Derek Stepan, Brandon Saad and Artemi Panarin.
So why is that? Well, there are a number of theories.
For one, drafting and developing has taken on an entirely new level of importance in this cap system. Just ask the Vancouver Canucks what happens when that department is neglected for a period of time.
Teams with cap issues will always deal picks, then squirm to get some back in time to stock their cupboards. Conversely, the Vegas Golden Knights stocked up on draft picks and chose three players in Friday’s first round.
But they also held on to a mitt full of future picks, and you can bet some of those will be used to “help out” teams down the road who need to dump good players in return for picks.
So the trades are there. They just don’t happen on the old schedule.
Today, teams are built in the summer and can only be mildly tweaked during the season, and that’s exactly what Treliving did this week, adding goalie Mike Smith from Arizona and rounding out one of the NHL’s best Top 4’s by acquiring Hamonic.
You know how they say that everyone copies the winning teams? Well, Nashville and Anaheim had the two deepest defence corps in the West last season, and they met in the conference final. Treliving noticed.
Now, the Flames will ice two pairings of Mark Giordano with Dougie Hamilton, and T.J. Brodie alongside the rugged Hamonic, who was long-rumoured to be available off the New York Islanders roster and was at one time a target of Alberta rival Edmonton as well.
“We’ve got two pairs now,” Treliving said Saturday. “On the road, where you’re not in control of matchups, we can put two pairs out there who can play against anybody. We’ve got to be able to match up (against) Edmonton, they’ve got a heck of a team. But there are a lot of good teams in the West.”
Across Canada, teams completed their mission this weekend, with the Toronto Maple Leafs thrilled to see Timothy Liljegren still available when it was their turn to draft at No. 17. Give me a smooth-skating, right-shot Swedish defenceman any day of the week, considering the wealth of good, young blueliners the Tre Kronor have produced in recent years.
Edmonton drafted the smallest player ever to go in Round 1 when they picked Spokane, Wash., native Kailer Yamamoto at No. 22 — all five-foot-seven, 153 pounds of him.
Vancouver walked away with Swedish centreman Elias Pettersson, who will have a choice of which Sedin brother he wishes to board with when he makes his way over to the NHL, likely after next season.
And now, the hockey world boards a plane at O’Hare, and moves towards the “courting period” for free agents, which opens on Sunday. Agents and GMs have a chance to speak over the week leading up to the July 1 opening of free agent season, while players can tour a city, check out schools, and generally make a wise decision on which NHL city they and their families will call home over the next several years.
By July 2, all the big names will likely be signed. Then, NHL folks will head to their summer places, renew acquaintances with wives, husbands and kids.
And this Latvian hockey writer? He’ll be out at the trailer, having a cold one.Areeb Majeed, the Kalyan youth who was among the first Indians to fight for Isis, has revealed to interrogators in Mumbai that AIMIM leader and Telagana MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi was among the people whose speeches influenced him.
Majeed and three of his friends from Kalyan, Mumbai, had fled to Iraq to join the Islamic State last May, but he was the only one to return to India and is currently lodged at Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai.
Majeed's 76-page-long interrogation report reveals how he was radicalised to fight for Isis and how he survived several near-death experiences as a suicide bomber for the terror group.
Areeb Majeed said that he would listen to speeches of radical Muslim leaders such as Anjem Chaudhary and Saudi Arabia's Muhammed Al Arifi, and would also follow speeches by AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi.
Owaisi, the younger brother of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader and Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi, is known for his fiery and often controversial speeches, which are known to stoke communal tension between Muslims and Hindus.
"I used to listen to every speech of his," Areeb Majeed said about Owaisi Jr, according to The Indian Express.
He also said that e-books and mobile apps about Islam "had a great impact on me in developing my jihadi mindset".
Majeed's radicalisation to join Isis came about after he established contacts with'recruiters' through social media.
Read: How ISIS Radicalised, Recruited Areeb Majeed and his Friends
The Islamic State is known for |
rwxrwt 14 user user 4096 Jun 5 22 :47.. -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 0 Jun 5 22 :47 file drwxrwxr-x 8 user user 4096 Jun 5 22 :47.git -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 0 Jun 5 22 :46 README.md [ ~/gitrepo ] $ git status --short?? file
As seen from the previous output, file is untracked. By using the stash, we can store away all changes to the working directory, including untracked files, which make our working directory dirty using git stash -u and retrieve them later on.
[ ~/gitrepo ] $ git stash -u Saved working directory and index state WIP on master: 4963f48 Initial commit HEAD is now at 4963f48 Initial commit
Consequently, file has "disappeared" and our working tree is once again reflecting the head of the master branch.
[ ~/gitrepo ] $ ls total 12 drwxrwxr-x 3 user user 4096 Jun 5 22 :47. drwxrwxrwt 14 user user 4096 Jun 5 22 :47.. drwxrwxr-x 8 user user 4096 Jun 5 22 :47.git -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 0 Jun 5 22 :46 README.md [ ~/gitrepo ] $ git status On branch master nothing to commit, working directory clean
Nonetheless, there is one entry in the stash which contains our former working tree and index.
~/gitrepo ] $ git stash list stash@ { 0 } : WIP on master: 4963f48 Initial commit
By popping the first entry on the stash we apply the saved changes and restore our former index.
[~/gitrepo]$ git stash pop Already up-to-date! On branch master Untracked files: (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed) file nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track) Dropped refs/stash@{0} (47f58adf2bf6e448964314619403649b79bfc8d1)
This leads to file appearing once again in our working tree.
[~/gitrepo]$ ls -a total 12 drwxrwxr-x 3 user user 4096 Jun 5 22:51. drwxrwxrwt 14 user user 4096 Jun 5 22:47.. -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 0 Jun 5 22:51 file drwxrwxr-x 8 user user 4096 Jun 5 22:51.git -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 0 Jun 5 22:46 README.md
file is also once again listed, as it should be, as un tracked.
[ ~/gitrepo ] $ git status On branch master Untracked files: ( use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed ) file nothing added to commit but untracked files present ( use "git add" to track )
Remotes
A remote can be understood as an identifier given to a repository which exists on some system, is available to you and can be reached via a path such as https://domain.com/repo.git or ssh://user@server.com:/opt/git/repo.git.
One such example would be as follows:
$ git remote -v origin https://github.com/getpelican/pelican-themes ( fetch ) origin https://github.com/getpelican/pelican-themes ( push )
In this example, origin is the identifier given to the repository at https://github.com/getpelican/pelican-themes.
As with any repository, remote repositories have branches, commits and histories of their own. However, they would be of little use if one was not be able to track their contents and potentially alter them. Git solves this problem by keeping track of the contents in remote repositories using local tracking-branches. These branches work as local caches which reflect the status of a remote up until the point it was last fetched.
As can be seen below, git is tracking the contents of the origin remote at https://github.com/getpelican/pelican-themes by using local copies of its branches, namely master and previews.
git branch -a * master remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master remotes/origin/master remotes/origin/previews
Origin and Origin Master
Two keywords anyone interested in git is bound to find sooner or later are master, origin and the combination of both origin master. They are, once again, nothing but default names given to certain git objects. master is the name given to default development branch of any repository. As mentioned before, once a repository is initialized using git init, a master branch is also created. origin is the default name given to the remote repository to which local changes will eventually be pushed. Then origin master, quite coherently, refers to the master branch at the remote repository origin. Note that neither master nor origin are a must. One can indeed give an arbitrary name to the default branch of a repository and the same applies for naming remotes.
Cloning
Cloning refers to the act of copying a remote git repository to the user's local filesystem. One can clone a given repository by issuing git clone followed by the ssh, http or https URL as follows:
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ git clone git@server.com:example.git. Cloning into '.'... remote: Counting objects: 24, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100 % ( 17 /17 ), done. remote: Total 24 ( delta 2 ), reused 0 ( delta 0 ) Receiving objects: 100 % ( 24 /24 ), done. Resolving deltas: 100 % ( 2 /2 ), done. Checking connectivity... done. [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ ls -a total 20 drwxrwxr-x 3 user user 4096 Jun 6 18 :15. drwxrwxrwt 17 user user 4096 Jun 6 18 :15.. drwxrwxr-x 8 user user 4096 Jun 6 18 :15.git -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 11 Jun 6 18 :15 myfile
After the cloning process the user now has a working copy of the remote git repository in his file system and can proceed to make changes accordingly.
Pushing
Pushing refers to the act of transfering changes in a git repository which have happened locally to a remote one. When a remote repository is involved, a new step has to be added to the three step git workflow. It becomes:
Make changes Prepare a commit by staging said changes Record the commit in the commit chain Push commit to remote
In the following example a remote git repository is cloned. After cloning it the second file is created, added and commited.
[ ~/gitrepo ] $ git clone git@sentheon.com:example.git. Cloning into '.'... remote: Counting objects: 7, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100 % ( 4 /4 ), done. remote: Total 7 ( delta 1 ), reused 0 ( delta 0 ) Receiving objects: 100 % ( 7 /7 ), done. Resolving deltas: 100 % ( 1 /1 ), done. Checking connectivity... done. [ ~/gitrepo ] $ echo 'Hello world' > second [ ~/gitrepo ] $ git add. [ ~/gitrepo ] $ git commit -m "second" [ master 27a6184 ] second 1 file changed, 1 insertion ( + ) create mode 100644 second
We now look at the local history and see that the commit of second has been added to the history. Additionally, we observe that several commits were made before our own in the past. First README.md was added, then first, afterwards first was deleted and finally we added second.
[ ~/gitrepo ] $ git log commit 27a6184451cd4f383c9b28336a223bc791813384 Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Mon Jun 6 00 :20:56 2016 +0200 second commit 9d357c22216ae40cc8babb84b72d11fce03879dc Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Mon Jun 6 00 :18:46 2016 +0200 remove first commit e14f7b699680fe4e8093e2b9a6764a2c1ef53ca0 Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Mon Jun 6 00 :14:40 2016 +0200 first commit 3dabef2ecd20252a90cc819b4634ea16e17500eb Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Sun Jun 5 23 :57:46 2016 +0200 Added README.md
However, when looking at the history of the master branch on the origin remote, we see that the commit of second is missing. This is so since we haven't pushed our changes to the remote repository. In other words, we haven't told the remote repository to incorporate our changes, this is what pushing is all about.
[ ~/gitrepo ] $ git log origin/master commit 9d357c22216ae40cc8babb84b72d11fce03879dc Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Mon Jun 6 00 :18:46 2016 +0200 remove first commit e14f7b699680fe4e8093e2b9a6764a2c1ef53ca0 Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Mon Jun 6 00 :14:40 2016 +0200 first commit 3dabef2ecd20252a90cc819b4634ea16e17500eb Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Sun Jun 5 23 :57:46 2016 +0200 Added README.md
We now push the changes.
[ ~/gitrepo ] $ git push -u origin/master Counting objects: 2, done. Delta compression using up to 4 threads. Compressing objects: 100 % ( 2 /2 ), done. Writing objects: 100 % ( 2 /2 ), 245 bytes | 0 bytes/s, done. Total 2 ( delta 0 ), reused 0 ( delta 0 ) To git@server.com:example.git 9d357c2..27a6184 master -> master
It can now be observed, that the remote repository has incorporated our changes and these are now shown in the history.
[ ~/gitrepo ] $ git log origin/master commit 27a6184451cd4f383c9b28336a223bc791813384 Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Mon Jun 6 00 :20:56 2016 +0200 second commit 9d357c22216ae40cc8babb84b72d11fce03879dc Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Mon Jun 6 00 :18:46 2016 +0200 remove first commit e14f7b699680fe4e8093e2b9a6764a2c1ef53ca0 Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Mon Jun 6 00 :14:40 2016 +0200 first commit 3dabef2ecd20252a90cc819b4634ea16e17500eb Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Sun Jun 5 23 :57:46 2016 +0200 Added README.md
At this point it is said, that the changes have sucessfully been pushed.
It is worth noting, that it is not necessary to push every commit. One can, indeed, work on a cloned repository and create several commits. Then, when the time is appropriate, all the changes can be pushed at once.
Pulling
Pulling refers to the act of obtaining changes present in a remote repository which have not been incorporated in the local copy of said repository.
In the following example a user clones a git repository, waits a while and performs some changes. Before pushing the changes, however, discrepancies between the local and remote histories of the master branch are found. Therefore, the user pulls the changes which were made on top of his version of the remote repository, before commiting his own.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ git clone git@server.com:example.git. Cloning into '.'... remote: Counting objects: 24, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100 % ( 17 /17 ), done. remote: Total 24 ( delta 2 ), reused 0 ( delta 0 ) Receiving objects: 100 % ( 24 /24 ), done. Resolving deltas: 100 % ( 2 /2 ), done. Checking connectivity... done. [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ ls -a total 20 drwxrwxr-x 3 user user 4096 Jun 6 18 :15. drwxrwxrwt 17 user user 4096 Jun 6 18 :15.. drwxrwxr-x 8 user user 4096 Jun 6 18 :15.git -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 11 Jun 6 18 :15 myfile [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ cat myfile Hello world [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ echo 'Goodbye world' >> myfile
Up until this point nothing too interesting has happened. The repository was cloned and myfile changed. This last change hasn't been commited or pushed yet, we will first check if there are new changes in the remote repository, to which we would like to push the change.
The last commit on the local history is the following:
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ git log -n1 commit 6d773d7c6b060424754186b173a4ff79815b88ce Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Mon Jun 6 16 :15:01 2016 +0000 Greet the world
The last commit in the remote branch, however, seems to be different.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ git fetch remote: Counting objects: 3, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100 % ( 2 /2 ), done. remote: Total 3 ( delta 0 ), reused 0 ( delta 0 ) Unpacking objects: 100 % ( 3 /3 ), done. From server.com:example 6d773d7..d95ecd1 master -> origin/master [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ git log -n2 origin/master commit d95ecd19f7590fd874cfe2b116c20264e4a01477 Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Mon Jun 6 16 :17:38 2016 +0000 Hello again commit 6d773d7c6b060424754186b173a4ff79815b88ce Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Mon Jun 6 16 :15:01 2016 +0000 Greet the world
There is one commit after 6d773d7c6b060424754186b173a4ff79815b88ce in the remote history, the one with message hello again. We therefore try to pull the changes in that commit but get an error instead.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ git pull Updating 6d773d7..d95ecd1 error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge: myfile Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can merge. Aborting
It turns out, that our working tree is in a dirty state(in this case it has differences with respect to the HEAD ). This means that by pulling from the remote repository git would have to clobber(overwrite) changes which haven't been saved anywhere. This would potentially lead to data loss and hence git aborts the operation.
In order to continue, we put our changes in the stash for later use.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ cat myfile Hello world Goodbye world [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ git stash Saved working directory and index state WIP on master: 6d773d7 Greet the world HEAD is now at 6d773d7 Greet the world [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ cat myfile Hello world
we now pull as was intended initially.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ git pull Updating 6d773d7..d95ecd1 Fast-forward myfile | 3 ++- 1 file changed, 1 insertions ( + ), 0 deletion ( - ) [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ cat myfile Hello world Hello again [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git status On branch master Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'. nothing to commit, working directory clean [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $
At this point the local repository is up-to-date.
Nonetheless, we are forgetting something. There was a change we wanted to apply before realizing that there were changes to pull from the remote master branch. The objective was to append Goodbye world to myfile but instead of doing this we saved this change for later in the stash.
To re-apply the change we have saved in the stash we can use git stash pop. Unfortunately, we get a conflict error message from git.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git stash pop Auto-merging myfile CONFLICT ( content ) : Merge conflict in myfile
This means that git does not know how to merge the two versions of myfile.
The local one, which is also the one in the head of the master branch, looks like this:
Hello world Hello again
The one saved in the stash, however, looks like this:
Hello world Goodbye world
We are now in the terrain of conflict resolution.
Conflicts and Conflict Resolution
Let's go again over what brought us to having conflicts in our local repository. Below you'll find the terminal output shown in the past section.
In it the following is shown: 1. clone a repository 1. check the contents of myfile 1. modify myfile 1. check the local commit chain 1. check the remote commit chain 1. notice that there are new changes on origin/master and try to pull them 1. pull fails due to a dirty working tree 1. remove index and modifications by stashing them 1. succesfully pull changes 1. try to apply the contents of the stash to the current working tree 1. git stash pop fails, since it is based on the parent of the HEAD but the changes contained in it differ from those in HEAD
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git clone git@server.com:example.git. Cloning into '.'... remote: Counting objects: 3, done. remote: Total 3 ( delta 0 ), reused 1 ( delta 0 ) Receiving objects: 100 % ( 3 /3 ), done. Checking connectivity... done. [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ls -a total 16 drwxrwxr-x 3 user user 4096 Jun 7 22 :49. drwxrwxrwt 30 user user 4096 Jun 7 22 :49.. drwxrwxr-x 8 user user 4096 Jun 7 22 :49.git -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 12 Jun 7 22 :49 myfile [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $cat myfile Hello world [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $echo -e "
Goodbye world" >>myfile [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git log -n1 commit cd2eb6563b566a2994c4b836e8974e9f71106825 Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Tue Jun 7 22 :49:05 2016 +0200 Greet the world [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git fetch remote: Counting objects: 3, done. remote: Total 3 ( delta 0 ), reused 1 ( delta 0 ) Unpacking objects: 100 % ( 3 /3 ), done. From server.com:example cd2eb65..6906bf3 master -> origin/master [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git log -n2 origin/master commit 6906bf3594fcb82496e2e5b8da9b3279549d5d09 Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Tue Jun 7 20 :52:02 2016 +0000 Hello again commit cd2eb6563b566a2994c4b836e8974e9f71106825 Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Tue Jun 7 22 :49:05 2016 +0200 Greet the world [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $cat myfile Hello world Goodbye world [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git pull Updating cd2eb65..6906bf3 error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge: myfile Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can merge. Aborting [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $cat myfile Hello world Goodbye world [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git stash Saved working directory and index state WIP on master: cd2eb65 Greet the world HEAD is now at cd2eb65 Greet the world [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git pull Updating cd2eb65..6906bf3 Fast-forward myfile | 1 + 1 file changed, 1 insertion ( + ) [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git status On branch master Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'. nothing to commit, working directory clean [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git stash pop Auto-merging myfile CONFLICT ( content ) : Merge conflict in myfile
Conflict resolution is a topic which seems mysterious at first but once understood turns out to be quite straight forward. It refers to the act of manually merging changes when git has not been able to merge them automatically. This usually involves manually editing the files involved and adding them to the stage.
git stash pop tries to apply the commit on top of the stash list to the current working directory, so in a sense, it also works as git merge, only that it merges a commit and not a branch.
Calling git merge leads to an error similar to the one we've already seen. There are changes which have not been yet merged and they have to be solved in order to proceed.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git merge error: merge is not possible because you have unmerged files. hint: Fix them up in the work tree, and then use 'git add/rm <file>' hint: as appropriate to mark resolution and make a commit. fatal: Exiting because of an unresolved conflict.
We observe that git has modified the file with conflicting changes. myfile now contains the change add "Hello again" on the second line which comes from origin/master and our local change which we popped from the stash `add "Goodbye world" at the second line.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $ls -a total 20 drwxrwxr-x 3 user user 4096 Jun 7 22 :57. drwxrwxrwt 30 user user 4096 Jun 7 22 :56.. drwxrwxr-x 8 user user 4096 Jun 7 22 :57.git -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 96 Jun 7 22 :57 myfile [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $cat myfile Hello world <<<<<< < Updated upstream Hello again ======= Goodbye world >
We open myfile with a text editor and modify it in the way which best suits us.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $cat myfile Hello world Hello again Goodbye world
We have kept both changes. Now we add the file again to the index. This is our way of telling git that the conflicts for myfile have been solved.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git add myfile [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git status On branch master Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'. Changes to be committed: ( use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage ) modified: myfile
myfile is now listed as modified but not commited. So we commit it and push it.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git commit -m "Fixed conflict" [ master e1bc4c8 ] Fixed conflict 1 file changed, 1 insertion ( + ) [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git push Counting objects: 3, done. Writing objects: 100 % ( 3 /3 ), 266 bytes | 0 bytes/s, done. Total 3 ( delta 0 ), reused 0 ( delta 0 ) To git@server.com:example.git 6906bf3..e1bc4c8 master -> master
origin/master now contains our changes.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git log -n3 origin/master commit e1bc4c8c51387858f1533521510a27e51e65dd58 Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Tue Jun 7 23 :01:08 2016 +0200 Fixed conflict commit 6906bf3594fcb82496e2e5b8da9b3279549d5d09 Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Tue Jun 7 20 :52:02 2016 +0000 Hello again commit cd2eb6563b566a2994c4b836e8974e9f71106825 Author: sentheon <contact@sentheon.com> Date: Tue Jun 7 22 :49:05 2016 +0200 Greet the world [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $
As you've might have noticed, manually solving merging conflicts is a troublesome task. It involves moving text around, copying, deleteing and so on. It is for this reason that GUIs for merging and solving conflicts might be a better alternative. My favorite at the moment is Meld.
We can set meld as our merge.tool by installing it and issuing git config --global merge.tool meld. Under Ubuntu it can be easily installed with sudo apt-get install meld.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git mergetool Merging: myfile Normal merge conflict for'myfile' : { local } : modified file { remote } : modified file
At this point git calls our chosen tool.
As you can see, the text in origin/master is shown on the left, while our changes are shown on the right. The final contents of myfile are shown in the middle.
A good thing about Meld is that it generates a myfile.orig file, which contains the file before the conflict resolution, just in case something went wrong.
http://meldmerge.org/
In this case we choose to only keep the remote changes and discard our own by clicking on the arrow to the left. Finally, we save the changes and close the GUI by using CTRL+S and then CTRL+Q.
http://meldmerge.org/
If we try to run our mergetool again, git lets us know that there are no more changes to be solved.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git mergetool No files need merging [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $git status On branch master Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'. Untracked files: ( use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed ) myfile.orig nothing added to commit but untracked files present ( use "git add" to track ) [ ~/gitrepo/ ] $cat myfile.orig Hello world <<<<<< < Updated upstream Hello again ======= Goodbye world >>>>>>> Stashed changes
myfile.orig is still there and can be removed. Another alternative would be to put files with a.orig extension in.gitignore if you wish to keep such files locally.
In any case, myfile looks as follows.
[ ~/gitrepo/ ] $cat myfile Hello world Hello again
In this way we have managed to solve merging conflicts caused by edit collisions.
Advanced topics
There are some topics I've purposely left out since I consider them to be out of scope. I do hope, however, that with what I've presented so far you will now be better equipped to delve into those topics on your own. For completeness' sake, the topics I left out but you might want to look into after you've gained more confidence with git:
resetting cherry-picking rebasing git workflows
Finally, I've prepared a cheat sheet with my favorite commands which I hope you find useful. You can find it here
Final words
As far as basic git terminology and usage goes, that was pretty much it. Below you will find the most common commands used in the git world. Some you'll use on a daily basis, some others once every month. I've decided to include all my favorite ones in order to give beginners a good overview of how one can employ git.
One more thing, practice what you've read so far! Create a local repository or head over to Github or Gitlab and create a remote one. Practice cloning, adding files, committing changes, creating branches, merging and so on. With enough practice you'll become familiar enough with git to start fine-tuning your usage of the tool and your workflow.
Thank you for reading, feel free to comment or contact me via email. Do let me know if there's anything you'd like to know or there's something that should be corrected, added or clarified further.
Of course, feel free to subscribe by entering your email on the sidebar if you are interested in receiving updates whenever I write something new.
ResourcesIs Xi Copying Putin’s Strategy?
The Chinese are notorious for copying Western products and adapting them to serve the Chinese market. Look at Alibaba, often described as China’s answer to eBay, or Weibo, a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook. Plus, thanks to weak intellectual property protection laws in China, these companies often get away with it.
Yet there is nothing inherently immoral or illegal about governments copying geopolitical strategies from other governments, and China’s northern comrade, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, may be setting a dangerous precedent. The apparent success of Putin’s misadventures in Ukraine could serve as an attractive geopolitical militaristic strategy for other nations with territorial disputes, such as China. But if Putin’s strategy in Ukraine is so dangerous and widely condemned, why would Chinese President Xi Jinping bother copying Putin?
Some political analysts argue that when a nation’s leaders face economic difficulties, the public’s preoccupation with day-to-day problems can be alleviated by focusing on broader concerns like nationalism and the protection of the state’s interests. Economic growth in China is a serious concern, as overcapacity in real estate and heavy industry took gross domestic product (GDP) from the nine percent average from 1989 to 2015 to an expected seven percent first-quarter year-over-year growth rate this last quarter.
Russia is also facing an economic slowdown. Its GDP is expected to shrink by three percent in 2015 as $50 a barrel oil and capital outflows of $115 billion harm growth prospects. Despite an economic crisis in Russia, Putin’s popularity has soared, largely the result of increased nationalism. In May 2013, a little less than a year before Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, Putin’s approval ratings stood at 64 percent. Following further intervention by Russia, which stands accused of providing arms and forces in the east of Ukraine, Putin’s latest approval rating rocketed to 86 percent. Some have questioned the legitimacy of the poll numbers, but many do concede a marked increase in Putin’s popularity among ordinary Russians.
Why would the approval ratings soar after military intervention in another country? One often-cited reason could be the public’s positive perception to any government willing to stand up and defy outside criticism. Other leaders have seen their approval ratings soar when nationalism is fired up — indeed, following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks former President George W. Bush enjoyed the highest approval rating of any president (90 percent). His father, George H.W. Bush, received an 88 percent approval rating in 1991 in the midst of the first Gulf War.
Joseph Nye, a professor at Harvard University and the Assistant Secretary of Defense under the Clinton administration from 1994–95, hints this same strategy may be happening in China under Xi Jinping. In a recent interview with The Diplomat, he warns of growing nationalism under Xi:
Xi Jinping needs a legitimizing force for his power and for the power of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Economic growth has historically been the primary legitimizer of its authority, especially since communist ideology has declined greatly in importance. As China has an economic slowdown, nationalism will increase further, and I think we are undergoing a period of heightened attention to nationalism. I think nationalism has made it more difficult for China to resolve conflicts with its neighbors in the South China Sea. So far there is no clear indication that increased Chinese nationalism will result in military aggression. The high level meeting between Xi Jinping and Abe at the APEC summit was a positive step, as China had been resistant to these meetings in the past. But the potential for nationalism to boil over, it is something we need to watch closely.
I think the most probable scenario would be if Chinese planes and ships got involved in incidents with the Japanese in the Senkaku Islands, and lost. The Japanese might have superior capabilities in the event of conflict, and a defeat there would be a direct threat to Xi Jinping’s power.
Nye’s scenario is not so far-fetched. On Saturday, Japanese media reported on Chinese plans to build a large naval base in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province for its coast guard vessels. Wenzhou is not far from the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu to the Chinese), it and would allow the Chinese to closely monitor naval activities around the disputed eight uninhabited islands and rocks in the East China Sea controlled by Japan.
The potential for skirmishes in the airspace above the Senkaku is also real. In November 2013, China announced the creation of its air-defense identification zone in the East China Sea, which requires all aircraft to comply with Beijing’s rules.
China also claims up to 90 percent of the South China Sea, and draws a ten-dash U-shaped line (or “cow’s tongue”) around the sea on its maps, which overlaps territorial claims by Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. Originally an eleven-dash line formulated in 1936, two dashes were removed near the Gulf of Tonkin to appease its Communist brother Vietnam. Last year, one dash was added by Beijing emphasize its sovereignty over Taiwan. In recent months, Beijing has come under have international criticism for land reclamation on islands it occupies, and for attempting to impose its control over the fishing rights in, and airspace above, the South China Sea.
Should Xi copy Putin in building nationalistic fervor in order to distract the populace from domestic problems, the strategy could well backfire. Many of the student protests in Chinese history originally began as nationalistic protests against foreign countries and morphed into protests against government leadership. The strategy could also lead to strong reactions from both regional governments and the naval superpower in the region, the United States.
Such reactions have already affected Russia. In response to Putin’s latest misadventures in Ukraine, the U.S. announced plans this past weekend to store heavy military equipment in the Baltics and Eastern European nations. The U.S. may seek a similar strategy in the East and South China Sea, and position more and more of its naval military there to reassure its allies and other nations with territorial claims and deter any further aggression from Beijing. Vietnam and the Philippines are already requesting further support from Washington, and Japan is reconsidering its constitution to allow for greater military efforts.
Besides leading to a potential dangerous and costly war, what both Xi and Putin should not forget is that while military nationalism may provide a temporary boost to popularity, it may prove short-lived, inflict further damage on the economy, and result in a failure to achieve its military objectives.The November/December issue of acmqueue is out now
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February 23, 2006
Volume 4, issue 1
It Isn’t Your Father’s Realtime Anymore
The misuse and abuse of a noble term
Phillip Laplante, Penn State University
Isn’t it a shame the way the term realtime has become so misused? I’ve noticed a slow devolution since 1982, when realtime systems became the main focus of my research, teaching, and consulting. Over these past 20-plus years, I have watched my beloved realtime become one of the most overloaded, overused, and overrated terms in the lexicon of computing. Worse, it has been purloined by users outside of the computing community and has been shamelessly exploited by marketing opportunists. Adding to the humiliation, there is not even consistency of spelling: it variously appears as realtime (ACM Queue’s style preference), real-time (the author’s style preference), or real time.
WHAT IS REALTIME?
To understand my frustration, consider the history of this noble term. Realtime appears to have first been used in conjunction with Project Whirlwind, a Navy flight simulator begun in 1947. During the 1950s and ’60s realtime systems were primarily those that were distinguished from batch-processing systems or online (nonbatch) systems for use in controlling embedded systems. Indeed, in one of the first textbooks on the subject, Design of Real-Time Computer Systems (Prentice Hall, 1967), James Martin described realtime as “[a system] which controls an environment by receiving data, processing them, and taking action or returning results sufficiently quickly to affect the functioning of the environment at that time.” For the next 30 years or so, the term realtime was applied only to industrial control, weapons systems, and other exotic applications, all of which were essentially characterized as those where inability to meet deadlines led to failure—usually a spectacularly catastrophic one.
Today, the IEEE Standard Dictionary, sixth edition (John Wiley, 1996), has seven definitions for the term, including: “pertaining to a system or mode of operation in which computation is performed during the actual time that an external process occurs, in order that the computation results can be used to |
1 Data Org RTA run of Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix by Bl00dyBizkitz. $30,505.88 $30,000.00
Choose Run Category Show Options Hide Options Metroid Fusion Choose the category for the Metroid Fusion run. 100% vs 0%. $24,068.92 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal 0% run Metroid Fusion $15,592.97 (None) 100% run Metroid Fusion $8,475.95 (None)
Save or Kill the Animals Show Options Hide Options Super Metroid Save the frames vs Save the animals, your choice. $264,939.00 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal Save the Animals Super Metroid They're fluffy, they're cute, they're helpless. You can't just leave them to die. $136,596.69 (None) Kill the Animals Super Metroid They're smelly, they cost time, they're pointless. Leave 'em. $128,342.31 (None)
Aeris's Name Show Options Hide Options Final Fantasy VII Choose the name given to Aeris for the Final Fantasy VII run. 9 characters. $9,126.43 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal COOLRANCH Final Fantasy VII $3,333.50 (None) Aerith Final Fantasy VII $2,925.54 (None) SPOILER Final Fantasy VII $813.45 (None) Bucket Final Fantasy VII $537.00 (None) Bullseye Final Fantasy VII $231.00 (None) ImGonaDie Final Fantasy VII $230.00 (None) RedShirt Final Fantasy VII $220.00 (None) SeanBean Final Fantasy VII $190.54 (None) Pastilda Final Fantasy VII $130.00 (None) Mama Final Fantasy VII $115.00 (None) Denice Final Fantasy VII $110.00 (None) Alice Final Fantasy VII $80.40 (None) I LIVE Final Fantasy VII $75.00 (None) Tifa Final Fantasy VII $50.00 (None)
Barret's Name Show Options Hide Options Final Fantasy VII Choose the name given to Barret for the Final Fantasy VII run. 9 characters. $5,922.88 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal Mamilami Final Fantasy VII $2,274.00 (None) Mega Ran Final Fantasy VII $2,076.30 (None) Mr. T Final Fantasy VII $860.00 (None) Beefcake Final Fantasy VII $225.00 (None) BadNews Final Fantasy VII $179.77 (None) Lunchbox Final Fantasy VII $105.31 (None) Lambini Final Fantasy VII $57.50 (None) Gilbit Final Fantasy VII $50.00 (None) Cawky Final Fantasy VII $25.00 (None) Gratata Final Fantasy VII $20.00 (None)
Cait Sith's Name Show Options Hide Options Final Fantasy VII Choose the name given to Cait Sith for the Final Fantasy VII run. 9 characters. $4,135.32 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal nalaSmug Final Fantasy VII $1,605.55 (None) RealMyop Final Fantasy VII $889.00 (None) CincoFone Final Fantasy VII $510.00 (None) Meow Final Fantasy VII $350.00 (None) Bonchon Final Fantasy VII $315.00 (None) Caitlyn Final Fantasy VII $165.00 (None) Mister Final Fantasy VII $75.00 (None) Gil Bot Final Fantasy VII $58.00 (None) Mewtwo Final Fantasy VII $47.77 (None) Magoo Final Fantasy VII $45.00 (None) Schmibble Final Fantasy VII $25.00 (None) Chibo Final Fantasy VII $15.00 (None) Crimblsin Final Fantasy VII $15.00 (None) Fluffer Final Fantasy VII $15.00 (None)
Cid's Name Show Options Hide Options Final Fantasy VII Choose the name given to Cid for the Final Fantasy VII run. 9 characters. $9,580.18 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal SevenS1ns Final Fantasy VII $3,310.77 (None) Chris Final Fantasy VII $2,376.00 (None) SoloGyoo Final Fantasy VII $2,268.97 (None) MrGrumpy Final Fantasy VII $372.15 (None) Setzer Final Fantasy VII $230.00 (None) Pork Final Fantasy VII $225.00 (None) Buffalo Final Fantasy VII $170.00 (None) Cindy Final Fantasy VII $162.29 (None) BlueSteel Final Fantasy VII $150.00 (None) Krys Final Fantasy VII $55.00 (None) CptSmokey Final Fantasy VII $30.00 (None) Daniel Final Fantasy VII $25.00 (None)
Cloud's Name Show Options Hide Options Final Fantasy VII Choose the name given to Cloud for the Final Fantasy VII run. 9 characters. $7,313.67 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal SpikeVege Final Fantasy VII $3,876.00 (None) Pvt Pyle Final Fantasy VII $1,400.00 (None) Zack Final Fantasy VII $560.00 (None) Kanye Final Fantasy VII $320.17 (None) HOT GRR Final Fantasy VII $300.00 (None) Dude Final Fantasy VII $225.00 (None) Cloud Final Fantasy VII $205.00 (None) Bimblor Final Fantasy VII $107.50 (None) Spikey Final Fantasy VII $70.00 (None) Ben Final Fantasy VII $25.00 (None) Knifeman Final Fantasy VII $15.00 (None)
Fix the Music Final Fantasy VII Doing the Midgar skip kills the music until the game ends. It costs time to fix it, but ajneb174 can do it for us. $7,049.51 $7,000.00
Omnislash Sephiroth Final Fantasy VII Want Cloud to ruin Sephiroth's day? Donate for this to send him off with a bang. $20,215.00 $20,000.00
Red XIII's Name Show Options Hide Options Final Fantasy VII Choose the name given to Red XIII for the Final Fantasy VII run. 9 characters. $6,694.61 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal LegDog Final Fantasy VII $2,680.00 (None) Doggo Final Fantasy VII $1,779.88 (None) TekkiesBF Final Fantasy VII $507.30 (None) MrWoof Final Fantasy VII $460.00 (None) Nanaki Final Fantasy VII $250.00 (None) Clifford Final Fantasy VII $195.00 (None) Fishboi Final Fantasy VII $155.00 (None) Servitor Final Fantasy VII $150.00 (None) Omega Red Final Fantasy VII $141.66 (None) Moggy Final Fantasy VII $85.00 (None) pupper Final Fantasy VII $68.00 (None) BnlsPizza Final Fantasy VII $20.00 (None) Albert E Final Fantasy VII $15.00 (None) Yetee Final Fantasy VII $15.00 (None) Liar Final Fantasy VII $7.77 (None)
Tifa's Name Show Options Hide Options Final Fantasy VII Choose the name given to Tifa for the Final Fantasy VII run. 9 characters. $7,987.35 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal Beefaroni Final Fantasy VII $3,535.89 (None) PnutButtr Final Fantasy VII $2,162.00 (None) BeefJerky Final Fantasy VII $1,469.00 (None) 2B Final Fantasy VII $357.01 (None) Aerith Final Fantasy VII $263.45 (None) Sephiroth Final Fantasy VII $95.00 (None) Szudds Final Fantasy VII $25.00 (None) TheMary27 Final Fantasy VII $25.00 (None) Poxnor Final Fantasy VII $10.00 (None)
Demonstrate Out of Bounds Glitch The Maitre D Nerd_Squared will show off an amusing out of bounds glitch during his The Maitre D run. $3,003.00 $3,000.00
MRVN Show Options Hide Options Titanfall 2 The MRVN is a small, adorable little robot that An Angry Albino will have to deal with during his Titanfall 2 run. Will he destroy it for its valuable arc tool? Or will he spare it for the adorable animation? You decide. $5,004.88 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal Spare the MRVN Titanfall 2 It's adorable! How could you even think of destroying it?! $4,297.38 (None) Destroy the MRVN Titanfall 2 Murder is faster. We need that arc tool! $707.50 (None)
Choose the Character Name Show Options Hide Options Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction Choose the name given to the player character for the Diablo 2 run. $7,356.49 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal ChrisWilson Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $2,343.99 (None) RyuQuezacotl Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $1,186.00 (None) RunnersChoice Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $801.02 (None) Kripp Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $667.50 (None) a train Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $607.22 (None) WatchOutForSnakes Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $548.21 (None) DoritoDew Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $350.00 (None) Sultan McDoom Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $320.00 (None) Nefastus Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $110.00 (None) Thick McRunfast Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $100.00 (None) XxDethTrapPVPxX Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $80.00 (None) EliteMuffinCrew Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $70.00 (None) Bramblepelt Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $57.00 (None) Vapenation Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $50.00 (None) Rymoo Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $30.00 (None) TheMary27 Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $30.00 (None) FluffyPinkyPoo Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $5.55 (None) Gary Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $0.00 (None)
Decide the fate of Deckard Cain Show Options Hide Options Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction Everyone's favourite identification bot needs our help. Do we rescue him, or leave him to rot in his cage? $9,455.51 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal Save him Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $7,048.26 (None) Leave him Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction $2,407.25 (None)
Secret Cow Level Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction If met, MrLlamaSC will enter the Secret Cow Level and lay waste to all that is both hellish and bovine in nature. $25,143.67 $25,000.00
BONUS GAME: Dark Souls Dark Souls Replace SETUP BLOCK 4 with an Any% w/ Kiln Skip run of Dark Souls by BubblesDelFuego. $50,074.32 $50,000.00
Choose the Filename Show Options Hide Options Dark Souls Choose the filename used for the Dark Souls 1 run. 13 character limit. $2,431.00 (None)
Filename Choice Show Options Hide Options The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask Choose the Filename used for the Majora's Mask run. 8 characters. $30,443.06 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal Lonk The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $10,182.49 (None) BEN The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $5,722.12 (None) Bilbo The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $4,498.68 (None) Slurmp The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $2,755.00 (None) Loafus The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $1,585.00 (None) bbaSHOOK The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $1,270.00 (None) Zeldaaaa The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $935.42 (None) KreyGasm The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $345.00 (None) Gary The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $317.00 (None) G.O.A.T. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $246.00 (None) Quixote The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $218.00 (None) trevRoll The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $205.00 (None) Squanchy The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $151.11 (None) Melvin The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $119.77 (None) Majora The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $114.42 (None) Troop The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $105.00 (None) Mario The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $85.00 (None) Robbie The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $60.00 (None) Pringle The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $55.00 (None) jlsfjlahj The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $50.00 (None) Pizzafst The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $40.00 (None) Kieri The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $25.00 (None) Rolfis The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $20.00 (None) majinD The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $15.00 (None) squeept The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $12.00 (None) Sean The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $10.00 (None) Stink The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask $10.00 (None)
Glitch Exhibition The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask TrevPerson will show off some cool glitches not used in speedruns after his Majora's Mask run. $30,087.50 $30,000.00
BONUS GAME: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Replace SETUP BLOCK 5 with an Any% run of Zelda: Breath of the Wild by Orcastraw. $101,303.44 $100,000.00
BONUS GAME: Portal 2 Portal 2 Replace the SUPER SECRET BONUS SETUP BLOCK with a run of Portal 2 solo coop by Azorae. $201,522.33 $200,000.00
Dog's Name Show Options Hide Options Earthbound Choose the name given to the Dog for the Earthbound run. 6 characters. $12,735.02 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal FrnkrZ Earthbound $3,872.37 (None) Becky Earthbound $3,163.54 (None) Dog Earthbound $1,646.05 (None) Link Earthbound $540.00 (None) Gumbo Earthbound $346.66 (None) Kitty Earthbound $275.00 (None) Rowlf Earthbound $215.00 (None) biggeD Earthbound $200.00 (None) LucyZ Earthbound $200.00 (None) Gerby Earthbound $140.00 (None) Mic Earthbound $125.00 (None) Betty Earthbound $115.00 (None) Rise Earthbound $80.00 (None) Tessie Earthbound $65.00 (None) Nunukins Earthbound $20.00 (None) Sadie Earthbound $10.00 (None) NINT Earthbound $8.00 (None) Ghost Earthbound $1.00 (None)
Favourite Food Show Options Hide Options Earthbound Choose your Favourite Food for the Earthbound run. 6 characters. $12,452.02 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal Anime Earthbound $5,946.02 (None) Pesto Earthbound $2,575.00 (None) Lantis Earthbound $1,600.00 (None) Pizza Earthbound $880.00 (None) Toby Earthbound $416.00 (None) Gungan Earthbound $329.00 (None) Soap Earthbound $281.00 (None) Pie Earthbound $110.00 (None) Memes Earthbound $76.00 (None) Dog Earthbound $35.00 (None) Sushi Earthbound $30.00 (None) Plorts Earthbound $20.00 (None) Spaghe Earthbound $16.00 (None) bits Earthbound $15.00 (None)
Favourite Thing Show Options Hide Options Earthbound Choose your Favourite Thing for the Earthbound run. 6 characters. $12,932.03 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal R.N.G. Earthbound $4,595.49 (None) Bepis Earthbound $4,570.37 (None) BUSTIN Earthbound $2,414.06 (None) Anime Earthbound $648.50 (None) Zelda1 Earthbound $270.00 (None) LLAMAS Earthbound $225.00 (None) Memes Earthbound $158.61 (None) Love Earthbound $15.00 (None) Kdood Earthbound $10.00 (None) HODOR! Earthbound $2.00 (None)
Fuzzy Pickles Photos Earthbound There are 32 photos taken by the Fuzzy Pickles Man that play during the end credits. UltimoIce will collect all of them before he finishes his Earthbound run. $33,770.77 $32,000.00
Jeff's Name Show Options Hide Options Earthbound Choose the name given to Jeff for the Earthbound run. 5 characters. $4,879.81 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal Morty Earthbound $2,327.20 (None) Hella Earthbound $2,141.11 (None) Jeff Earthbound $355.00 (None) MOTHR Earthbound $13.00 (None) Lumpy Earthbound $5.00 (None) Jorge Earthbound $2.50 (None) Bran Earthbound $1.00 (None)
Ness's Name Show Options Hide Options Earthbound Choose the name given to Ness for the Earthbound run. 5 characters. $16,781.60 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal Sans Earthbound $3,786.96 (None) Itoi Earthbound $2,774.93 (None) BUNS Earthbound $2,030.91 (None) Jeff Earthbound $1,797.46 (None) dolan Earthbound $1,782.46 (None) John Earthbound $1,454.96 (None) Eetey Earthbound $1,442.46 (None) Ratix Earthbound $1,432.46 (None) Yetee Earthbound $235.00 (None) Jon Earthbound $1.00 (None)
Out of Bounds Demonstration Earthbound UltimoIce will demonstrate setting up an Out of Bounds glitch file before his Earthbound run. $25,268.29 $25,000.00
Paula's Name Show Options Hide Options Earthbound Choose the name given to Paula for the Earthbound run. 5 characters. $11,649.50 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal Jestr Earthbound $5,620.00 (None) Maman Earthbound $5,238.00 (None) Sond Earthbound $195.00 (None) Angie Earthbound $125.00 (None) LANDY Earthbound $100.00 (None) Ana Earthbound $75.00 (None) Grace Earthbound $50.00 (None) Paula Earthbound $17.50 (None) Jenja Earthbound $10.00 (None) Petch Earthbound $10.00 (None) Paige Earthbound $5.00 (None) Peach Earthbound $5.00 (None) Sansa Earthbound $1.00 (None)
Player Name Show Options Hide Options Earthbound Choose the name given to the Player for the Earthbound run. 24 characters. $52,220.94 (None)
Poo's Name Show Options Hide Options Earthbound Choose the name given to Poo (the character) for the Earthbound run. 5 characters. $5,732.98 (None)
Name Run Description Amount Goal MELVN Earthbound $1,640.00 (None) Chris Earthbound $1,110.00 (None) Ness Earthbound $1,086.00 (None) Micro Earthbound $655.35 (None) Bohij Earthbound $515.00 (None) Nog Earthbound $225.00 (None) Zuko Earthbound $175.12 (None) Poo Earthbound $145.00 (None) Plort Earthbound $55.01 (None) Kato Earthbound $15.00 (None) Biiny Earthbound $10.00 (None) Tien Earthbound $10.00 (None) Ringo Earthbound $7.50 (None) Arya Earthbound $1.00 (None)
Shattered Man Glitch Earthbound The Shattered Man glitch is a post-Giygas glitch involving killing off your entire party and haunting the world, before completing the game and watching the credits. UltimoIce will show it off here. $50,454.99 $50,000.00The Harper government's nerve centre for emergencies issued a Canada-wide alert more than five hours after traumatic shootings at the National War Memorial and Parliament Hill, warning that up to five other assailants were involved in the attack.
The erroneous Oct. 22 report from the Government Operations Centre to top officials claimed to be drawing on news media and other open sources for this and other sometimes dubious information — raising questions about the ability of senior intelligence personnel to disseminate reliable data to front-line security.
"As of 13:04 EDT, open sources reported that possibly five assailants may have been involved in this event," says an internal situation report sent to emergency personnel in federal departments and in the provinces and territories.
"Open sources reported that after an intense search, security services shot and killed at least one assailant."
The document, distributed electronically sometime after 3 p.m. on Oct. 22, is among six formal communications issued by the secretive Government Operations Centre and obtained by CBC News under the Access to Information Act. Small sections of the documents were censored under security exemptions.
A situation report issued sometime after 8 p.m. that day repeated the erroneous information about there being as many as five assailants — again citing open sources — and noted that "RCMP has advised all personnel in downtown buildings to stay clear of windows and roofs," presumably because of the threat of snipers.
Alarmist tone
Minutes later, Ottawa city police notified the public that a "threat to public safety in the area no longer existed" — far different from the alarmist tone that had just been issued widely by the federal emergency office.
The situation reports, distributed to officials at the Treasury Board, Privy Council Office and other major departments, prompted a general lockdown of federal buildings in the downtown core until mid-evening. Public servants were told to hide under desks, stay away from windows and move to inner, windowless offices.
It's not clear where media reports of as many as five gunmen originated. Most media outlets, including CBC News, reported RCMP and other security personnel were on the alert for a possible second or even third accomplice.
The six situation reports all appear to rely heavily on occasionally contradictory news media items, rather than on hard information from front-line officers dispatched to the search for accomplices.
The Government Operations Centre is a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week facility in an undisclosed location that "provides strategic-level co-ordination … in response to an emerging or occurring event affecting the national interest," according to the website of Public Safety, the department in charge.
Accurate, timely and comprehensive information. — Public Safety website description of Government Operations Centre reports
"The GOC conducts risk assessments based on information and intelligence to provide senior and elected officials and the private sector with accurate, timely and comprehensive information to quickly develop proper responses to an occurring event."
Intelligence expert Wesley Wark raised questions about the role of the Government Operations Centre that day, noting the RCMP and Ottawa city police were the lead agencies, and the centre "was peripheral on the day as a source of information."
"This suggests that emergency management procedures for the NCR [National Capital Region might need to be reviewed," said Wark, an academic at the University of Ottawa, on examining copies of the situation reports.
He added that the 3 p.m. message about multiple assailants "looks like the product of fatigue. No reason for it to have conveyed an alarming message about a possible five assailants."
The centre came under fire in September this year after the Toronto Star obtained documents showing it has kept close tabs on some 800 public demonstrations and protests since 2006, drawing on Canadian Security Intelligence Service and RCMP information.
The public release of the doubtful situation reports about the Oct. 22 shootings follows another CBC News investigation that found the Privy Council Office issued a security alert five days before the shooting warning of a potential "violent act of terrorism in Canada."
It's unclear whether the Privy Council alert prompted stepped-up vigilance, but some security experts have questioned how the lone Oct. 22 shooter, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, still managed to enter Centre Block and fire his hunting rifle repeatedly just metres from the prime minister, cabinet ministers and dozens of MPs.
'Unclassified products'
The Government Operations Centre, which also handles natural disasters such as extreme weather events, is distinct from the RCMP's National Operations Centre, another round-the-clock facility that deals with suspected criminal activities, and — unlike its parallel facility at Public Safety — encourages public contact through a telephone line or email. The RCMP centre had access to closed-circuit video footage in the parliamentary precinct throughout the Oct. 22 events.
The Government Operations Centre, run by director general Craig Oldham, issued its first mass email about the shooting incident at 10:12 a.m., a terse report citing open sources about the wounding of an honour guard at the National War Memorial, and shots fired in the Centre Block, with no reports of injuries.
"Further products related to this event will not be issued unless there are significant changes to the situation," the email advised. A French-language version of the same email was not issued until more than an hour later.
A spokesperson for Public Safety said the centre was in early contact with security services "to ensure the GOC was able to co-ordinate collective government response and share information as accurate as possible, during difficult and uncertain circumstances."
But Josée Sirois added that the situation reports "were unclassified products and therefore would not include any classified material from security partners."
The communications were sent to federal departments, operations centres of provincial and territorial governments, key private-sector critical infrastructure owners or operators, and other emergency management officials, she said in an email.
Sirois did not respond to a direct question about the source of the erroneous information about as many as five assailants.
Follow @DeanBeeby on TwitterNew for Fyxation this year, options. Earlier they launched their Quiver frameset. It’s a super versatile bike that can be built up in many different ways. Next up, the option for gears on a frame with 120mm rear spacing.
Fyxation has worked with Microshift to develop a 6 speed rear derailleur, hub, and cassette that can be placed in any 120mm spaced frame to keep that fixie or single speed going should your riding terrain change, or you just decide you want things to be a little easier. The build kit will run $300 and includes the rim built up with the 120mm hub, cassette, derailleur and special hanger that works in sliding dropouts, 46t front chainring, inner chain guide, indexed bar end shifter, cable clips, cable guides for the chain stay, and a cable and housing. A 9 speed chain will have to be acquired by the rider to complete the build. If you want to supply your own rim, a $250 version of the kit can be had sans the hoop and spokes. There is no set launch date yet, but tooling and manufacturing are being implemented. Stay tuned, as we should be getting the system for review once it’s ready.
More images of the kit, plus tanned leather goods on the other side.
In a change of pace for Fyxation, they are introducing leather goods made in Milwaukee. The classy six pack holder will run $60, while the wine bottle carrier and disc golf straps will cost $40. The tanned goods will be available for the holiday season.Sergio Perez admits he is feeling the pressure of driving for McLaren and not delivering the results expected of him.
McLaren have had a tough start to the year with an uncompetitive car and Perez was well off the pace of team-mate Jenson Button in China on Sunday.
The Mexican said: "I definitely feel the pressure. In McLaren, everyone is watching your performance, every practice, every single race."
He's strong mentally and as long as he keeps his head down and keeps working he's going to improve Jenson Button on Sergio Perez
But he said he had been surprised to receive so much criticism after China.
"I find it quite amazing that after three weekends, when I had two good weekends in terms of maximizing the car, after one bad weekend I received so many criticisms, but this is quite normal for a team like McLaren," Perez said.
"I never thought about it before and if I'm totally honest I'm not bothered about it. I'm here to do my job and I will try my best this weekend. I will keep trying my very best, which I have been doing from the start."
Perez, who is in his third season in F1 after joining McLaren from Sauber, has been told by team boss Martin Whitmarsh that he needs to up his game and Perez admitted Button had been a tough rival so far this year.
"Jenson has been extremely difficult to beat," he said. "In China, I was quite off the pace from him. Never got close to him. With the car we have he is doing an extremely good job, you have to say.
Media playback is not supported on this device Chinese GP first practice highlights
"I want to beat everyone, not only Jenson. To be successful, you have to win. That is what I want. It's normal.
"When you come to McLaren you are expected to come and win. I am the first one hungry for success. I am trying to do my best, it is quite normal and McLaren are a very ambitious team. Sooner or later I will have good success with this team."
Button said: "Checo has fitted into the team very well. Out of the car he is going about it in the right manner, no doubt about it.
"The last race was difficult for him and it started on Friday when he had his difficulties (Perez went off the track in each of the two practice sessions).
"I don't know what was going on in the race, but there is a lot more pressure on your shoulders at a team like McLaren but he's strong mentally and as long as he keeps his head down and keeps working he's going to improve."Terrence Boyd knows the US national team's chances of success against Germany at the World Cup in Brazil this June as well as anyone else. The odds are long and the stakes are high, but as he told DW: "You never know what can happen at the World Cup."
The Bremen-born Boyd grew up in Germany, although plays internationally for his father's country - the United States. The 23-year-old Boyd came up through Hertha Berlin's academy and later drew the attention of US national team coach Jürgen Klinsmann while starring for Borussia Dortmund's reserve side. Following his national team debut in February 2012 and a subsequent move to Austrian side Rapid Vienna for more top flight action, Boyd has become a regular in the US setup.
He is now one of eight German-American players in contention for a World Cup spot on a German-coached team. And of all the countries for the US to be drawn with at the tournament in Brazil, they got the Germans, along with Portugal and Ghana.
"Crazy," said Boyd. "It's just such a big coincidence that we play Germany. It's a big game."
Facing a familiar foe
Germany, who are coached by Klinsmann's former assistant Joachim Löw, are the undoubted frontrunners in the June 26 encounter - the third and final group match for both teams.
"They're one of the favorites for the World Cup to win it," said Boyd. "Of course, we're going to prepare hard for these games, but at this stage it depends on the form that every player has on each day and the mentality."
Boyd launched his professional career starring for Dortmund's reserve side
"There are so many things that you just can't control," he added. "The game could start and we could score a goal in the first minute and everything would look different, or the other way around. You never know, we'll just give our best and we'll see what comes out."
Klinsmann's players have made great competitive strides since his appointment in 2011, but they are still a long way from title contention. Nonetheless, Boyd says the US is a stronger team than the rest of the world might think, and their tough CONCACAF qualifying campaign that takes the team to hostile environments like Guatemala and Honduras might give them an extra edge that other countries lack.
"It's a different kind of soccer, it's hard. I've seen some things I didn't know could happen. Sometimes, we're playing with referees that don't even speak English," he said. "But you learn to just keep going and put your anger in your game."
Stateside aspirations
A major reason for the US national team's growth over the past two decades is down to the game's evolution on home soil. The US top flight, Major League Soccer, which was formed in 1996, has grown rapidly in recent years. The league has made a concerted effort to attract major US stars with lucrative contracts in the lead-up to the World Cup. This summer in Brazil, the three best US outfield players will be on the books at MLS clubs - captain Clint Dempsey (Seattle Sounders), Landon Donovan (LA Galaxy) and Michael Bradley (Toronto FC).
Dempsey is one of a number of US stars who've moved to MLS in their prime
Boyd says the MLS' development has made Europe-based players like himself start to consider the league as an option earlier than they might have just a few years ago - when the US was more widely known as a big money destination for aging stars like David Beckham and Thierry Henry. A promising Europe-based talent choosing to play in the US in his early 20s seemed out of the realm of possibility just three to four years ago, but now, he says it's a move he would "definitely" think about making.
"I'm a huge fan of MLS and I'm just happy with how MLS has developed and how American soccer has developed," Boyd said. "It just has to get more famous and I think it's going to be a great league one day."
"It's getting more attractive every year," he added.
The key to MLS' continued growth, said Boyd, is pulling the American youth away from the country's more traditional sports and making them play the world's most popular game.
"I think about all these great athletes that come out of high school and I think: 'choose soccer instead of playing basketball or [American] football,'" he said. "If they would choose soccer just think about what kind of league the MLS would be one day. All the surroundings are great, they're perfect, [plus] the media coverage, and they have the money as well. They have everything."
Boyd believes the upcoming World Cup is "a big commercial for soccer in the States" and MLS especially. A successful US team could be what's needed to influence a large portion of American kids to choose soccer first.
"Then [MLS] would be a hell of a league," he said. "It would be one of the strongest leagues in the world, just give it 10 years."
Happy in Austria
For now, Boyd says he's happy at Rapid - a tradition-laden club he sees as pivotal to his maturation as a player.
"I'm comfortable here. I think I've developed well, learned a lot, played in the Europa League," he said. "I'm enjoying my time now and hoping to make that next step."
Boyd took played against Austria in a friendly last November
One of two top-flight Vienna sides and the only Austrian club to reach two European finals, the demand for success is high. Boyd's knowledge of the Austrian Bundesliga was limited when he first arrived from Borussia Dortmund in the summer of 2012, and he says he was surprised at the high-pressure environment at the club.
"I didn't expect it but then again this kind of pressure just helps you because if you want to get to a bigger league one day, there'll be way more pressure," he said.
If Rapid had their way, Boyd and the club would take the step to the next level of football together. Over the winter break the capital club brought in former Schalke and Hoffenheim sporting director Andreas Müller. The German immediately set out on his campaign to return Rapid to its status as one of Europe's "top 50 clubs."
"He's a big name when it comes to sport directors," Boyd said. "We're on the right path right now. We've got a young team, we're developing well."
The American's immediate objective, however, is making the World Cup roster and helping the US get out of its difficult group.
"From then on, you take every [match] one by one," he said. "Once you're in the knockout stages, anything can happen."Get the Recipe Sorachi Ace and Simcoe IPA (For Beginners)
American IPAs seem to get bigger, badder and bolder every year. A style that at one time was considered "too bitter" for the average beer drinker, it has now become a front-runner in the craft beer revolution. The IPA is pale to amber in color with a thick white head. It has strong citrus, pine and floral hop aromas and flavors to match, along with a lingering bitterness and solid malt character. The yeast flavor is typically clean, but occasionally a slight fruity, strawberry or |
will teach us all the more to help one another"
A George Eliot web site.
Walt Whitman, American poet (1819-1892).
Walt reportedly said, "God is a mean-spirited, pugnacious bully bent on revenge against His children for failing to live up to his impossible standards.$quot; Does this mean he believed this mean-spirited bully didn't really exist? I'm not sure.
Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist (1820-1906).
Called herself an agnostic.
Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist (1825-1895).
Huxley coined the term "agnostic."
"...inclined to think that not far from the invention of fire must rank the invention of doubt"
"The only question which a wise man can ask himself is whether a doctrine is true or false. Consequences will take care of themselves."
"Henceforward, I might hope to hear no more of the assertion that we [Agnostics] are necessarily Materialists, Idealists, Atheists, Theists, or any other ists, if experience had led me to think that the proved falsity of a statement was any guarantee against its reputation. And those who appreciate the nature of our position will see, at once, that when Ecclesiasticism declares that we ought to believe this, that, and the other, and are very wicked if we don't, it is impossible for us to give any answer but this: We have not the slightest objection to believe anything you like, if you will give us good grounds for belief; but, if you cannot, we must respectfully refuse, even if that refusal should wreck morality and insure our own damnation several times over. We are quite content to leave that decision to the future. The course of the past has impressed us with the firm conviction that no good ever comes out of falsehood, and we feel warranted in refusing even to experiment in that direction" [essay "Agnosticism and Christianity"]
Matilda Joslyn Gage, American feminist (1826-1898).
Marilla Ricker, American feminist and activist (?-?).
Henry Stephens Salt, American Humanitarian and? (1851-1939).
Founder of the Humanitarian League. Read a short biography of Salt at www.punkerslut.com.
Sir Leslie Stephen, English writer and thinker (1832-1904).
Sir Leslie Stephen was one of Britain's most famous agnostics of the nineteenth century. In fact while Thomas Huxley was the person who coined the term agnostic it was Stephen who popularized it.
Leslie Stephen was born into a family of prominent Evangelicals of the Clapham Sect. He was educated at Eton and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. At Cambridge he was made a fellow which in those days required taking holy orders and he was ordained an Anglican priest. By 1862 his developing religious doubts led him to resign his fellowship and by 1864 he left Cambridge for good.
He married Thackeray's daughter, Harriet Marian in 1867 but she died in 1875 leaving him one child. He later married Julia Jackson Duckworth and had four children including his best known child the novelist Virginia Woolf.
After abandoning his academic career he made his living as a journalist and writer. He edited the Dictionary of National Biography. He also wrote extensively on history, religion, and philosophy.
Leslie Stephen's agnosticism was rooted in considerations of the problem of evil. Attempts to resolve this problem by emphasizing the transcendence and incomprehensibility of God was to him simply evasiveness. Such apologetics was in his view simply a disguised skepticism.
The rejection of belief in God for Stephen raised the question of how to ground morality if there is no deity. That is he sought to answer the Dostoyevskian question "If there is no God is not everything permitted?" Stephen sought to answer this question in his book The Science of Ethics. There he proposed a scientific ethics in which J.S. Mill's utilitarianism would be synthesized with evolutionary theory.
In addition to The Science of Ethics, Stephen wrote many other works including Essays on Freethinking and Plainspeaking (1873), An Agnostic's Apology and Other Essays (1893), as well as History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (1876), and The English Utilitarians (1900). [James Farmelant]
Robert Green Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer (1833-1899).
"The universe is all the God there is."
"Our ignorance is God; what we know is science."
"With soap, baptism is a good thing."
"The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know."
"Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?"
"There is no harmony between religion and science. When science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. Now that science has attained its youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trembling, palsied wreck says to the athlete: 'Let us be friends.' It reminds me of the bargain the cock wished to make with the horse: 'Lut us agree not to step on each other's feet.'"
"For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have said, "Think!" The many have said, "Believe!" [The Gods, 1872]
For the works of Ingersoll online, visit The Secular Web.
For some longer excerpts from Ingersoll's speeches, visit The Great Agnostic.
You can find more information about Ingersoll at www.punkerslut.com.
Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist (1835-1919).
I was sent this quotation for Carnegie, "I don't believe in God. My god is patriotism. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life."
If you have information about where this quotation came from or about Carnegie's beliefs, please send them.
Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist (1835-1910).
"Faith is believing what you know ain't so."
"'In God We Trust.' I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true."
"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."
"Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of."
"There is no other life; life itself is only a vision and a dream for nothing exists but space and you. If there was an all-powerful God, he would have made all good, and no bad." [Mark Twain in Eruption]
"Our Bible reveals to us the character of our god with minute and remorseless exactness... It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere. It makes Nero an angel of light and leading by contrast" [Reflections on Religion, 1906]
"O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it..." ["The War Prayer"]
"[The Bible is] a mass of fables and traditions, mere mythology." ["Mark Twain and the Bible"]
"Man is a marvelous curiosity... he thinks he is the Creator's pet... he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea." [Letters from the Earth]
"If there is a God, he is a malign thug."
Mr. Clemens was once asked whether he feared death. He said that he did not, in view of the fact that he had been dead for billions and billions of years before he was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
You can find more information about Mark Twain at www.punkerslut.com.
Thomas Hardy, English author (1840-1928).
Poem Christmas 1924: "After two thousand years of mass, we've got as far as poison gas"
Ambrose Bierce, American writer (1842-1914?).
Author of The Devil's Dictionary. Here are some entries:
FAITH: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
RELIGION: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
OCEAN: A body of water occupying about two thirds of a world made for man- who has no gills.
SAINT: A dead sinner revised and edited.
In the definition of occident, he claims christians to be "a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call 'war' and 'commerce'".
For more information on Ambrose Bierce, visit the Ambrose Bierce Appreciate Society.
Friedrich Nietzsche, German philologist and philosopher (1844-1900).
"God is dead." [Thus Spake Zarathustra]
The Christian God, Nietzsche taught, was pitiable, absurd and "a crime against life." [The Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist] He had encouraged people to fear their bodies, their passions and their sexuality and had promoted a puling morality of compassion which had made us weak. There was no ultimate meaning or value and human beings had no business offering an indulgent alternative in "God." [A History of God]
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche suggests that to call god love is a slander to love, since god wants also to judge, and love should never even see sins in need of forgiveness.
Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847-1931).
"Religion is all bunk."
"I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God."
Octave Mirbeau, French author (1848-1917).
Luther Burbank, American horticulturist and pioneer plant breeder (1849-1926).
"The Bible is an incomplete history and the folklore of an ancient race, but no more inspired, I believe, than the works of Marcus Aurelius and other great men of the day."
Olive Shreiner, peace and anti-apartheid campaigner (1855-1920).
An atheist from age 17, according to a school book of nineteenth century short stories.
Sigmund Freud, Austrian physician and pioneer psychoanalyst (1856-1939).
"It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be."
"In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is palpable."
"The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life."
Freud certainly regarded belief in God as an illusion that mature men and women should lay aside. The idea of God was not a lie but a device of the unconscious which needed to be decoded by psychology. A personal god was nothing more than an exalted father-figure: desire for such a deity sprang from infantile yearnings for a powerful, protective father, for justice and fairness and for life to go on forever. God is simply a projection of these desires, feared and worshipped by human beings out of an abiding sense of helplessness. Religion belonged to the infancy of the human race; it had been a necessary stage in the transition from childhood to maturity. It had promoted ethical values which were essential to society. Now that humanity had come of age, however, it should be left behind. [A History of God]
George Bernard Shaw, Irish-born English playwright (1856-1950).
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."
Joseph Conrad, Polish-born English author (1857-1924).
"Christianity has lent itself with amazing facility to cruel distortion... and has brought an infinity of anguish to innumerable souls on this earth."
"Scepticism... is the agent of truth."
Clarence Seward Darrow, American lawyer (1857-1938).
"I believe that religion is the belief in future life and in God. I don't believe in either. I don't believe in God as I don't believe in Mother Goose."
quoted in Manual of a Perfect Atheist.
You can find more information about Clarence Darrow at www.punkerslut.com.
William Howard Taft, American President and Chief Justice (1857-1930).
Probably not an atheist, but I thought it was interesting that an American president in this century said:
"I do not believe in the divinity of Christ and there are many other of the postulates of the orthodox creed to which I cannot subscribe."
Pierre Curie, French chemist and physicist (1859-1906).
Francisco Ferrer y Guardia, Spanish educator (1859-1909).
Read a short biography of Ferrer at www.punkerslut.com.
Jose P. Rizal, Philippine national leader (1861-1896).
Rizal, the greatest son and hero of the Philippines and pride of the Malay race, whose writings attacking the Catholic church and the friars inspired the religious and political revolution against Spanish colonial theocracy. He is considered the first modern Asian rational humanist whose role in the liberation of the Philippines from the grip of priesthood paralled that of Tom Paine whose writings inspired the 1776 revolution in the US.
Rizal was condemned to death for treason and sedition in 1896 by the Spanish colonial government and executed on December 30 of that year. The Spanish friars then libeled Rizal's good name by circulating a forged document entitled "Retraction of Errors" where Rizal supposedly retracted his affiliation with the Masons and admitted his errors in all writings where he revealed the abuses of the Spanish friars.
On the eve of his execution, Rizal finished and succeeded in smuggling out prison a poem he wrote popularly known as his "Ultimo Adios" or "Last Farewall" which is considered even by Spanish literary critics as one of the most poignant poems ever written in the Spanish language. [ poems]
Voltairine de Cleyre, American feminist and activist (1866-1912).
"I die, as I have lived, a free spirit, an Anarchist, owing no allegiance to rulers, heavenly or earthly."
Herbert George "H.G." Wells, English author (1866-1946).
"It runs through the entire Christian story, and our case against the Catholic Church is that, albeit it originated in a passionate assertion of the conception of brotherly equality, it relapsed steadily from the broad nobility of its beginnings and passed over at last almost completely to the side of persecution and the pleasures of cruelty." [From Wells' book Crux Ansata - An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church 1944, reprinted in 1981 by American Atheist Press.]
Marie Curie, Polish-born French chemist and physicist (1867-1934).
Joseph McCabe, English anti-religion campaigner (1867-1955).
One of the giants of not only English Atheism, but world Atheism, Joseph McCabe left a legacy of aggressive Atheist and antireligious literature that remains fresh and insightful today. His many works -- he wrote nearly 250 books -- could constitute a library of Atheism by themselves.
Born in 1867, Joseph McCabe became a Franciscan monk at the age of nineteen. But disgusted with his fellow monks and the Christian doctrine, he left the priesthood for good on February 19, 1896.
Not long afterwards, he began to write -- first against the priesthood itself and then for the position of Atheism. He was one of the founding members of Britain's Rationalist Press Association, and was a prolific writer for Haldeman-Julius Publications. He was also a much-respected speaker, giving, by his own estimate, three or four thousand lectures in the United States, Australia, and Great Britain by the age of eighty. Still fighting against the injustices and dishonesties of religion, he died on January 10, 1955, at the age of eighty-seven. The epitaph he requested was "He was a rebel to his last day." [The Secular Web]
You can find more information about McCabe at www.punkerslut.com.
Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect (1869-1959).
"I believe in God, only I spell it Nature."
Vladimir Ilich Lenin, Russian revolutionary leader (1870-1924).
Alfred Adler, Austrian psychiatrist (1870-1937).
Allowed that God was a psychological projection but believed that it had been helpful to humanity; it had been a brilliant and effective symbol of excellence. [A History of God]
I have had a report that Adler converted to Christianity in his old age. (Maybe he lost his mental faculties!)
Marcel Proust, French author (1871-1922).
Proust was once asked by his maid, Celeste Albaret, whether or not he thought there was a God. He replied that he did not know. Monsieur Proust: A Memoir by Celeste Albaret.
Evidently an agnostic, Proust had this to say about atheism: "The atheist forgets that what he is affirming is, precisely, a negation." (In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust)
Ralph Vaughn Williams, English composer (1872-1958).
The Internet Movie Database has a short biography, which includes, "His professional career spanned more than six decades, with nine Symphonies, several concertos, a ballet, a few operas and countless choral works. The latter are often performed in church services, not bad for an agnostic composer."
Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, educator, mathematician, and social critic (1872-1970).
"I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true."
"I am myself a dissenter from all known religions, and I hope that every kind of religious belief will die out."
"Religion is based... mainly on fear... fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand.... My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race." [quoted in Holy Horrors]
Robert Frost, American poet (1874-1963).
Culbert Olson, American politician (1876-1962).
The most openly Atheistic elected official was Culbert Olson, former Governor of California. He became President of the United Secularists of America (USA) in 1957, and remained in that position until his death in 1962.
Edward Morgan "E.M." Forster, English author (1879-1970).
"I do not believe in Belief (...but...) Tolerance, good temper and sympathy."
Leon Trotsky, Russian revolutionary and Soviet statesman (1879-1940).
Albert Einstein, German born American threoretical physicist (1879-1955).
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." [From a letter Einstein wrote in English, dated 24 March 1954. It is included in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, published by Princeton University Press.
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
Periyar, Indian social campaigner (1879-1973).
Periyar campaigned throughout Tamil-Nadu for social reform, especially empowerment for women and and end to the social oppression of religion.
"He who created the god was a fool; he who spreads his name is a scoundrel and he who worships him is a barbarian."
Joseph Stalin, Soviet politician (1879-1953).
I believe Stalin called himself an atheist, but some would argue that he believed in the Hegelian doctrine of progress as a god.
Lord John Boyd-Orr, Scottish nutritionist (1880-1971).
Nobel peace prize winner, 1949.
W. C. Fields, American entertainer (1880-1946).
An acquaintance of Field's recounts the story of Fields, an atheist, having once been found reading the Bible. When asked what he was doing reading the Bible, Fields responded, "I'm looking for loopholes." [Movie W. C. Fields: Striaght Up]
Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken, American editor and critic (1880-1956).
"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the same extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."
Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility." ["Treatise on the Gods"]
"Since the early days, [the church] has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was an apologist for the divine right of kings."
"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.... A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass: he is actually ill."
"God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters." [from the alt.quotations archive, found from http://www.starlingtech.com/quotes/search.html]
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration--courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth." [1925]
"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."
"For centuries, theologians have attempted to explain the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing."
"The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind."
Irving Langmuir, American chemist, nobel prize winner 1932 (1881-1957).
When asked about his inattention to religion, he would likely respond with, "Never believe anything that can't be proved." From his biography, The Quintessence of Irving Langmuir, by Albert Rosenfeld.
Kemal Ataturk, Turkish soldier and statesman (1881-1938).
James Joyce, Irish author (1882-1941).
Joyce rejected Catholicism and indeed all religion when he was a young man (as portrayed in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man). He considered Catholicism to be "black magic", and deplored its anti-individuality. "For me there is ony one alternative to scholasticism, scepticism." He also rejected the church's moralizing, etc. etc.
"He comes into the world God knows how, walks on the water, gets out of his grave and goes up off the Hill of Howth. What drivel is this?"
"I confess that I do not see what good it does to fulminate against the English tyranny while the Roman tyranny occupies the palace of the soul."
Virginia Woolf, English author (1882-1941).
Margaret Sanger, American birth control activist, founder of Planned Parenthood (1883-1966).
"No Gods, No Masters."
You can find more information about Margaret Sanger at www.punkerslut.com.
DH Lawrence, British writer (1885-1930).
"God is only a great imaginative experience."
"Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy. And before Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion the nightingale still will sing. Because it is neither preaching nor commanding nor urging. It is just singing. And in the beginning was not a Word, but a chirrup." -Etruscan Places
Diego Rivera, Mexican muralist painter (1886-1982).
From his autobiography, My Art, My Life: An Autobiography by Diego Rivera Gladys March narrating an encounter with bigots at a church: "Stupid people! You reek of dirt and stupidity! You are so crazy that you believe that if I were to ask the portrait of my father, hanging in my house, for one peso, the portrait would actually give me one peso. You are utter idiots. In order to get pesos, I have to ask someone who has pesos to spare and is willing to give some to me. You talk of heaven, pointing with your fingers over your head. What heaven is there? There is only air, clouds which give rain, lightening which makes a loud sound and breaks the tree branches, and birds flying. There are no boys with wings nor any ladies or gentlemen sitting on clouds. Clouds are water vapor which goes up when the heat of the sun's rays strikes the rivers and lakes. You can see this vapor from the Guanajuato mountains. It turns to water which falls in drops, and so we have rain. At the entrance of this place, I saw boxes to collect money, and a man asking for more money. I also know the priest who comes often to our house to drink my aunt's good chocolate and glasses of liquor. With the money he collects for the church, he pays the painters and sculptors to paint all these lies and puppets. He does this to get more money to make stupid people like you believe that these are truths and to make you fear the Virgin Mary and God. In order to have the priest appease these idols to spare you because you are cruel, dirty, and bad people, you give this money to the priest. Does that fear stop the beggars, the poor people, and the jobless miners from sneaking into the houses of the rich people, the grocery stores, the clothing stores of the gabachos, and the haciendas of the gringos, and taking from them a little of what they need? What about you, you old fool? If there really is a Holy Virgin or anyone up in the air, tell them to send lightening to strike me down or let the stones of the vault fall on my head. If you are unable to do that Mr. Priest, you're nothing but a puppet taking money from stupid old women. You're no better than the clown in the circus coaxing coins from the public. If God doesn't stop me, then there must be no God. Get out of here! You see, there is no God! You're all stupid cows! "
Arthur Rubenstein, Polish-American pianist (1886-1982).
During a radio interview with Rubenstein the conversation took a sharp turn away from music when the interviewer suddeenly asked, "Mr. Rubenstein, do you believe in God?" Rubenstein calmly replied, "No. You see, what I believe in is something much greater."
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley, English biologist and author (1887-1975).
"We should be agnostic about those things for which there is no evidence. We should not hold beliefs merely because they gratify our desires for afterlife, immortality, heaven, hell, etc."
From Religion without Revelation by Julian Huxley
"The sense of spiritual relief which comes from rejecting the idea of God as a supernatural being is enormus."
M.N. Roy, Indian political thinker (1887-1954).
Roy was one of the first Indian communists. M.N.Roy founded the Communist Party of Mexico. He lived in the Soviet Union during the 1920s - he was the only man in the secret tribunal that tried Leon Trotsky who did not believe in Trotsky's "guilt". The Soviets, of course, chased Trotsky all over the world for the rest of his life. Disillusioned with communism, M. N. Roy founded his own school of philosophy - Radical Humanism. Many Indians consider M. N. Roy to be the only original political thinker India has produced in the 20th century.
Irving Berlin, Russian-born American lyricist and composer (1888-1989).
In her biography of her father, Irving Berlin: A Daughter's Memoir, Mary Ellin Barrett mentions her father's "agnosticism," (p.123) and refers to him as a "nonbeliever," (p.124).
Fenner Brockway, peace campaigner (1888-1988).
Brockway was a labor leader who opposed British imperialism and advocated giving freedom to its colonies.
Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian statesman (1889-1964).
A self-professed atheist, he said of India, "No country or people who are slaves to dogma and dogmatic mentality can progress." [Key Ideas in Human Thought]
Sir Alfred Hitchcock, British film director (1899-1980).
I have heard that in later life, Hitchcock become areligious. If you have any information on his beliefs, please let me know. Here is an anecdote that may illustrate his growing anti-religious sentiments. (Though at the time he was apparently still a church-going Catholic.)
Driving through a Swiss city one day, Hitchcock suddenly pointed out of the car window and said, "That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen." His companion was surprised to see nothing more alarming that a priest in conversation with a little boy, his hand on the child's shoulder. "Run, little boy," cried Hitchcock, leaning out of the car. "Run for your life!"
Phillip Randolph, American civil rights veteran and union leader, (1889-1979).
E. Haldeman-Julius, American publisher (1889-1951).
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, British born actor, director, and producer (1889-1977).
"By simple common sense I don't believe in God, in none."
quoted in Manual of a Perfect Atheist.
H. P. Lovecraft, American author (1890-1937).
Here are extracts from Lovecraft; A Biography by L. Sprague De Camp:
"H. P. Lovecraft was strongly influenced, not only by his mother but also by the books he read.... At five, he... (read)... a junior edition of The Arabian Nights. He at once fell in love with the glories of medieval Islam and spent hours playing Arab.... One effect of dabbling in non-Christian traditions was to make Lovecraft skeptical of the faith of his fathers. Before he reached his fifth birthday anniversary, young Lovecraft announced that he no longer believed in Santa Claus. Further private thought convinced him that arguments for the existence of God suffered the same weaknesses as those for Santa.
"At five, Lovecraft was placed in the infant class of the Sunday school of the venerable First Baptist Meeting House on College Hill. The results were not what the elders expected. When the feeding of Christian martyrs to the lions came up, Lovecraft shocked the class by gleefully taking the side of the lions. He wrote:
The absurdity of the myths I was called upon to accept and the sombre greyness of the whole faith compared with the Eastern magnificence of Mahometanism, made me definitely an agnostic; and caused me to become so pestiferous a questioner that I was permitted to discontinue attendance.... My grandfather had travelled observingly through Italy, and delighted me with long, first-hand accounts of its beauties and memorials of ancient grandeur. I mention this aesthetic tendency in detail only to lead up to its philosophical result - my last flickering of religious belief.
"... His skeptical view of the supernatural - his nontheism - and his love of the Classical world were not the only lasting passions formed in his childhood.
"... he embraced eighteenth-century rationalism, which confirmed him in his atheistic materialism."
[Chapter 2, pages 19-24]
Rudolf Carnap, German-American philosopher (1891-1970).
A central figure of the Vienna Circle which was devoted to the philosophy of logical positivism. In his Intellectual Autobiography printed in The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap ed. by Paul Schilpp (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1963) he described the basic worldview he shared with the rest of the Circle in the following terms:
"... the first is the view that man has no supernatural protectors or enemies... Second, we had the conviction that mankind is able to change the conditions of life in such a way that many of the sufferings of today may be avoided... the third is the view that all deliberate action presupposes knowledge of the world, that the scientific method is the best method of acquiring knowledge and that therefore science must be regarded as one of the most valuable instruments for the improvement of human life. In Vienna we had no names for these views; if we look for a brief designation in American terminology for the combination of these three convictions, the best would seem to be'scientific humanism.'"
Josip Broz, "Tito", Yugoslavian statesman (1892-1980).
I don't have good evidence that Tito was an atheist, but it seems likely. Despite being raised in a Croat Catholic family, he became a communist and, when he achieved power, he interrupted relations witht he Vatican, accusing them of collaborating with the Nazis in Croatia during the war. At the end of the war, he condemned Bishop Stepinac - who was really old by then - to forced labor in jail. His problems with Vatican lasted at least until the seventies.
If you have any more information about the beliefs of Tito, please write.
Pearl S. Buck, American author (1892-1973).
"I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings."
"I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels. I have enough for this life." [Treasury of Women's Quotations]
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, Scottish biochemist (1892-1964).
Professor of genetics (1933-57) and biometry (1937-57) at London University, he was an ardent Marxist, but left the Communist Party after the Lysenko affair. His many writings include Science and Ethics (1928), and Heredity and Politics (1938). In 1957 he emigraated to India as a protest against British policies.
Haldane was engaged in discussion with an eminent theologian. "What inference," asked the latter, "might one draw about the nature of God from a study of his works?" Haldane replied: "An inordinate fondness for beetles." [I have been told that this story is apocryphal, but I don't know for sure.]
Mao Tse-tung, Chinese Communist leader and theorist (1893-1976).
John Boynton "J.B." Priestley, English author (1894-?).
Aldous Huxley, British writer (1894-1963).
"You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion.... Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat's meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough."
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell." -Point Counter Point
Dora Russell, British author (1894-1986).
Brock Chisholm, humanist campaigner (1896-1971).
Naomi Mitchison, author (1897-?).
Baroness Wootton, politician (1897-1988).
William James Sidis, American prodigy (1898-1944).
Sidis was a child prodigy and a staunch atheist at age 6. Lots of stuff about Sidis can be found at the Quantonics web site, including a review of a biography of Sidis.
Friedrich August von Hayek, Austrian-born English economist (1899-1993).
"Though by age 15 a convinced agnostic, Hayek's "position vis-a-vis the different Christian churches was |
the car blew up, presumably putting her out of her misery if she hadn't already expired. It's unrevealed whether she really loved Wendall, or was just interested in him because he was rich. Similarly we don't know how long she had been involved with Wendall, and whether she knew the truth about his wife and child had died (or, indeed, if she was somehow complicit in planning what happened, or alternatively if he'd even told her of their existence). --Crazy#8
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Crazy Magazine#8, Kaspar story, p1, pan 1 (main image)
p2, pan 5 (Kaspar as a living child)
p4, pan 1 (Wendall backhands Kaspar into the TV)
p4, pan 5 (having murdered Winifred, Wendall turns his attention back to Kaspar)
p5, pan 7+8 (Windy cheers Kaspar up by slaughtering Wendall)
p2, pan 1 (Windy)
p4, pan 4 (Wendall informs Winifred that he is discontent with the state of their marriage)
p2, pan 3 (Winifred)
p5, pan 1 (Wendall's girlfriend)
p5, pan 6 (Wendall's girlfriend, under the car)
Other Appearances:
none
Last updated: 11/27/13
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel Copyright info
All other characters mentioned or pictured are and © 1941-2099 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. If you like this stuff, you should check out the real thing!
Please visit The Marvel Official Site at: http://www.marvel.comAUSTIN — Texas is jumping into the spotlight again on gay marriage, as the Senate gave tentative approval Monday to legislation to protect pastors who want to refuse to perform a same-sex ceremony.
Also, the House is expected Tuesday to debate a measure that would stop county clerks from issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple or recognizing such a marriage.
By late Tuesday, the House also could take up a bill identical to the Senate’s legislation allowing religiously based refusals to assist same-sex weddings.
The measures anticipate that in early summer, the U.S. Supreme Court may declare that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry in all 50 states. Barring success by House Democrats in stalling them with parliamentary attacks, the two House bills appear poised to clear the chamber before key legislative deadlines arrive late this week. A majority of lawmakers in the GOP-dominated House have signed on to support each bill.
Supporters have said they are trying to protect religious freedom and, with the marriage-license bill, the will expressed 10 years ago by a majority of voters to ban same-sex marriage.
But opponents warned that conservative lawmakers could be setting the state on a collision course with the Constitution. They also warned that the Texas bills could trigger a backlash similar to one against Indiana after that state passed a religious-refusal bill for individuals and companies in late March.
“Texas is pioneering a legislative effort to subvert a potential Supreme Court ruling on marriage and lock in discrimination against gay and transgender people and their families,” said Kathy Miller, president of the left-leaning Texas Freedom Network.
National attention
The Texas bills are drawing national attention. Miller spoke on a conference call in which several reporters from national news media organizations participated.
She and other critics warned that hobbling county clerks from complying with a Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage would trigger costly court fights.
Critics also said the bills to let clergy and churches opt out of performing or hosting same-sex weddings are too vague. They warned the bills’ wording is so broad that religiously affiliated hospitals and nursing homes could refuse to serve same-sex couples or bar one partner from carrying out the other’s wishes for end-of-life care.
But Sen. Craig Estes, the bill’s author, insisted the measure would just apply to wedding ceremonies and related events.
“As far as I’m concerned, this bill does not deal with the secular in any form,” said Estes, R-Wichita Falls. “It is not my intention to discriminate against anyone with this bill. My intention is to protect pastors, ministers and clergy’s First Amendment rights.”
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick asked Estes to introduce the measure late last month, long after the Senate’s usual bill-filing deadline.
The bill would let ministers, houses of worship, religious organizations and their employees refuse to open facilities, provide services and sell goods to same-sex couples for their ceremonies if doing so would violate “a sincerely held religious belief.”
It also would shield the religious institutions, their employees and clergy from lawsuits, criminal prosecution or other penalties — such as losing tax-exempt status or government grants.
The bill advanced on a 20-11, party line vote. Only Democrat Eddie Lucio Jr. of Brownsville broke ranks, to support the bill.
Debating the need
Democratic Sens. José Menéndez of San Antonio and John Whitmire of Houston said there is almost no risk that a gay or lesbian couple would sue or otherwise harass a pastor or church that has a religious objection to same-sex marriage.
Estes, though, said the two biggest religious denominations in Texas — Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist — have shown overwhelming support for his bill. In a committee hearing last week, he noted, clergy — mostly Baptist pastors — pleaded for the measure.
“There was testimony about them receiving threatening phone calls,” he said.
Whitmire scoffed at the talk of lawsuits and threats.
He said a friend who’s a Baptist pastor cited a concern about possible harassment but couldn’t name a lawsuit of that sort in any other state.
“I hope we don’t get in the practice of playing to people’s fears,” Whitmire said.
The bill could receive final approval as early as Tuesday. A companion bill by McKinney GOP Rep. Scott Sanford could be debated in the House as early as Tuesday.
Ahead of it on the House’s agenda for the day is the county clerk bill by Rep. Cecil Bell, R-Magnolia. It would bar state and local officials from issuing, enforcing or recognizing same-sex marriage licenses. It also would penalize liberal counties such as Travis County, where a state judge already has ordered that a lesbian couple be given a marriage license.
Under the bill, any county clerk who grants a same-sex marriage license would have to fork over the $30 fee to the state — rather than keep it for local use.
Chuck Smith, executive director of the gay rights group Equality Texas, called the bill “a mean-spirited piece of legislation.” He said it would ignore Texans’ growing acceptance of gay marriage and inflict unnecessary pain.
Follow Robert T. Garrett on Twitter at @RobertTGarrett.The state of mental health care in Mississippi has been in freefall for years.
As a consequence of the ripple effects of the financial crisis, Mississippi saw its state support for mental health care slashed by $42 million from 2009 to 2011, roughly 15 percent of the Department of Mental Health’s budget.
The state, which had 1,156 psychiatric beds in 2010, has just 486 today.
In 2016, after years of failing to heed warnings from federal prosecutors, Mississippi was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for failing to deliver adequate care to its residents.
‘What Are We Going to Do About Tyler?’ Tyler Haire was locked up at 16. A Mississippi judge ordered that he undergo a mental exam. What happened next is a statewide scandal. Read the story. Email Updates Sign up to get ProPublica’s major investigations delivered to your inbox. Sign up to get ProPublica’s investigations delivered to your inbox.
The cutbacks in funding, however, have only continued, with another $14 million of cuts coming in 2017, amounting to another 6 percent of the Department of Mental Health’s budget.
The consequences have been grim: Just last month, Mental Health America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving mental health services, issued a state-by-state scorecard for mental health care. Mississippi ranked last in access to care.
Amid such a wholesale evisceration of mental health care, no one in Mississippi is surprised that requests for money to address the state’s backlog of prisoners awaiting basic mental health evaluations have been routinely denied or ignored. Those prisoners may be legally innocent; they may have waited for months, even years, for an evaluation involving their competency to stand trial. But they are not a priority.
The forensic unit at the state hospital where those evaluations take place had 35 total beds in the 1980s, 15 for pretrial evaluations. The number haven’t changed since, despite repeated requests from the officials at the Department of Mental Health for money to expand the number of beds to 60 and improve the building’s safety.
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, the state’s top law enforcement official, took a shot at trying to change things. On Feb. 5, 2015, Hood wrote a letter to the governor. He recommended spending $15 million to remake and expand the forensics unit.
“We currently have a dire problem in our criminal justice system,” Hood wrote.
The proposal went nowhere. Just as others like it had before.
Today, Hood, who is considering a run for governor, said he expects Mississippi’s health care failings, including the forensic unit, will be the target of another lawsuit. A court will step in, Hood said, and likely a federal one.
It’s been a familiar experience for the state Department of Mental Health.
Jim Hood, Mississippi attorney general, said he expects the state to be sued again over its mental health failings.
In 2010, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law sued, alleging that Mississippi’s mentally ill children were unnecessarily institutionalized and didn’t have access to care in their community. The lead plaintiff was a 17-year-old boy who had undergone five hospitalizations, and spent time in 10 group homes and five residential treatment facilities. The suit was settled last summer when the last remaining plaintiff moved from a state hospital into a community setting.
In December 2011, the Department of Justice announced the results of its own investigation into Mississippi’s mental health care system. It did not like what it found. In a letter, the DOJ warned Mississippi that it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by over-institutionalizing adults with mental illness. A DOJ findings letter accused Mississippi of badly serving its population and relying on models that would barely have been considered modern 50 years ago. The DOJ found that Mississippi spent more money proportionally on institutions and less on community care than any other state.
In one survey of the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield in 2014, the Department of Justice found that 55 percent of the 206 adults in shorter-term care had been admitted two or more times before. Just over 11 percent had 10 prior admissions. One man, a 27-year-old, according to the DOJ, had over 22 prior admissions.
The DOJ had come after other states over the same issues. Delaware had received a similar letter in 2010 and settled in 2011, entering into a five-year agreement that resulted in mobile crisis teams, more housing for the mentally ill, a 24-hour crisis hotline and a reduction in inpatient stays. Georgia got its letter in 2009 and fought what became a $200 million lawsuit before settling. Mississippi negotiated for five years before the DOJ finally sued in 2016. Mississippi has decided to fight the suit.
A number of state lawmakers say all budget decisions are ultimately made by the governor, lieutenant governor and Speaker of the House. Gov. Phil Bryant’s spokespeople ignored multiple requests for comment. Requests for comment made to the offices of the lieutenant governor and the Speaker of the House were declined.
“Nobody thinks about mental health until they have a family member in need,” said Jay Hughes, a Democratic state representative who has made mental health a priority. He said the governor and legislative leaders didn’t “give a rat’s ass.”
The consequences of a refusal to fund adequate mental health care can be quantified at Whitfield, the once formidable state hospital just outside Jackson. Gone is the community services division; the 29-bed acute medical psychiatric service unit, which provided services to people with severe mental disorders who needed close monitoring; the 42-bed male chemical dependency unit, which treated men with substance abuse disorders. (The state announced recently that it will reinstate 25 of the 42 beds.)
In addition to the state institutions, Mississippi has a network of regional mental health and crisis centers that offer people emergency services and outpatient therapy. But they, too, are cash-strapped and can’t keep up with an increased demand.
The Department of Mental Health is governed by the Board of Mental Health. The board has nine members, appointed in staggered terms by the governor and confirmed by the senate. The board appoints the agency’s executive director. But while the board is able to set policy, they are entirely dependent on the legislature for funding.
“They’re a punching bag,” Tom Miles, a Democratic state representative, said of the Department of Mental Health.
Scenes from the forensic unit at Mississippi’s state psychiatric hospital. The images were released in response to a freedom of information request.
The budget cuts last year forced the mental health department to shed 650 jobs. Many of the employees left, including those who work directly with patients, make about $8 per hour. The turnover rate as of 2017, according to Robert Landrum, chair of the state board of mental health, is 48 percent.
Landrum knows this intimately. Years ago he had a son in a facility overseen by Mississippi’s Department of Mental Health. When a direct care worker left, his son spiraled for days, Landrum said. One day, his son’s dorm supervisor was gone. Two days later, Landrum saw her at McDonald’s, working as a chef supervisor.
“She said, ‘I just can make more money at McDonald’s,’” Landrum said at a legislative luncheon this year.
Lee Anne Livingston Palmer also sees the problems firsthand. She’s the chancery clerk of Scott County, Mississippi, and part of her job involves overseeing involuntary commitments to mental facilities. She sees people cycle back and forth past her desk who are released out of an institution without any transitional care and then lose the ability to function without structure. She wishes there were better community resources or group homes to ease the transition.
“I’m here to tell you, there are some folks that really need that life-long stabilization,” Palmer said. “They need that life-long care, because they cannot function in society on their own. They won’t take their medicines. They’ll end up getting hurt themselves.”
Or hurting others.
Tyler Haire, who waited four years in the Calhoun County jail for a psychiatric evaluation after stabbing his father’s girlfriend, had spent many of his first 16 years in need of care he never got.
The scorecard done by Mental Health America this fall found that just over 11 percent of youngsters in Mississippi suffering from severe depression receive any form of care. In Minnesota, the highest-ranked state in the category, 40 percent of youngsters do.
Reb McMichael has run the forensic unit at Whitfield since 1990. Several years ago, at a panel discussion at the University of Mississippi, he spoke bluntly about the state’s vulnerability to violence in the face of such scarce mental health care.
“I don’t know quite how to get at the cost of not providing the treatment people need, but I can tell you it’s tremendous,” McMichael said. “One dead child. One dead grandmother. And it happens all the time.”
Private, for-profit health care companies have moved in to fill the void in other states that have scaled back their mental health services. But that has occasionally resulted in scandal: A Buzzfeed News investigation has exposed abuse after abuse by Universal Health Services, the nation’s largest for-profit psychiatry chain. UHS has disputed Buzzfeed’s findings.
Mississippi has its share of private operators, offering both inpatient and outpatient mental health care (Universal Health Services has four treatment facilities in Mississippi). The government itself contracts with private psychiatrists and psychologists to work at its institutions.
One of its larger forays into private contracting ended in turmoil. When Mississippi State Hospital closed its community arm in 2014, it contracted with a private health-care group named Guided Steps to help deal with patients. A legislative review board found that the private company managed to lose track of patients entirely.
Tom Miles, a state representative in MIssissippi, said the Department of Mental Health was always a “punching bag” in any budget fights.
“I remain wary of private, for-profit organizations,” McMichael, chief of the forensics unit, wrote in an exchange of letters he had with the state mental health board. “But anything that might take some of these folks off of our plate would be worth looking into.”
For now, Whitfield appears to be making do with the scant resources it has. It is offering free forensic training for Mississippi psychologists to expand the universe of people equipped to conduct competency exams. It is also helping with a pilot project with one of the state’s regional mental health centers to provide jail inmates education in the basics of the judicial process.
The Department of Mental Health, for its part, no longer has any illusions about asking for added money. It has asked for flat funding in the 2019 fiscal year.
“That’s a change and for them to come in and say we just need level funding when they’ve never done that,” said Eugene Clark, a Republican state senator who chairs the appropriations committee. “Let’s be realistic and say, ‘Gee, it’d be a win if we don’t get cut again.’ Of course, everybody stood up and clapped when they said that.”
Despite the department’s modest request, the legislators tasked with drawing up budget recommendations nonetheless have suggested another $3 million cut for mental health in the upcoming year.
Correction, Jan. 1, 2018: An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to a boy’s stay in a facility overseen by Mississippi’s Department of Mental Health. The son of Robert Landrum, chair of the state board of mental health, stayed at the facility years ago, and is not a resident there now.
Photography for this story was supported by the inaugural Domestic Reporting Grant from the Chris Hondros Fund.
Sarah Smith was a reporting fellow at ProPublica. She previously interned at the Philadelphia Inquirer, where she wrote about police misconduct.Your message has been sent successfully
Whistleblowing journalism organization released nearly 20,000 of the Democratic National Committee's internal emails on Friday.
Several messages show how the DNC, which is supposed to be neutral during the Democratic primary, undermined Bernie Sanders' campaign while supporting Hillary Clinton's.
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In one email, the DNC acknowledges, "Super PAC paying young voters to push back online on Sanders supporters."
Another details how DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz furiously pressured MSNBC after it criticized her “unfair” treatment of Sanders.
Several other messages show how the DNC worked with journalists in a way that favored Clinton.
One email mentions an "agreement" the DNC made a Politico reporter.
Journalist Kenneth Vogel was investigating potential corruption in Clinton's fundraising practices. Clinton claimed to raise money to help state Democratic committees, but Vogel revealed that they got just 1 percent of the $60 million raised.
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On April 30, a few days before publishing, Vogel sent DNC Press Secretary Mark Paustenbach a draft of his article in an email titled "per agreement... any thoughts appreciated."
"Vogel gave me his story ahead of time/before it goes to his editors as long as I didn't share it," Paustenbach wrote when he forwarded the draft to DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda.
"Let me know if you see anything that's missing and I'll push back," Paustenbach said.
The article was then published in May 2 with the headline "Clinton fundraising leaves little for state parties."
Another email reveals that the DNC leaked to a reporter a letter from Sanders.
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On May 6, Wall Street Journal reporter Laura Meckler sent an email titled "can you send me the letter Sanders sent the DNC?" to Miranda and Paustenbach.
Meckler wanted information on the Sanders campaign's strategy to negotiation the Democratic Party "platform, rules, etc."
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Two hours later, Miranda replied with a link to the letter.
"OFF THE RECORD, You didn’t get this from me," he stressed to the reporter.
"They didn’t send it to us before planting the story. We’re operating in good faith," Miranda insisted.A golden briefcase containing British intelligence´s top secrets has been stolen from the MI6 by the infamous “El Chacal” who has fled to Mexico City. Your mission is to track him down and recover the golden briefcase, but it’s not as simple as it sounds; you have to survive all the dangers Mexico City has to prevent you from succeeding. We know from reliable sources that “El Chacal” is hiding somewhere and you need to attract his attention in order for him to show up, he has planted dummy briefcases throughout Mexico City and you need to collect as many as you can in order to make him notice you, once he appears on scene you have limited time to catch him otherwise he’ll escape. Can you meet the challenge?I Stopped Eating Meat and This Is What Happened During My First 12 Weeks
Zack Starikov Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 14, 2015
I didn’t think giving up meat was going to be easy but it never even occurred to me that it would hurt as much as it did. A bizarre run in with a pig while on a walk with my pug got me to give up eating meat. You can read the story here. My first 12 weeks of meat free!
Week 1: I felt great. I couldn’t understand why people claimed it was so hard to stop eating meat. I pretty much just ate tuna salad sandwiches, pasta, and peanut butter sandwiches. No complaints since all three are favorites.
Week 2: I started feeling sluggish. I started wondering if I was getting sick.
Week 3: I felt worse than I had the previous week. I was tired everyday and I felt as if I was gaining weight. I was angry most of the day and feeling anxious. My girlfriend claims the littlest of things agitated me.
Week 4: Girlfriend talked me into eating more vegetables. I started eating things like kale, chard and brussel sprouts. None of this tasted good to me but I ate it because it turns out pasta has too much sugar. Eating tuna everyday can lead to mercury poisoning. Apparently peanut butter is high in calories and too much of it can make you fat.
Week 5: I found myself spending more time in the bathroom. Not eating meat and eating more vegetables, tofu and seitan really started messing with my stomach. Perhaps it’s the stomach issues that made me really miss meat and regret my decision. My body started to hurt pretty badly and all sorts of muscle aches developed. Nighttime sleep came with chills and sweats.
Week 6: I started getting headaches and vomiting. My mood shifted from angry to sad. The chard still tasted disgusting but the brussel sprouts and kale started to grow on me. My body still didn’t feel right and I was spending a lot of time in the bathroom.
Week 7: The headaches and vomiting still occurred every couple of days. I started feeling less sad and more hopeful. My craving for meat decreased a little. Nighttime chills and sweating at night decreased as well. My body still ached but not as much.
Week 8: I felt as if I finally started recovering from having been sick with the flu. I was still spending a lot of time in the bathroom but the headaches seemed to have gone away. Chard still tasted gross but surprisingly was easier to eat than the previous days. Kale and brussel sprouts tasted better and my mood changed for the better.
Week 9: Bathroom trips not as frequent. Headaches disappeared. Chard still gross but edible. According to the girlfriend my skin was looking better. Had to tighten my belt because my jeans felt a little loose. Feelings of being more energetic and actually sleeping which I was having a lot of problems with.
Week 10: Happy and positive. Started choosing to use stairs instead of elevators and escalators. Sleeping almost 7 or 8 hours as opposed to half of that. Just feeling better. Bathroom trips still much more frequent than when I was a carnivore. Not feeling heavy after meals and definitely losing weight. Kale and brussel sprouts actually started to taste good and the chard surprisingly still gross.
Week 11: Feeling good. Bathroom visits under control. Pipes seem to flow better than all those times when I ate meat. Sleeping well. Enjoying Kale and brussel sprouts. Still eating chard despite the gross taste.
Week 12: Meat still looks good when seeing an ad for a steakhouse but the craving feeling extinguished. Feeling happy. Feeling good. Sleeping well. Developed craving for grilled brussel sprouts after not having them for 4 days. Feeling healthy.
Thoughts: Recently I read about how all sorts of chemicals are injected into the animals we eat and all the chemical processes used to make the meat look a certain way. It makes me wonder if what I experienced was a possible drug withdrawal from the chemicals I had gotten addicted to during my 33 years as a carnivore. I’m not really sure why I had such severe headaches that caused me to vomit or why I got the chills and the sweats at night after cutting meat out of my diet. Although I did not mention this earlier but aside from eating kale, brussel sprouts and disgusting chard I also made sure to eat hummus, fruits, other vegetables, brown rice, quinoa, oatmeal, beans, tofu, seitan, tuna fish once in a while, peanut butter, whole wheat bread, avocado, walnuts, brasil nuts, and drinking almond and cashew milk. Since giving up meat I have lost about 11 lbs and according to my girlfriend I am less irritable and moody…
If you need any advice on how to stop eating meat (break the habbit of eating meat, finding food alternatives, or overcoming pressure from peers about eating meat) please feel free to reach out and get in touch. I’d love to help in anyway I can.When Chris Ash was hired as a graduate assistant at his alma mater, Drake, in 1997, he had nowhere to live, so unbeknownst to his head coach, he set up shop in the team's field house.
It was sparse living -- little more than lockers and offices and equipment. There was no TV, so at the end of a long day, he'd retire to the office of head coach Rob Ash, no relation, and crack open clinic manuals on coaching. He lived there for about a month, and in that time he consumed more than a thousand articles.
"That was his entertainment," Rob Ash said.
The other assistants didn't have it much better. Linebackers coach Dave Doeren and grad assistant Charlie Partridge roomed together with a local high school coach. Doeren said he made $400 a month, and three-quarters of that went to rent. They ate in the school cafeteria, and to make ends meet, Doeren worked as a short-order cook in a Mexican restaurant, and he, Ash and Partridge all split duties on Drake's maintenance crew, driving the JV bus and painting lines on the fields.
"We redid a locker room, ripping out lockers by hand and repainting the whole thing," Chris Ash said. "What we all appreciate about each other is the passion for the game and the work ethic and determination that we put forth to all be where we're at today."
Ash was hired as head coach at Rutgers in December, the end of a long road for a trio of Drake graduates who played together and built the foundation of their coaching careers together. Partridge is the head coach at Florida Atlantic, Doeren at NC State.
It's perhaps college football's most unlikely coaching tree. Only eight schools can claim three current FBS head coaches as alumni, and only five of those also employed those coaches as assistants to start their careers. But alongside Alabama and Georgia and Iowa, tiny Drake -- a school that didn't even offer undergraduate coaching courses -- certainly seems an unlikely member of an elite fraternity.
It's a credit to Rob Ash, who found talent and gave them a chance. And it's a reward for Doeren, Partridge and Chris Ash, who have pushed one another every step of the way as they've climbed the coaching ranks.
NC State head coach Dave Doeren got his start as linebackers coach at Drake making $400 a month. Lance King/Getty Images
When it comes to personality, Ash, Partridge and Doeren aren't always on the same page. Partridge is laid-back and easygoing. Ash is far more fiery, earning the nickname "Angry Ash" as an assistant at Wisconsin, according to former coach Bret Bielema. Doeren straddles the line, with a dry, direct point of view.
But where their personalities deviated, their focus on getting ahead was always common ground for the trio. Doeren was the oldest and the first to land an assistant job with Drake. Partridge was a year behind and Ash another year after that. None had eyed coaching jobs in college. In fact, Partridge said, they used to roll their eyes at Rob Ash's speeches about enjoying the journey.
As it turned out, however, they enjoyed that journey at Drake so much that, when GA jobs were offered, each was happy for the chance to return.
"I was 22 years old, and [Rob Ash] put me in a room, gave me a position group and gave me the opportunity -- even if I didn't know what I was talking about," Partridge said. "That experience, I can't say enough about the fact that he threw us to the fire quick."
The three assistants devoured opportunities to learn the job. They ate, slept and breathed football. During spring break, they'd pick a highway and drive, stopping at colleges along the way to talk with coaches and build relationships. They'd crash on the floors of friends' apartments then move along to the next campus.
"My car broke down just trying to catch up with those guys," Partridge remembered.
There was an underlying competitiveness that drove them. Each one wanted desperately to impress the head coach, to climb the coaching ranks and be the first to land a bigger gig.
"We all wanted to be the best at what we did," Chris Ash said. "It's our nature to compete."
And so Doeren left for a job at USC. Partridge landed a spot at Iowa State, and Ash soon followed.
Their paths diverged over the years, but they were constant companions, sharing experiences and advice each step of the way. Then, as if by fate, they all converged again in 2010 as assistants at Wisconsin.
Bielema hired Doeren as his co-defensive coordinator in 2006, then added Partridge in 2008 and Ash -- on Doeren's advice -- in 2010.
They'd climbed the ranks a long way from the field house at Drake by then, but that old competitive streak remained. Bielema joked about "breaking up a few schoolgirl fights" when one coach's group failed to perform as well as the others', but they remained close friends, and that final season together ended with a berth in the Rose Bowl.
And then, once again, it was over.
"The only time I was ever disappointed is when Dave called me, late at night, and told me he was the head coach at Northern Illinois," Partridge said. "I was so happy for him, but I was so disappointed because my friend was leaving Wisconsin. And I said, 'Boy, we might not get a chance for the three of us to be together ever again."
Charlie Partridge, left, and Chris Ash, right, and Dave Doeren coached together again on Bret Bielema's Wisconsin staff. AP Photo/Nick Ut
Ash and Partridge eventually left Wisconsin, too. It's the way this coaching game works. Nobody stays in the same place for too long.
That all three former teammates have managed to survive the ups and down and keep moving forward is an accomplishment in itself, Rob Ash said. So many coaches' careers get derailed by bad luck or bad timing, even if they're good coaches.
Instead, Doeren parlayed his time at Northern Illinois into the head job at NC State, where he's gone to two straight bowl games. Partridge was hired at Florida Atlantic in 2014, tasked with rebuilding the program. And this offseason, Ash's success as an assistant under Urban Meyer at Ohio State earned him the Rutgers job.
They've come a long way, and they've done it together.
"Coming from a place like Drake, that's not known," Doeren said, "hopefully we'll continue to have the successes we're having and it'll get bigger and bigger."
Partridge still remembers the first American Football Coaches Association conference he attended. It was a sea of big-name coaches and assistants at top programs -- "a zoo," Partridge said -- and the Drake crew went virtually unnoticed. They tried to mingle, shuffling from one side of the lobby to the other, barely talking to a soul.
Eventually they decided to bail on the festivities, hitting the town together, talking ball and thinking about the future. They got back to the hotel well after midnight, and Partridge stood on the balcony outside his room, looking down through the atrium into the lobby of the hotel. There will still dozens of coaches, talking and laughing and swapping stories.
"I remember thinking to myself, 'One of these days, we're going to split up and then come back and with all of our new circles, and we'll be sharing stories and laughing,'" Partridge said, "and we'll be up until late at night talking about our experiences, too."
Nearly 20 years later, that's just what's happened. Rob Ash's entire coaching tree meets up each year "for a few cold drinks on the old coach," he said. Doeren and Partridge and Chris Ash are there, along with a host of other coaches that started in a small town and are still climbing their way to the top.
"I know how tough this profession is," Rob Ash said. "This just shows you how good they are."Nigel Farage Jonathan Bachman / Getty LONDON — The former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan has endorsed Nigel Farage for UK Prime Minister.
David Duke tweeted on Monday that the former UKIP leader, who is a close ally of US president Donald Trump, would make an excellent leader of the UK.
"Farage will make a fine UK Prime Minister. Looking forward to that," he tweeted.
Duke is the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan — a notorious white supremacist organisation. He is also well-known for his belief in anti-semitic conspiracy theories.
Duke also previously endorsed Donald Trump for president.
Trump and Farage were recently photographed dining together in the US. The former UKIP leader is reportedly keen to work for Trump and has said that he is prepared to serve Trump "either formally or informally."
Farage is not currently eligible to become prime minister after having failed to win election as a member of the UK parliament seven times.Back in February I tried out this new fad called yogging Pure Barre. I got a month of unlimited classes for only $100 so, factoring in my gym membership, I was like, alright I’m officially spending $170 on fitness this month, I have a problem, I should probably go to this class. So I did. And I did. And I did again. And then I got super addicted, started paying full price – $225 a month, got even more sucked in when I completed the 20 classes in 30 days challenge to get one month for only $150, which sounded cheap at that point, and eventually cancelled my gym membership so I could do barre and only barre because OBSESSED. Now, I’ve been going for a couple months and let me tell you – IT DOES NOT GET ANY EASIER. Actually, it only gets harder. Because once you realize what you’re actually supposed to be doing, you will sweat your face off and struggle through every class. And while every class is different, my thoughts remain the same each day… starting with: do I have to go today? The answer is always yes, unless I have a 6am scheduled. Then I will wake up and cancel at 5:30am. Sorry.
Here are 100 thoughts I have throughout Pure Barre. Do you have any of the same?!
Where should I sit? Ugh, someone is sitting way too close to my spot. What do I do now? Everyone in this room is so thin. And fit. And wearing Lululemon. And Athleta. I wonder if anyone can tell I got my tank top at TJ Maxx… Okay, so when is this going to start? Oh… the teacher is putting her headset on! I wonder if my butt will ever look like hers… There’s the music! Should I stand? No, no. Not yet. I don’t want to be the first one to stand. AHH. Everyone is standing. Better take a sip of water quick. Okay, knee lifts. Damn, people are so uncoordinated. Do I look uncoordinated? Whatever. How am I already sweating? We’re only on warm up. UGH plank. Tuck AND plank at the same time??? WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM? My toes are slipping, my toes are slipping. Okay, let me just lift my ass up to get to re-position myself. Please don’t let them take a picture to post on Facebook right now… ITS OVER ITS OVER. But it’s not over. There’s more… How the F is that girl next to me going so low in her push ups? So, now my butt is supposed to be next to my hands for tricep dips. MY SEAT WON’T GO BACK ANY FURTHER. Okay, arms… you ready? Is that muscle for real??? Is that what my arm really looks like? Why don’t my arms look like this in the mirror at home? Is this mirror programmed to make my arms look good? Don’t put your arms down. Don’t put your arms down. You’re almost done. YOU ARE ALMOST DONE. ARM STRETCH. Oh no. I can do this. Look at me go. I am doing thighs. HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE MOST PAINFUL THING IVE EVER DONE IN MY LIFE. Is thigh work equivalent to giving birth? HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THAT GIRL’S RING! Am I the poorest person in this room? Oh right, back to thighs. WHEN IS IT OVER? NO, NOT THE RESISTANCE BAND. What if I break the band with my thighs? Has that ever happened to anyone? Why is no one else coming out of this thigh sprint for a break? Why am I so weak? Time to shut my eyes and shake. THEYRE SHAKING. |
” ratings in 2012 alone while he was running for President. Conversely, every Democratic politician combined from 2007-2016 was given the “Pants on Fire” rating only 25 times. Hillary Clinton was judged as the most honest politician to win their party’s nomination for President in the past 10 years according to Politifact’s rating system.
“PolitiFact often rates statements that are largely true but come from a GOP source as “mostly false” by focusing on sentence alterations, simple mis-statements, fact-checking the wrong fact, and even taking a statement, rewording it, and fact-checking the re-worded statement instead of the original quoted statement,” Shapiro said.
Individuals affected by the censorship are not buying Facebook’s rationale, and understand that these is the machinations of Big Brother at work.
“It’s funny how social media has done more to erode the public’s trust in unbiased reporting within the last two years than in perhaps the 50 years before that by sending me nonsense like this,” said Igor Bronz, who was targeted by the censorship in question.
“Trying to peddle an obviously partisan, so-called fact-checker that has been proven false time and time again, easily exposed by a casual Google search,” he said.
While Facebook works feverishly to censor content and protest the mainstream media’s narrative, Judge Roy Moore continues to surge in the polls as it becomes more obvious that allegations against him were a baseless hit job. It is unlikely that this Orwellian push by Facebook and their corporate media cohorts will have much of an effect on the election results next week.“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
With this George Santayana quote in mind, I’ve decided to take a look at some my off-season predictions to see where I went wrong so far. The title of this series “So Wrong So Far” refers to the over-arching theme of this series.
The purpose of this series is two-fold. 1. Can anything be gleaned from my incorrect take; and 2. Is there any hope going forward that my original take will eventually come to pass?
Why not wait until the end of the season for this exercise? I believe we learn from our mistakes best when they are still fresh in our mind. And I’ve made enough bad calls that this exercise might take until the end of the fantasy playoffs to finish, and I want to be ready to focus on next season as soon as this one finishes.
Breshad Perriman
To kick off the New Year in 2017 it appears I decided to make my boldest and ultimately worst call of the season:
“I’m not one for bold predictions, but I will go on record with one now. I see Perriman going for 80 receptions, 1,200 yards and 7-10 touchdowns next season.”
Unless Perriman goes off on an unexpected and unprecedented run in the Ravens final seven games, I will be off on this prediction. Badly so. In fact, even if Perriman were to have seven straight 100-yard receiving games to finish the season I’d still need another 400 + yards to be correct on this call. Using PlayerProfiler to look at some Perriman’s stats this season is just a box of sadness. Perriman hasn’t been productive and hasn’t been efficient.
What went wrong?
In the interest of brevity, I’ll just give you the highlights.
After surprisingly being released by Kansas City in June Jeremy Maclin signed with the Ravens after a truncated free agency tour. This should have been an omen that perhaps the Ravens didn’t share my enthusiasm with Perriman’s 2017 outlook. Instead of Perriman absorbing Steve Smiths 100 vacated targets from 2016, at best, he would be forced to share those with Maclin. Maclin leads the Ravens in target share with 18.8% while Perriman sees a tight end like 10.2% of targets. Come to think of it, that’s worse than tight end level involvement, at least based on 37-year-old Ben Watson capturing 16.2% of the Ravens targets.
In August Perriman injured his hamstring and proceeded to miss the entirety of the pre-season. Hindsight being 20/20 this may have been an excellent time to adjust my expectations for his 2017 season. I did no such thing though.
After leading the league in passes attempted per game in both 2015 and 2016, I assumed the Ravens would continue their bombs away approach in 2017. That assumption could not have been more incorrect. In 2016 the Ravens attempted 42.4 passes per game. Through the first 9 games of 2017, they are only attempting 34.2 passes per game (17th in the league). During an off-season weightlifting session, Joe Flacco injured his back and missed the entire pre-season. Flacco’s injury may play a role in the scaled-back Ravens passing attack, though I find that hard to believe. Not the injury causing the Ravens to scale back their passing volume, no that’s completely plausible. I find it hard to believe Flacco has ever lifted weights. Whatever the cause Baltimore is passing less per game and that has severely hampered Perriman’s breakout potential.
Perriman missed all of his rookie season due to a torn PCL and saw his first game action in 2016. In his “rookie” season Perriman went for 39 receptions, 499 yards, and 3 touchdowns finishing as the WR81 (6.7 fantasy points per game). A decent enough stat-line for someone’s rookie season, but probably not the type of numbers that you then project into a WR1 season as a follow-up.
I assumed that Perriman would see an increase in his 46.1% snap share and 10.4% target share from 2016. While Perriman has seen a significant bump of snaps and has been on the field for 54.3% of offensive snaps, his target share has decreased to 10.2%. When factoring in his 25.9% catch rate, it is easy to see why Perriman isn’t producing. In short, Perriman is seeing fewer targets, converting less of those targets in an offense that now skews closer to the mean in pass attempts.
Lessons learned
Predicting this in January made no sense. Calling for a 1,200-yard season out of Perriman in January left way too much time for too many things to happen. For all I knew at the time I made this prediction, Perriman could have decided to hang up his cleats to study the mating habits of the Burmese fruit fly. Why the hell would anyone make a definitive pronouncement a full 8 months before the season kicks off is beyond me.
Actually, it’s not. Often we want to be the first one that is “right.” In that haste, many of us will stake a claim before all of the requisite data needed to make a determination is available to us. Sometimes I forget it’s less important to be “right” first than it is just to be “right,” period.
When looking at stats, it’s instructive to also look at the context in which those statistics were compiled. As noted previously the Ravens led the league in pass attempts both in 2015 and 2016. What I failed to take into account is that those passing totals came in unsuccessful seasons. In 2015 Baltimore went 5-11, though they improved to 8-8 in 2016, neither of those seasons can be considered successes. John Harbaugh is not Jeff Fisher. Harbaugh is intelligent enough to recognize when something hasn’t worked and then take corrective actions. The fact that the Ravens are only 4-5 this season is secondary to this point. Just because the change in approach hasn’t manifested itself in a better record doesn’t mean there wasn’t reason to expect a change in approach.
Additionally, I expected too much positive regression. It’s often easy to see what you want to see when looking at stats. I saw Perriman’s 499 receiving yards in what was essentially his rookie season and ignored or explained away his negative indicators. A sub 50% snap share rate, his 50% catch rate and his 10.4% target rate in 2016 should have, at a minimum, made me proceed with caution on what I expected out of Perriman in 2017.
Lastly, it’s hard to remember that progress isn’t always linear. Not every player is going to improve their production numbers from year 1 to year 2 and year 2 to year 3 and so on. There are often peaks and valleys in a players career, and Perriman is most certainly lost in the valley right now.
Now what?
Perriman has had a terrible 2017 so far and I see no reason for that to change. If you are looking for a reason for optimism look no further then Nelson Agholor. Agholor had a disastrous 2016 season and was written off as a bust by most. He’s bounced back in 2017 to be a bye week/matchup option. I believe Perriman can at least still reach that level of utility for your roster.
That said, in leagues with 25 or fewer roster spaces I have cut Perriman for other options based on need. If you can afford to hold onto Perriman than do so. If someone wants to throw him in as a low-level trade piece I wouldn’t say no, but I’m not actively seeking him in out in any trades. Perriman still has a 1st round draft pedigree and should is still on his rookie contract through 2018. He’ll be given at least one more season to show he can be a productive NFL receiver and you’d be well served to hold onto him where possible.
Thanks for reading. Give me a follow on Twitter @DFF_Shane and we can talk fantasy football anytime you’d like.MOSCOW — A Russian arms manufacturer says it is signing a contract to deliver at least 10 fighter jets to Syria.
Sergei Korotkov, general director of the MiG company that makes the jets, told Russian news agencies Friday that a Syrian delegation was in Moscow to discuss terms and deadlines of a new contract supplying MiG-29 M/M2 fighters to Syria.
Korotkov did not specify how many MiGs Syria is buying, but says it will be “more than 10.”
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Russia has previously said that it would only fulfill outstanding arms contracts with Syria.
Syrian rebel commander Brig. Gen. Salim Idris urged the international community to prevent the transfer of MiGs, indicating that the sale would further tip the scales in Assad’s favor. The announcement of the pending deal comes at a time when the Lebanese-based terrorist group Hezbollah has upped its forces in Syria, fighting alongside the embattled regime.
The Lebanese newspaper al-Diyar reported Friday that Israel had succeeded in thwarting a deal to deliver advanced Russian S-300 air-defense systems to Syria by threatening to start an all-out war.
The report also claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to compensate Assad with the delivery of other “effective and powerful weapons,” including modern aircraft and helicopters, to use against the Syrian rebels.
Over 70,000 people have died in the two-year-long Syrian civil war.Maj. Gen. Uzi Dayan was trying to support a soldier charged with killing an unarmed Palestinian. Instead, he ended up confessing to a crime that could have severe repercussions at The Hague.
By Yael Marom and John Brown*
Late last week, Channel 2 news reported that three senior reserve officers — Maj. Gen. Uzi Dayan, Brig. Gen. Shmuel Zakai, and Gen. Dan Biton — will testify for the defense of Elor Azaria, the Israeli soldier who is on trial for shooting and killing a Palestinian who stabbed an IDF soldier in Hebron, though he was already immobilized.
Zakai had previously posted on his Facebook page that Azaria’s treatment “is disgraceful and rife with hypocrisy, and principally unprofessional.” Dayan argues that the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division (MPCID) shouldn’t be the body designated to investigate such incidents, but rather an internal investigation committee.
A few weeks ago Dayan broke silence in an interview with Radio Darom in which he declared his stance on Azaria’s trial, explaining the normative mode of behavior the army needs to adopt:
I had a similar more grave case, much more grave, in which five Palestinians were killed by paratrooper combatants at the Tarqumiya crossing. Not only were they not terrorists, they also weren’t illegal aliens. They were people returning from work in Israel and there was some misunderstanding. I stopped the soldiers, though they really didn’t like that at the time…I said, for three days you’ll conduct a commission of inquiry and give me the results. Not the MAG the MPCID, nor anyone else – you give me the results…I saw the results. I said four things, conclusions, what needs to be done, the soldiers didn’t even go on trial. Today the situation is different in the sense that there are immediate photos and the entire press is involved, there’s a lot of pressure on decision-makers.
But did this really happen? And if so, what was the purpose of Dayan’s boasting, which by all accounts should lead to a criminal investigation against him? And what are Azaria’s attorneys hoping to achieve by bringing in his irrelevant testimony? We will try to answer all these questions, but first let us focus on the event Dayan spoke about.
The story
On March 10, 1998, at about 6 p.m., a white van carrying 12 Palestinian laborers heading home from work approached the Tarqumiyah crossing, between Israel and the southern West Bank. As the van entered the checkpoint, it veered slightly to the right, hitting one of the soldiers lightly. The soldier would later say that it wasn’t an accident, and that he saw “rage coming out of the driver’s eyes.” The soldiers, apparently aware of an alert issued the previous day of an imminent car-ramming attack, thought they saw one unfolding and opened fire. Three passengers were killed and another two were injured.
The head of the IDF’s West Bank division at the time, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Eitan, initially claimed that “a preliminary investigation yielded that an attempt was made to run over a soldier, and the checkpoint staff responded accordingly.” However, eyewitnesses told Haaretz reporters Amos Harel and Sami Sokol that the van changed lanes because it had an Israeli license plate, and the driver noticed he was entering the Palestinian-only lane. The very same night, then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu phoned Yasser Arafat and extended his condolences. He later dubbed the incident “an unfortunate mistake.”
A week later, one of the surviving passengers told Haaretz that “the soldiers opened fire after another was waving towards us to move forward. One soldier didn’t see him and, thinking we were about to break through, started firing.” A report by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem the following year quoted an IDF investigation saying that the cause of the incident was faulty brakes.
Over the last few weeks, this case has been vaunted repeatedly by Dayan as an example of how errant shooters should be treated by army commanders. As GOC, Dayan was responsible for the lives of millions of occupied Palestinians, yet repeatedly and unflinchingly showcased the intricate cover-up apparatus of the most moral army in the world. Perhaps unwittingly, he drew the attention to the true culprits: the Dayans and the Ashkenazis, the Sharons and Baraks, and all the other generals (not to mention generations of cabinet ministers).
Brutally simple bottom line
Dayan’s bottom line is brutally simple: Azaria’s commanders failed at covering up. They didn’t do what the army expected them to do. They aired the dirty laundry in public. Azaria’s commanders should have done as he did and spare him the trial. And, of course, it would have been a lot simpler without those damn cameras.
Dayan’s memory of the incident was a bit hazy – the military police did launch an inquiry that yielded no results – but essentially he was right: the soldiers were not punished for killing innocent people.
Dayan is also right in saying that had Azaria not been caught on camera killing an immobilized person, he too would not have ended up in court. In fact, he’s only half-right: concrete evidence is often a prerequisite for an indictment, but it’s not enough either. It has to be made public. When it isn’t, like in the case of Samir Awad, who was shot in the neck, the prosecution can get away without pressing charges. This may well be the reason for the gag order on the killing of two Palestinian siblings at Qalandiya checkpoint last May.
The most serious consequence of Dayan’s revelations is that the cover-up has been effective, which means that killing innocent people with impunity is likely to continue. The examples that follow are just a sample of such cases, in which an inquiry was launched and amounted to absolutely nothing.
One of the most major shortcomings of these inquiries is the debriefing that often precedes them. In it, all the players and witnesses are brought together to recount what they saw. That gives them an opportunity to doctor their versions and adapt them according to the others’. This is why the police investigate crime suspects separately – and the fact that it’s not done in these cases comes at a price. What’s more, Dayan’s remarks may well amount to a criminal offense insofar as he admitted that his stated goal was to pervert the course of the investigation.
As long as the occupation itself
A mere two months ago, at 1:30 A.M., a Kfir Brigade officer responded to stone throwing on an Israeli car by standing on a low bridge above the highway and opening fire at a random Palestinian taxi that happened to pass by. Mahmoud Badran, 15, was killed, four of his fellow passengers were wounded and the driver was shot in the head. They were on their way home from a day at an amusement park in a nearby village.
The next day, the Israeli media reported that “a 15-year-old terrorist was killed,” but it soon transpired that it was an IDF Spokesperson’s press release copied verbatim. The shooter has yet to be arrested, even though he clearly broke the army’s rules of engagement several times. Here, too, it is likely that the shooting was documented only because there happened to be an IDF camera at the scene, as we were shown by the victims’ lawyer.
Another noteworthy incident took place on January 20, 2011, at around 10:30 P.M. Jalal Masri, a truck driver and father of two toddlers from East Jerusalem, was on his way to visit relatives near Hebron. When he drove past a makeshift checkpoint outside Hebron, a soldier shot him four times in the neck.
During his investigation, the soldier said he was aiming at the wheels, but the fact that the car’s windshield was sprayed with bullets contradicted that. Despite that, the case was closed for lack of evidence. Two separate inquiries were launched, after the military prosecution claimed the first was marred by the investigators’ exposure to the debriefing report. This is, by the way, exactly what happened in Elor Azaria’s case. Emily Schaeffer Omer-Man, a lawyer for Yesh Din, petitioned the High Court against the decision to discontinue the investigation.
If you think this is a recent norm, yet another marker of Israel’s moral deterioration, think again. A 1994 B’Tselem report includes a multitude of such stories.
Take this one, for example: on July 24, 1992, soldiers opened fire at a car near Khan Younis and killed a four-year-old boy. The victim’s father, who drove the car, said he misunderstood the soldiers’ instructions, who were signaling him to stop, and turned right. Once he did, he was met with a salvo of bullets. Haaretz quoted then-GOC Southern Command Matan Vilnai: “We killed a boy. It’s just not worth it. When you look into the story, you realize that his father had just bought a new car and took his family for a ride for the first time. He was so excited about the new car that he missed the checkpoint, made a turn, and then the soldiers killed the boy. It’s just not worth it.” None of the soldiers was ever indicted, even though the fire, which wasn’t aimed at the wheels, was opened illegally.
The victims aren’t just innocent car passengers. On May 4, 2006, a taxi driver parked his car outside a West Bank checkpoint and walked about 400 meters to the other side. A jeep carrying four soldiers was rushed to the scene and upon its arrival two soldiers disembarked, without notice, one shooting in the air and another toward the man’s back. The soldiers would later claim that they felt they were in danger. The investigation was discontinued after the shooters could not be identified. They were later identified in a civil action brought against them, in which the judge ruled they were lying. The military prosecution refrained from pressing charges nonetheless.
And this list is as long as the occupation itself.
One step toward The Hague?
The rationale behind Dayan’s subpoena is probably to make a case for selective enforcement. However, it doesn’t hold up. An 18-year-old isolated case is unable to establish this claim. The prosecution could claim, with a great degree of justice, that the investigation policy changed in 2011, when the army made a formal pledge to investigate every killing of Palestinians, and that whatever happened before simply does not apply.
And regardless, can a sex offender claim in his defense that many men commit sexual assault and get away with it? In truth, military judges will never admit that they themselves are the cover-up apparatus.
Dayan’s testimony would be of no assistance to Azaria. In fact, it could only harm his case. The judges would take note that the similar case presented by Dayan included wrongdoing, and by endorsing the testimony the defense would admit that it is the case here as well.
Dayan’s testimony, once it made it to the minutes, would give ammunition to calls to investigate IDF soldiers internationally. To date, Israel’s main claim to fend off these calls was that it has an independent investigative apparatus that ensures that justice is upheld. When a top officer admits to interfering in the process, it casts serious doubts on the effectiveness of the process.
Anticipating defeat, Azaria’s defense team seeks to recruit Dayan into an effort to make a political statement whereby killing Palestinians should not be considered a criminal offense. It clashes with the stance championed by the IDF top brass, and the casting of an old-timer serves the purpose of harking back to the army of the good old days, before it was hijacked by the current commanders.
When Dayan delivers his testimony on August 28, Israeli police will be legally bound to launch an investigation against Dayan and the Tarqumiyah shooters. There is no statute of limitation on murder cases, and the culprits could still be indicted. If that doesn’t happen, Israel will find itself in a very awkward position, one that might only be redressed by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Yael Marom is Just Vision’s public engagement manager in Israel and a co-editor of Local Call. *John Brown is the pseudonym of an Israeli academic and a blogger. This article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.ST. LOUIS -- A World Series matchup between historic teams brings with it the chance to make some history. Game 5 was Adam Wainwright’s big opportunity to redeem himself for his Game 1 loss and make some. He embraced his opportunity, he was ready for it, but in the end, he lost it when the Boston Red Sox broke through to score twice in the seventh.
Afterward, the St. Louis Cardinals' ace was diplomatic: “That was a tough loss obviously, [score tied] 1-1 there in the seventh; that’s obviously the game there. Tip your hat to [Red Sox catcher David Ross], he hit a double to take the lead, and [Red Sox starter Jon Lester] did a great job. So you tip your cap to both of them.”
Adam Wainwright struck out 10 batters in seven innings, but the bottom of the Red Sox order was his undoing in the seventh. Elsa/Getty Images
You have to feel for the guy. Wainwright had to miss the 2011 season recovering from surgery and could only watch as teammate Chris Carpenter helped deal the Cards to a title with his 4-0 October run, highlighted by his Game 5 shutout of the Phillies in the National League Division Series. While Game 1’s sloppy loss was another missed opportunity, Monday night’s Game 5 against the Red Sox was Wainwright’s latest and last big chance this year to add his name to the annals of Cardinals postseason greatness as a starting pitcher, to finally have a “Carpenter game” of his own.
He felt ready for it, readying himself for it the way an ace is supposed to. “After the first game, I knew I could pitch much better than that. My delivery was horrible, and I made some great adjustments going into [Game 5],” Wainwright said. “I was very confident I was going to go out and pitch a good game.”
From the outset, this wasn’t going to be a shutout. After Dustin Pedroia’s one-out double in the first, Wainwright did the one thing Cardinals fans were afraid of: He pitched to David Ortiz instead of walking him, giving up an RBI double to Papi.
It was a decision Wainwright owned and authored, saying afterward, “I don’t like walking anybody. You got a guy on second already, it’s the first inning, and [Ortiz] hit a good pitch. He’s out-of-his-mind hot, but that was my call before the game. I said I’m not going to pitch around Ortiz, I’m going to get him out. And he hit a good pitch, and made a good swing.”
Nevertheless, through six innings Wainwright was delivering a great game, striking out the side twice and notching nine K’s, and taking a tie into the seventh, when he’d face the bottom of Boston’s order. Given how badly the bottom third of the Red Sox's lineup has hit -- with Stephen Drew struggling all postseason and opposing starter Jon Lester carrying a career-long oh-fer -- it seemed as if Wainwright would match Lester frame for frame even later into the game.
With the count 1-2, slumping Stephen Drew was able to work Wainwright for a walk that set the stage for Ross' double. Rob Carr/Getty Images
Except that he didn’t. “To be honest with you, I went out there and executed my plan all night long,” Wainwright said. “I wanted to attack them today, get them into my pitcher’s counts, keep them out of those deep counts, where they get your pitch count up early. They do a good job of that. I wanted to put them on the defensive early. I pitched them at 1-and-2 until the seventh inning.”
That’s because the seventh inning is when the narrow margin between perfect execution and success and lone mistakes leading to losses snakebit Wainwright, just as it did in Game 1. After striking out Daniel Nava, Wainwright gave up a single to rookie Xander Bogaerts and walked the stone-cold Drew, forcing him to face eighth-slot hitter David Ross instead of putting him aboard for Lester’s brand of desperation batsmanship.
What went wrong? Turning again and again to a curveball he started to miss his spots with, Wainwright struggled to execute against the weakest part of the Red Sox's order, and showed why any mistakes get punished by professional hitters.
About the curve, Wainwright observed, “It’s one of my best pitches. I had good confidence in it, and was executing it all night. Bogaerts hit a good pitch up the middle. Usually I catch that ball. I’m a little disappointed I didn’t catch that ball. But he put a good swing on it.”
Red Sox catcher David Ross touched Wainwright for two hits, including his tiebreaking ground-rule double in the seventh. Elsa/Getty Images
But Drew’s walk proved deadly. “More than anything, walking Drew there, that really hurt. That set the inning up for them. I would have liked to have attacked better there, but just didn’t make it happen,” Wainwright said. But Wainwright offered no excuses for putting Drew on first, stating, “I spun out of my delivery a couple of times, on 2-2 and 3-2, but [the ball on] 1-2 it was a good call.”
That forced Wainwright to pitch to Ross with one out and two on with the pitcher on deck, and no chance Lester would be pulled back for a pinch-hitter. Wainwright thought he had the veteran catcher set up, but even this well-laid plan went wrong for Waino.
“The pitch that Ross hit, it was the first curveball I’d thrown him in three at-bats. It’s a pitch I thought I had him set up for,” Wainwright said. “I was surprised, because I thought I had him set up for it.
"Sometimes, as painful as it is, you gotta say he did a great job. The first game I pitched against them, he hit a very good curveball with a 1-2 count over the second baseman’s head. That down-and-in curveball is a pitch that I’ve thrown all year. After you’ve thrown some hard stuff, get them to look, maybe even after a hard-ball fastball in. That bounce curveball inside looks like a heater inside and they can’t hit it.”
Instead, Ross was ready for it, belting it down the left-field line and into the stands for a ground-rule double. “This was a game of inches tonight,” Wainwright noted ruefully. “Ross’ ball was a couple inches fair, also a couple inches from staying in on the [foul] popup the pitch before. There was a lot of different things that could have happened, but didn’t.”
Just as Wainwright prepared himself to make history, he had to settle for making the wrong kind of history. It isn’t like Wainwright hasn’t been a great postseason performer this year. He beat the Pirates twice, and took a tough loss against the Dodgers. But in a World Series that has already seen players as different as Jonny Gomes and even Pete Kozma redeem themselves with their own second chances, Wainwright did not. Wainwright got his second chance to make history -- and lost it.
Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.Image copyright DVLA Image caption Paper counterparts to driving licences will not be valid after June 8 2015
Motorists going abroad after 8 June are being warned they may need to take a special code with them if they want to hire a car.
From that date the paper counterpart of British driving licences - which records endorsements and fines - is being computerised.
Anyone wanting to hire a car abroad could need a code to show convictions for offences like speeding.
To obtain it, motorists will have to log on to the DVLA website beforehand.
But the code is only valid for 72 hours, so anyone wanting to hire a car more than three days into their trip may need to generate a new code while they are abroad.
For those who do not have internet access, a phone number will also be made available.
However, the code is not an official requirement and it will depend on the individual hire company's terms whether or not it is required.
The RAC said many drivers were unaware of the changes.
"Our research shows that with just over a month to go before the paper counterpart to the photo-card licence disappears, 55% of drivers are not aware of the planned change," said RAC spokesman Simon Williams.
'Belt and braces'
The DVLA recommends destroying paper counterparts after 8 June.
However the AA is advising people to hang on to the document, in case some hire companies are unaware of the new arrangements.
"Not all car rental companies, or indeed traffic police abroad, will be aware of the changes, so a 'belt and braces' approach of also taking the counterpart might help," said AA president Edmund King.
But the AA also said that hiring a car abroad without a paper counterpart is not always a problem.
Just as some car hire companies do not currently ask for a counterpart, not all will ask for a code after 8 June.
The British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA) said the situation still was not clear.
"Due to the short notice provided by the DVLA and the need to thoroughly test the new system, many car rental companies are still finalising their plans for the UK and abroad," said a BVRLA spokesperson.
The old-style paper licences, issued before the photo card was introduced in 1998, will remain valid, but holders will still need a code to fully validate them.
To view a record of their convictions, motorists can log on to the View My Driving licence page of the government website.
They will need their driving licence number, their national insurance number and their postcode.
The changes do not apply to driving licences issued by the DVA in Northern Ireland.If you feel like reading through the NHL’s CBA, go to Article 8, Section 9, subsections ii-iv. That’s the legalese explaining why the Oilers cannot sign Vladimir Tkachev.
For those of us who don’t speak lawyer, it’s this simple: had Tkachev not played any games in Europe — he dressed for two with KHL’s Avangard Omsk — Edmonton’s contract offer was good. But, because he did, he can still be drafted next June.
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The same thing happened to Philadelphia with Tomas Hyka in 2011. The Flyers tried to sign him, were blocked and Los Angeles drafted Hyka in 2012. Washington pulled a different move with Nathan Walker in 2013, signing him to an AHL contract before taking him 89th last June. (The AHL deal put him in their system, but did not provide the Capitals with any control of Walker’s NHL rights. They still had to select him.)
Some of the twitterites asked why this was any different from Sergey Tolchinsky, a Russian winger who went undrafted in 2012-13, but signed with Carolina. Very simple answer: he played all of that season in Sault Ste. Marie, nothing overseas.
In a small bit of irony, Tkachev’s Edmonton contract was structured similarly to Tolchinsky’s, although the Oilers gave a bit more of a signing bonus.
It’s a mistake by both the team and the agent, an unfortunate one, because there’s no guarantee this marriage happens again. Edmonton had a nice find and Tkachev was happy. When he went unselected in June, two teams agreed to bring him in on a tryout. One, obviously, was the Oilers, at director of amateur scouting Stu MacGregor’s recommendation. Agent Rollie Hedges would not reveal the other club.
Why did Tkachev choose Edmonton? “Youth,” Hedges said. “A player his age would have an opportunity.” He certainly got it, and showed legit skill. He’ll go back to QMJHL Moncton and have a chance to light it up with St. Louis prospect Ivan Barbashev, who already has three goals in two games.
But it will be nine months before we know if the Oilers do get their man.
30 THOUGHTS
1. There’s no questioning Tkachev’s skill, but his size (141 pounds) is the big one. Before the contract was voided, he committed to spending more time in North America during the summers, allowing his workout routine to be closely monitored and supported.
2. The New York Rangers are at the maximum 50 contracts, with Anthony Duclair making a push for the roster. Because of his age (19) and when he signed (Jan. 2, 2014), his entry-level contact will not “slide” this season. So, he will burn the first year of that three-year deal in 2014-15 whether or not he plays in the NHL. Can’t pin down who, but there is no doubt the Rangers are trying to move at least one body so there is room if necessary.
3. New York took Duclair with its third third-round pick (80th overall) in 2013. There were teams who shied away, wondering why Colorado — picking 63rd — did not take him, since he played for Patrick Roy with the Quebec Remparts. Whatever the reason, the Rangers’ decision looks intelligent.
4. The waiver dance is an interesting one at this time. Most teams will tell you, if there’s a guy you still want in your organization, try to get him through as early as possible. That way, opponents are still looking at their guys. The later you go, the more likely someone feels their own players may not be what they hoped, so they’ll take a chance on one of yours.
5. For example, Vancouver put Jacob Markstrom on waivers the first day it was possible to do so. I do believe the Canucks called a few teams (New Jersey, Winnipeg, among others) to see if they could get a draft pick for him, but once that failed they decided the best shot to avoid losing him for nothing was waiving him right away. Colorado waited a little longer with Stefan Elliott, and apparently were concerned about losing him, but you probably won’t see claims until later this week.
6. Like Vancouver with Markstrom, Toronto has asked around about Carter Ashton, trying to see if they can get a pick instead of going though the waiver route.
7. Two years ago, Florida came through Toronto late in the season, while giving Markstrom a run of starts. Their goalie coach, Rob Tallas, was excited about the opportunity for him and what it could do for his career. Last season, while Tallas never said a negative word, you could tell the enthusiasm was gone, that Markstrom did not take advantage. He’s still only 24. Will the knowledge he was unwanted give him the kick he needs?
8. One exec, watching to see what Chicago does, on Stan Bowman: “Just like Scotty, he believes you’d rather trade a player a year early than a year late.”
9. I was surprised to see the Blackhawks send down Adam Clendening, because word last summer was they thought he’s ready. He doesn’t need to clear waivers, probably a factor, but it also sounds like they’d like to see a little more improvement in his defensive game. According to several who saw him, his offensive instincts are |
as a co-training coordinator for a church-based anti-child sex trafficking nonprofit Hope4Justice and had been a volunteer firefighter for more than 20 years. He resigned from Lynden Police just prior to his arrest. Glunt had been on the force for 34 years.
•Officer Noe Yanez, 40 years old of Long Beach California, was sentenced to eleven years for sex crimes against girls. Long Beach Police Department fired Yanez after he plead guilty to felony child sex abuse from 2008 to 2012, including forcible rape, meeting a minor for lewd purposes, using a minor for sex acts, possession of child pornography and two counts of false imprisonment by fraud of deceit.
•Joseph P. Padgett, a 48 year old former San Jose, California Police Officer, was arrested and charged, 7 January 2011, with felony child porn possession. His bail was set at $75,000 and he originally remained in jail; however, local press reported it was “unclear” why King County Superior Court Judge Theresa Doyle released Padgett, 27 February 2011, “on his own recognizance, despite arguments from King County prosecutors and concern from his former wife.” Padgett had “hundreds of images” of naked underage girls, adult men raping girls as young as four years old, bestiality, knives, guns and military weapons and “images of Padgett having sex with “many different women,” some of whom were handcuffed or attached to a large wooden crucifix.” In November 2013 Judge Jim Rogers dismissed all charges, without prejudice, claiming the search warrant was too vague. “It has been crystal clear in the State of Washington since 1992 that the term ‘child pornography’ is unconstitutionally vague and will not support a search warrant” said Judge Jim Rogers. King County prosecutor Dan Donohoe said he would file an appeal. Padgett had left the San Jose Police Department after he was charged with five misdemeanor invasion of privacy counts for filming himself having sex with various women.
• San Francisco Officer, 37 year old Richard Hastings, of the San Francisco Police Department, was arrested, in August of 2013, and charged with 10 felony counts of child molestation and sodomy of a 15 year old boy, child porn of an eight year old boy and other charges. San Francisco Police Department suspended him without pay. His hearing date is currently set for 5 December 2014.
• Joshua Carrier, a 31 year old Colorado Springs Police Officer, was charged with molesting 22 boys and 207 counts of child exploitation, child sexual assault and child porn possession. He was sentenced to 70 years to life in prison. He tried to masturbate the boys and had inserted his finger into his rectum of one boy claiming he was checking for appendicitis. Carrier volunteered at Horace Mann Middle School as a wrestling coach in 2009–2010 where he gained access to the boys and sexually abused them over this two year period.
•32 year old Jason Sutter, a Deputy with the La Plata Sheriff’s Office in Colorado, was arrested and charged with child porn possession. He had 89 images of the sex abuse of boys on his personal computer. He plead guilty to a misdemeanor, sexual contact without consent, and was sentenced in May 2014 to five years probation. He must register as a sex offender. His wife said “He hid behind his badge very well.”
•James Henry, a 37 year old Police Officer with Metro Police Department, Las Vegas, was arrested, 22 October 2014, and charged with ten counts of child porn possession.
In a deal he plead guilty, 10 December 2014, to one count of possessing a visual presentation depicting sexual conduct of a child. In exchange for the plea, Clark County District Attorney agreed not to refer the case for federal prosecution. He was sentenced, 13 April 2015, to four years probation which he will served under house arrest and he must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. Henry had been on Metro Police force for 12 years. Metro PD placed him on paid administrative leave when they learned of the investigation. Google had notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children after Henry uploaded child porn on Google Cloud. Henry admitted to investigators he had been trading in child sex abuse and said he found images of boys and girls “captivating and titillating.”
• Herbert Eugene Miller, a 45 year old Police Officer in Greeneville Tennessee, was sentenced to three years for child porn possession. He had downloaded child porn while on patrol in his police car. A fellow officer noticed the web searches and alerted a supervisor. Miller was using key words such as “fifth grade girls,” “naked middle school girls,” “prepubescent females,” “young puffy nipples” and “hot high school girls naked” and down-loaded “thousands” of images including prepubescent girls being vaginally raped by adult males.
• Andrew W. Nielsen, a 49 year old Officer with East Hartford, Connecticut Police Department for 24 years, was arrested for child porn possession in November 2012. He was sentenced to 2 years in jail in August 2014. Nielsen was caught by Project Spade, a US Postal Inspection Service and Toronto Police joint investigation, when his credit card appeared on the billing records of the company that produced child sex abuse. In just six months he ordered 49 DVDs of child sex abuse paying $1,173.55. The DVDs included 12,765 images and some 41 hours of videos.
Andrew Nielsen’s Sentencing Memorandum
• In December of 2013 Washington DC Police Officer, 32 year old Marc Washington, was charged with child porn production but, apparently, committed suicide before facing justice. While on duty he visited the home of a teenage girl who had previously been reported as missing. He ordered her to get naked and took pictures. The girl later told her mother who called 911. Washington who was arrested within hours by DC police. He images of other children on his camera and thousands of images of women who had been victims of domestic violence.
• Washington DC Officer, 47 year old Linwood Barnhill, was caught “pimping” teenage girls from his apartment when authorities searching for a missing 16 year girl found this girl in Barnhill’s apartment. He advertised the children on Backpages.com for $50-$80. A different 15 year old had been picked up by Barnhill at a bus-stop. Barnhill asked her to “escort” for him. “The defendant informed [the girl] that he plans bachelor parties and has ‘tons’ of girls. [The girl] stated the defendant told her that her young age was not a problem because he had other minors who worked for him.” Barnhill pleaded guilty to two counts of pandering a minor and one of count child porn possession and was sentenced, October 2014, to seven years in jail.
• Kingman, Kansas Police Officer, 41 year old Dustin D. Morris, was arrested for soliciting sexual exploitation of a child, possessing visual depiction of a child under 18 years of age and distributing visual depiction of a child under 18 years of age. He was charged with ten felony counts of child porn related charges was sentenced to 60 days in jail and 5.6 years probation.
• Paul Manganelli, a 48 year old Waltham, Massachusetts Police Officer, was sentenced to 5 years in prison, July 2014, on child porn charges. He had more than 850 images and 40 videos including bondage of minor girls. An Australian arrested for child porn had been trading child sex abuse images with Manganelli who shared images of a “naked prepubescent female, restrained by ropes around her legs and/or wrists.” In one email Manganelli said, “I absolutely love little girls ages 7 to 11. Such a great age… I am trying to organize everything and stay private at the same time. Don’t want to get caught.” Manganelli claimed he sexually molested a prepubescent girl and asked, on-line, on tips for grooming children for sex abuse.
• Jason Lee Villasana, a 36 year old Police Officer in Sabinal Texas, plead guilty to child porn distribution. He was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. Investigators recovered over 1,500 images and videos of child sex abuse that he had been storing inside a wall at his home. In addition to distribution he was also producing his own child porn.
Jason Lee Villasana’s Criminal Complaint
Villasana came under investigation when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children alerted the Texas Attorney General of child porn downloads linked to Villasana’s IP address.
• Police Officer, 37 year old Jeremy Rose, of Tremonton Utah Police Department was arrested, in June 2013, and charged with 15 offenses including with nine counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, obstruction of justice, and stalking. He was sentenced, in November 2014, to 9 months in jail and 36 months probation. Rose had “thousands of photos of a teenage girl” on his home and police computer. He had convinced a 15 year old girl to produce child porn for him. He had also hidden a camera in her bedroom. Rose set up fake email accounts and links to a bogus online company where he told the girl he was selling the photos. Rose’s wife informed investigators after he confessed to her.
Retired
• Former Sgt. of the Wichita Kansas Police Officer, retired 51 year old Alex Robinson, was arrested, March 2014, for two counts of aggravated criminal sodomy and three counts of aggravated indecent liberties of three children between the ages of 11–13 years old. His hearing is set for 30 December 2014. He also faces two counts of child sex abuse in Colorado. Robinson was first arrested when 24-year-old man came forward detailing the assaults that occurred when he was a child. Although the statute of limitation had expired, Captain Brent Allred said qualifiers could be met allowing charges to be filed. Robinson received an award from President George W. Bush for some 17,000 volunteer hours with the Boys and Girls Club.
• Retired Sheriff Deputy of Pima County Arizona, 63 year old Terry White, was charged with sexual exploitation of a minor and child porn possession and he plead in exchange for a 42 month sentence.
• A retired Lieutenant, 56 year old Douglas Bruce L’Heureux, formerly with Martin County Sheriff in Florida, was arrested for 97 counts of child porn possession. He had thousands of images of child sex abuse of children ages 9 to 12. He had been collecting child sex abuse images and videos since at least 1992. He was sentenced to 25 years.
• Retired Police Captain, 51 year old Michael Grennier a 25-year veteran of South Plainfield, New Jersey, plead guilty to one count of child porn production in February 2013 and remained in custody until he was sentenced, in November 2014, to 20 years in jail. He paid a teenage girl to live-stream sex and masturbate him. He had also paid $500 each for two teenagers to have sex with him in a hotel room which he video-taped. He had been twice named Officer of the Year.
Prosecution and Sentencing?
This past October, in Alabama, Judge L. Scott Coogler sentenced Patricia Ayers to 1,590 years in prison for 53 child porn counts. Her husband Matthew Ayers was sentenced to 750 years in jail on 25 child porn counts.
This is what every child porn sentence should be; maximum penalty.
Patricia and Matthew Ayers were not law enforcement; just average citizens. Are law enforcement caught with child porn receiving lighter sentences than citizens with no legal responsibility to serve and protect our children?
In Pennsylvania, former Police Chief Robert Geist lives free despite being the “number one possessor and distributor of child porn” in the entire state. Geist was sharing files including “6Yo babyj — Bedtime rape” but Geist was not sentenced to even one day in jail.
New York City Police Officer Gilberto Valle was on-line trying to obtain a three year old girl to use as a sex slave. He discussed kidnapping women and girls for rape and murder. Gilberto Valle also walks free; sentenced only to time served twenty-one months and one year supervised release. Valle is now pursuing visitation rights of his 3 year old daughter.
When America’s citizens report child porn and/or child sex abuse to law enforcement, action should to be taken to protect the child and prosecute the perpetrator.
What happens when the police officer is the perpetrator?
Too many high-level law enforcement officers appear to be engaged in America’s organized criminal child porn industry. Too many judges appear to be protecting law enforcement caught for child porn related crimes with light sentences or no jail time at all.
This must change. Now.
Judge L. Scott Coogler is a hero for his sentencing of Patricia and Matthew Ayers. Why did Gilberto Valle or Robert Geist not receive similar sentences?
###
Dr. Lori Handrahan’s forthcoming book Child Porn Nation: America’s Hidden National Security Risk details America’s child sex abuse epidemic. Her Ph.D. is from The London School of Economics. She can be reached on Twitter @LoriHandrahan2Even a few decades ago, the idea of fatness as a public health problem would have seemed ridiculous.
Today the statistics on obesity are so outrageous that they seem almost unbelievable. The Centers for Disease Control find that 69 percent of American adults are overweight, and half that number obese or extremely obese. The suffering caused by extreme or morbid obesity is horrifying. Millions of people around the world (nearly seven million in the United States) have trouble moving, and may often stop breathing during sleep, and are prone to ghastly skin infections within the folds of fat, and may be unable to have sex because of hormonal imbalances or because the flab just gets in the way. While no one wants to starve, it is actually hard to say whether it is worse to be malnourished or extremely obese.
There is no single cause for obesity, but the sine qua non for it is plenty of cheap, high-calorie foods. And such foods, of course, are the byproduct of our marvelous technologies of abundance, many of them celebrated in Diamandis’s book. They are the byproducts of the “Green Revolution,” brilliant techniques in industrial farming and the genetic modification of crops. We have achieved abundance in food, and it is killing us.
Consider another problem with no precise historical equivalent: “information overload.” For most of history, humans have mainly been in a state of information scarcity. During the War of 1812, between Britain and the United States, hundreds of soldiers died during the battle of New Orleans because no one had yet heard that the war was over. People died for no reason other than want of good information. But today we sometimes have too much information, and phrases such as “Internet addiction” describe people who are literally unable to stop consuming information even though it is destroying their lives. Consider the case of a Hawaii man named Craig Smallwood who, in 2010, sued the developer of an online game named Lineage II for failing to warn him of its addictive qualities. Claiming that he played twenty thousand hours over five years (more than ten hours a day), Smallwood said that the game left him “unable to function independently in usual daily activities.”
That is a bizarre extreme, of course; but many of us suffer from milder versions of information overload. Nicolas Carr, in The Shallows, made a persuasive case that the excessive availability of information has begun to re-program our brains, creating serious issues for memory and attention span. Where people were once bored, we now face too many entertainment choices, creating a strange misery aptly termed “the paradox of choice” by the psychologist Barry Schwartz. We have achieved the information abundance that our ancestors craved, and it is driving us insane.
Scarce credit—the inability of individuals to borrow money—has long been regarded by economists as among the principal obstacles to economic growth. Hence the “credit revolution” of the twentieth century—a series of inventions that made credit abundant and easily available not just to institutions but also to any individual consumer. Fannie Mae was a clever invention of the 1930s, designed to make it easier for banks to lend money to people who wanted to buy homes. The last century yielded an amazing range of new credit technologies that we now take for granted, such as credit cards, electronic payment systems, and the securitization of mortgages. These inventions, until recent years, managed at long last to make enormous amounts of personal credit available to nearly everyone.
Abundant credit is surely a blessing and essential to economic growth. Yet anyone who reads a newspaper cannot fail to be aware of the systemic downsides. Americans were once known as thrifty; today, personal debt is a leading source of misery. There are more than 1.1 billion credit cards in the United States, and a survey last year suggested that 24 percent of Americans have not just more debt, but more credit card debt, than savings. The amount of household debt held in the United States is about $11.3 trillion, comparable to the amount of government debt held by the public, $12 trillion. The result is that, despite greater actual wealth than ever before, and more access to credit, it is not uncommon for Americans to feel desperate and poor, like the indebted servitors of centuries past.
Those are the personal consequences. At a wider level, a century of technological abundance has failed in its promise to solve problems of disparity, and has actually exacerbated inequalities. While it cannot be denied that the inventions of the last half-century have done much to increase the size of the pie, they have also done much less to distribute it, particularly since the 1970s. The mathematics of more means that the potential for relative disparity has increased. Those with less do have more than before—but relative disparity, or feeling much poorer than others, is a different kind of problem. More of everything has simply made possible disparity on a different scale.
This very idea that too much of what we want can be a bad thing is hard to accept.
None of this should be taken to downplay the triumphs of the great abundance project of the last century. In the rich parts of the world, most do not fear starvation or a lack of the basics, for perhaps the first time in human history. That is nothing to overlook. Yet it has also many side effects and unintended consequences that we are just beginning to understand fully. If the old world of scarcity yielded a mass population that was hungry, bored, and impoverished, our current surpluses lead to a population that is fat, in debt, overwhelmed, and swamped with too much stuff.
This very idea that too much of what we want can be a bad thing is hard to accept. It seems like a problem that is nice to have: surely we would rather have too much than too little. The miserable in Dickens’s times—malnourished, impoverished, overworked—had the right to blame social conditions and demand change. But in today’s richer world, if you are overweight, in debt, and overwhelmed, there is no one to blame but yourself. Go on a diet, stop watching cable, and pay off your credit card—that’s the answer. In short, we think of scarcity problems as real, and surplus problems as matters of self-control.
That may account for the current popularity of books designed to help readers control themselves. The most interesting among them is Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney, which was explicitly written as a response to the challenges of our times. “People feel overwhelmed because there are more temptations than ever,” Baumeister and Tierney argue. “You can put off any job by checking e-mail or Facebook, surfing gossip sites, or playing a video game,” not to mention the lure of “alcohol, tobacco, Cinnabons, and cocktail waitresses.”
Willpower offers observations, backed by scientific studies, that cannot fail to be fascinating to anyone who has ever wondered where the last hour went. The authors suggest that one’s willpower is less an abstraction and more like an actual muscle that must be trained and can fail. The book’s most profound sections describe a phenomenon that they call “ego depletion,” a state of mental exhaustion where bad decisions are made. It turns out that being forced to make constant decisions is what causes ego depletion. So if willpower is a muscle, making too many decisions in one day is the equivalent of blowing out your hamstrings with too many squats.
The best advice that the authors of Willpower offer is this: yes, you can improve your powers of self-control, but don’t expect too much. Rather, they recommend avoiding situations that cause ego-depletion altogether. And here is where we find the link between Abundance and Willpower.
Over the last century, mainly through the abundance project, we have created a world where avoiding constant decisions is nearly impossible. We have created environments that are designed to destroy our powers of self-control by creating constant choices among abundant options. The path of least resistance leads to a pile of debt, a fat body, and an enormous cable bill; strenuous daily efforts are required to avoid that fate. The result is a negative feedback loop: we have more than ever, and therefore need more self-control than ever, but the abundance we’ve created destroys our ability to resist. It is a setup that Sisyphus might have actually envied.
One possible solution is to double-down on the self-control, and train ourselves to better resist temptation and stick with the program. But, as even Baumeister and Tierney admit, there are good reasons to suspect that relying on willpower alone will not work in an environment designed to destroy it. For, as Baumeister and Tierney make clear, self-control is highly fallible at the best of times. A German study found that using willpower to resist a specific temptation failed half the time. (And those were Germans!) Humans have tested and tried self-control in the face of temptation, and it has repeatedly been found wanting. After decades of dieting and good nutrition, Americans are fatter than ever. And the authors of Willpower make the reason clear: we have created conditions that exhaust our willpower, more or less guaranteeing failure.
Moreover, the development of extreme self-control can have some unpleasant side-effects. Baumeister and Tierney don’t discuss anorexia nervosa, but they do concede that willpower’s greatest twentieth-century advocate was Hitler, and that his greatest propaganda film was named Triumph of the Will. Self-control is no doubt the first line of defense in an age of abundance. But if surviving in modern times takes the iron will of a Nazi stormtrooper, perhaps we should ask why we made things this way in the first place.
It is time, as Baumeister and Tierney would agree, to think systematically about the human environments that we are creating with technological powers only imagined by previous generations. At this point, using our powers to create still more of everything—the prescription of Abundance—is simply to add fuel to the fire. It is time to take seriously the problems of overload and excess as collective, social challenges, even though they may be our own creations.
When facing a systemic challenge, the classic answer is to deploy government, as the representative of the people. Measures such as New York City’s proposed ban on large bottles of soda is exactly such a measure. It is a good start, but there are limits as to what government can do and to what Americans will accept as solutions dictated by elected officials. It is challenging for centralized institutions to manage such subtle matters as information overload and lack of time.
The fact is that our technology industries do far more to determine how we live on a daily basis than government does. For that reason, it is increasingly the duty of the technology industry and the technologists to take seriously the challenge of human overload, and to give it as much attention as the abundance project. It is the first great challenge for post-scarcity thinkers.
Consider that the most successful tech companies of the twentieth century were instruments of abundance, firms such as Archer Daniels Midland, General Motors, and Procter & Gamble. Those firms and their technologies will not disappear. But many of the most successful firms of the twenty-first will be different. They will be augmenters of human will, engineers of self-management, and agents of more effective self-control. Their mission is to liberate humans from the sufferings created by too much.
If I am right, then the future of technology will be different than the one forecast in Abundance. Using the technologies that Diamandis describes, there will indeed be, as he says, much more of everything by 2035. But that will be only one side of the picture—the producers, who will generate more and more of what humans crave. On the other side will be the technologies of self-control, which seek to augment humanity’s powers to deal with too many choices and with too much of what we want. It may sound crazy, but our technologies are always extensions of ourselves, and humans are strange and conflicted creatures.
So advanced are our technological powers that we will be increasingly trying to create access to abundance and to limit it at the same time. Sometimes we must create both the thesis and the antithesis to go in the right direction. We have spent the last century creating an abundance that exceeds any human scale, and now technologists must turn their powers to controlling our, or their, creation.
Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School and the author, most recently, of The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires (Knopf).Artificial intelligence, or AI, is all around us today—and it’s often invisible as we go about our daily lives.
Companies are successfully using AI for credit card fraud detection, speech recognition, Web search rankings, automated customer service, legal discovery, photo search, translation, and even farming. A few weeks ago, Google’s AI program AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol, a human champion of Go, an ancient and complex game long thought to be beyond computers’ ability to master. It won after learning to play from millions of games. After studying millions of patient records, Stanford’s AI Lab and IBM’s Watson diagnose certain types of cancer more accurately than human physicians. The list of positive uses of AI is growing.
When we first worked on the AI behind self-driving cars, most experts were convinced they would never be safe enough for public roads. But the Google Self-Driving Car team had a crucial insight that differentiates AI from the way people learn. When driving, people mostly learn from their own mistakes. But they rarely learn from the mistakes of others. People collectively make the same mistakes over and over again. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people die worldwide every year in traffic collisions.
AI evolves differently. When one of the self-driving cars makes an error, all of the self-driving cars learn from it. In fact, new self-driving cars are “born” with the complete skill set of their ancestors. So collectively, these cars can learn faster than people. With this insight, in a short time self-driving cars safely blended onto our roads alongside human drivers, as they kept learning from each other’s mistakes.
As with other breakthrough technologies, recent progress in AI has spurred public debate. Some voices have fanned fears of AI and called for urgent measures to avoid a hypothetical dystopia.
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We take a much more optimistic view. The history of technology shows that there’s often initial skepticism and fear-mongering before it ultimately improves human life. The original Kodak camera was seen as destroying art. Electricity was believed to be too dangerous when it was first introduced. But once these technologies got into the hands of millions of people, and they were developed openly and collaboratively, those fears subsided. Just as the agricultural revolution has freed us from spending our waking hours picking crops by hand in the fields, the AI revolution could free us from menial, repetitive, and mindless work. AI will do those things we don’t want to—like driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
We believe AI has the potential not only to free us from the negative, but to enhance what’s most positive about us as human beings. In playing with AlphaGo, grandmaster Sedol gained a much deeper understanding of the game and has since dramatically improved his level of play. We could all be like Sedol, harnessing AI to improve the things we do every day.
Imagine a world where clever apps and devices could help us recognize every person we’ve ever met, recall anything we’ve ever said, and experience any moment we’ve ever missed. A world where we could in effect speak every language. (We already see glimmers of this today with Google Translate.) Sophisticated AI-powered tools will empower us to better learn from the experiences of others, and to pass more of our learnings on to our children.
For more, read:
Inside Facebook’s Biggest Artificial Intelligence Project Ever
Do we worry about the doomsday scenarios? We believe it’s worth thoughtful consideration. Today’s AI only thrives in narrow, repetitive tasks where it is trained on many examples. But no researchers or technologists want to be part of some Hollywood science-fiction dystopia. The right course is not to panic—it’s to get to work. Google, alongside many other companies, is doing rigorous research on AI safety, such as how to ensure people can interrupt an AI system whenever needed, and how to make such systems robust to cyberattacks.
Let’s get beyond the chatter and build working solutions. The lesson with self-driving cars is that we can learn and do more collectively. Google has, for example, open-sourced the free platform TensorFlow—the code is in the open for all to see and contribute to. It allows AI researchers around the world to collaborate more easily, sharing actual code rather than just research papers. That way, we can see what computers can learn, how they use data, and use the wisdom of our smartest minds to control and improve AI.
Indeed, it’s already clear that Silicon Valley is not the only place that will make progress in AI; this is truly a global effort, with global potential. We believe AI will serve everyone best if it’s built by a diverse range of people, such as those joining Google’s new machine learning group opening in Zurich, and countless other global hubs.
For us, ultimately the hypothetical, long-term concerns are far outweighed by our excitement for the endless possibilities. Even today AI is already doing a lot of good for all of us. We can’t wait to see AI free us of mindless, menial work and empower us to unfold our true creative powers.
Eric Schmidt is executive chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Sebastian Thrun is president and chairman of Udacity, an online education company.This study investigated the level of self-regulation of the somatomotor cortices (SMCs) attained by an extended functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) neurofeedback training. Sixteen healthy subjects performed 12 real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback training sessions within 4 weeks, involving motor imagery of the dominant right as well as the non-dominant left hand. Target regions of interests in the SMC were individually localized prior to the training by overt finger movements. The feedback signal (FS) was defined as the difference between fMRI activation in the contra- and ipsilateral SMC and visually presented to the subjects. Training efficiency was determined by an off-line general linear model analysis determining the fMRI percent signal changes in the SMC target areas accomplished during the neurofeedback training. Transfer success was assessed by comparing the pre- and post-training transfer task, i.e., the neurofeedback paradigm without the presentation of the FS. Group results show a distinct increase in feedback performance (FP) in the transfer task for the trained group compared to a matched untrained control group, as well as an increase in the time course of the training, indicating an efficient training and a successful transfer. Individual analysis revealed that the training efficiency was not only highly correlated to the transfer success but also predictive. Trainings with at least 12 efficient training runs were associated with a successful transfer outcome. A group analysis of the hemispheric contributions to the FP showed that it is mainly driven by increased fMRI activation in the contralateral SMC, although some individuals relied on ipsilateral deactivation. Training and transfer results showed no difference between left- and right-hand imagery, with a slight indication of more ipsilateral deactivation in the early right-hand trainings.
Introduction
Neurofeedback training provides subjects with information about the activation of a specific brain region in order to facilitate a learning process aiming at self-regulation of this targeted activation. The concept has successfully been applied in various clinical fields (Lubar and Shouse, 1976; Sterman and Egner, 2006; Arns et al., 2009; Tan et al., 2009; Kim and Birbaumer, 2014). Due to its clinical abundance and ease of use electroencephalography (EEG) is still the most widely used method to derive a feedback signal (FS) for training. The advent of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which offers much better spatial accuracy across the entire brain, raised the question, if smaller anatomically or functionally circumscribed brain regions could be targeted with a suitable fMRI neurofeedback training (Yoo and Jolesz, 2002). Its feasibility was largely improved by the development of real-time (rt) fMRI (Cox et al., 1995; Lee et al., 1998; Voyvodic, 1999; Gembris et al., 2000), accomplishing image reconstruction and activation analysis within the acquisition time of a single-volumetric fMRI dataset. Despite the poor temporal resolution of fMRI and the 6- to 8-s latency of the underlying hemodynamic response, several studies demonstrated successful neurofeedback trainings in brain areas, such as the motor cortex (deCharms et al., 2004; Yoo et al., 2008; Berman et al., 2012; Chiew et al., 2012), the anterior cingulate cortex (Weiskopf et al., 2003; Hamilton et al., 2011), the amygdala (Posse et al., 2003; Zotev et al., 2011), the parahippocampal place area, the supplementary motor area (Weiskopf et al., 2004), the auditory cortex (Yoo et al., 2007), and the insular cortex (Caria et al., 2007, 2010; Johnston et al., 2010). Unfortunately, the proof-of-principle nature of most of these reports led to a considerable variation of paradigms and study designs which so far preclude a definite determination and generalization of critical elements for a successful real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI) neurofeedback training.
The present work includes a relatively large number of 16 subjects who participated in an extensive 4 weeks rt-fMRI neurofeedback training targeting the somatomotor cortex (SMC). Its primary goal was to go beyond the proof of feasibility, and to investigate the most relevant basic questions associated with the training itself as well as the associated brain circuits (manuscript submitted).
The SMC, and specifically the hand knob area, which is associated with hand and finger movements, was chosen for two reasons: first, because it has already been investigated with rt-fMRI neurofeedback (deCharms et al., 2004; Yoo et al., 2008; Berman et al., 2012; Chiew et al., 2012) and, second, because it has received considerable prospect for clinical applications, such as rehabilitation after motor cortex-related stroke and Parkinson (Birbaumer et al., 2008; Mihara et al., 2013; Subramanian et al., 2013; Yilmaz et al., 2015). Similar to other fMRI NFB studies using motor imagery (deCharms et al., 2004; Berman et al., 2012; Chiew et al., 2012), the targeted region of interest (ROI) was determined with a finger-tapping task to ensure that the cortical areas relevant to motor activity of the fingers, including the tightly linked and impartible somatosensation, were being trained.
Embedded in the general neurofeedback design were questions related to hand dominance and the hemispheric contributions to the FS. Each training session composed of two right-hand and two left-hand training runs, in which the right-handed subjects utilized imagery of the dominant right and the non-dominant left hand, respectively, to explore the possible influence of hand dominance on the neurofeedback training. Consideration of the SMC of both hemispheres seems essential since motor movement as well as somatosensory stimulation of the hand results in fMRI activation of the contralateral SMC and deactivation of the ipsilateral SMC (Allison et al., 2000; Nirkko et al., 2001; Hayashi et al., 2008). The FS presented in this study is defined as the difference between contra- and ispilateral SMC activation, similarly to Chiew et al. (2012). This reflects the specific activation pattern and provides insight into possible self-regulation differences of fMRI activation and deactivation. The additional task of attaining the bidirectional regulation (left SMC vs. right SMC for the right-hand training; right SMC vs. left SMC for the left-hand training) also excludes the influence of unspecific effects, such as attention and arousal (Scharnowski et al., 2015).
An early fMRI NFB study using motor imagery has shown that a learned increase in SMC activation can be achieved after three training sessions (deCharms et al., 2004) and more recent, a report about success within a single-training session (Yoo et al., 2008) could not be reproduced (Berman et al., 2012). Contrasting these studies, the present neurofeedback training consisted of 12 sessions spread over 4 weeks. It was not tailored for fast success, but to gain insight into the development of possible voluntary control during the neurofeedback training. Therefore, training efficiency was determined for each training run and analyzed for evaluating the entire training. In addition to training efficiency, the overall success of the neurofeedback training was determined in the transfer task, in which subjects performed the same task as in the neurofeedback training, but without receiving the neurofeedback signal. The successful transfer of the strategy used during the training into a similar situation but without feedback is an essential measure for clinical effectiveness and as a task and as a measure for success so far only used by Berman et al. (2012). The correlation between these two independent measures, the training efficiency and the transfer success then allows to estimate a potential transfer success based on the training efficiency.
Materials and Methods
Experimental Setup
Seventeen healthy young adults (10 male, mean age 26 ± 3.3, range 20–31 years) underwent the neurofeedback training. Sixteen subjects were right handed, one subject showed ambidexterity at a laterality index of 20 [ |
Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men. In addition, Gary references and quotes Emily Dickinson, one of history's most famous poets.
, a parody of John Steinbeck's novel.
Errors
When SpongeBob is outside Squidward's house, it shows the window open, but there is another window frame on the wall.
Closed-captions error: When Sandy says "Not a parakeet, para-" then falls into a truck of clam manure, she says "medic" as in "paramedic," but the caption reads "made it."
When SpongeBob comes to Pearl's dream, he enters at the left part of the house, but when he comes out, he exits from the middle of the house.
When everyone is standing around SpongeBob's bed at the end of the episode, at first Pearl's night cap is missing. In the next shot, it is there. The same applies to her hair.
Running gags
SpongeBob entering people's dreams, but unknowingly ruins them.For 11 years, Professor Duke Pesta gave quizzes to his students at the beginning of the school year to test their knowledge on basic facts about American history and Western culture.
The most surprising result from his 11-year experiment? Students’ overwhelming belief that slavery began in the United States and was almost exclusively an American phenomenon, he said.
“Most of my students could not tell me anything meaningful about slavery outside of America,” Pesta told The College Fix. “They are convinced that slavery was an American problem that more or less ended with the Civil War, and they are very fuzzy about the history of slavery prior to the Colonial era. Their entire education about slavery was confined to America.”
Pesta, currently an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, has taught the gamut of Western literature—from the Classics to the modern—at seven different universities, ranging from large research institutions to small liberal arts colleges to branch campuses. He said he has given the quizzes to students at Purdue University, University of Tennessee Martin, Ursinus College, Oklahoma State University, and University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
The origin of these quizzes, which Pesta calls “cultural literacy markers,” was his increasing discomfort with gaps in his students’ foundational knowledge.
“They came to college without the basic rudiments of American history or Western culture and their reading level was pretty low,” Pesta told The Fix.
MORE: Black studies prof says slavery ‘white people thing’
Before even distributing the syllabus for his courses, Pesta administered his short quizzes with basic questions about American history, economics and Western culture. For instance, the questions asked students to circle which of three historical figures was a president of the United States, or to name three slave-holding countries over the last 2,000 years, or define “capitalism” and “socialism” in one sentence each.
Often, more students connected Thomas Jefferson to slavery than could identify him as president, according to Pesta. On one quiz, 29 out of 32 students responding knew that Jefferson owned slaves, but only three out of the 32 correctly identified him as president. Interestingly, more students— six of 32—actually believed Ben Franklin had been president.
Pesta said he believes these students were given an overwhelmingly negative view of American history in high school, perpetuated by scholars such as Howard Zinn in “A People’s History of the United States,” a frequently assigned textbook.
What’s more, he began to observe a shift in his students’ quiz responses in the early 2000s. Before that time, Pesta described his students as “often historically ignorant, but not politicized.” Since the early 2000s, Pesta has found that “many students come to college preprogrammed in certain ways.”
“They cannot tell you many historical facts or relate anything meaningful about historical biographies, but they are, however, stridently vocal about the corrupt nature of the Republic, about the wickedness of the founding fathers, and about the evils of free markets,” Pesta said. “Most alarmingly, they know nothing about the fraught history of Marxist ideology and communist governments over the last century, but often reductively define socialism as ‘fairness.’”
Pesta also noted that, early on, his students’ “blissful ignorance was accompanied by a basic humility about what they did not know.” But over time he said he increasingly saw “a sense of moral superiority in not knowing anything about our ‘racist and sexist’ history and our ‘biased’ institutions.”
“As we now see on campus,” Pesta said, “social justice warriors are arguing that even reading the great books of Western culture is at best a micro-aggression, and at worst an insidious form of cultural imperialism and indoctrination.”
Pesta, an outspoken critic of Common Core, said he believes that these attitudes will become more pronounced moving forward, due to Common Core architect David Coleman’s rewrite of Advanced Placement American and European history standards.
Pesta argues that Coleman, now president of the College Board, “has further politicized the teaching of history, reducing the story of Western culture to little more than a litany of crimes, exploitations, and genocides, while simultaneously whitewashing the history of ideologies like socialism and communism.”
Despite no longer giving the quizzes, Pesta told The Fix that he continues “to seek effective ways to teach students the literature of Western culture, which it is not only alien and complex, but often condemned by students before it is truly encountered.”
“We must absolutely teach those areas where Western culture has fallen short, but always with the recognition that such criticism is possible because of the freedoms and advantages offered by Western culture,” he said.
MORE — In defense of Prof. Saida Grundy: There’s a good chance she never learned black people owned slaves
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IMAGE: ShutterstockLAS VEGAS/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Desert golf course superintendent Bill Rohret is doing something that 20 years ago would have seemed unthinkable — ripping up bright, green turf by the acre and replacing it with rocks.
Bill Rohret, golf course superintendent for Angel Park in Las Vegas, Nevada, resets a sign that states the water pond feature is made from recycled water February 10, 2009. REUTERS/David Becker
Back then “they came in with bulldozers and dynamite, and they took the desert and turned it into a green oasis,” Rohret said, surveying a rock-lined fairway within sight of the Las Vegas strip. “Now... it’s just the reverse.”
The Angel Park Golf Club has torn out 65 acres of off-course grass in the last five years, and 15 more will be removed by 2011, to help conserve local supplies of one of the most precious commodities in the parched American West — fresh water.
But Rohret’s efforts have their limits. His and many other golf courses still pride themselves on their pristine greens and fairways and sparkling fountains, requiring huge daily expenditures of water.
Aiming to cut per capita use by about a third in the face of withering drought expected to worsen with global warming, water authorities in the United States’ driest major city are paying customers $1.50 per square foot to replace grass lawns with desert landscaping.
Built in the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas leads Western U.S. cities scrambling to slash water consumption, increase recycling and squeeze more from underground aquifers as long-reliable surface water sources dry up.
From handing out fines for leaky sprinklers to charging homeowners high rates for high use, water officials in the U.S. West are chasing down squandered water one gallon at a time.
Nowhere is the sense of crisis more visible than on the outskirts of Las Vegas at Lake Mead, the nation’s largest manmade reservoir, fed by the once-mighty Colorado River. A principal source of water for Nevada and Southern California, the lake has dipped to below half its capacity, leaving an ominous, white “bathtub ring” that grows thicker each year.
“We are in the eye of the storm,” said Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. “As the realities of climate change began to manifest themselves at the beginning of this century, we had to get serious about it.”
For now, policymakers have emphasized the need to curb water use rather than urban growth, though the U.S. recession has put the brakes on commercial and housing development that otherwise would be at odds with the West’s water scarcity.
GETTING TOUGH
Warm, dry weather has long made the American West attractive to visitors, but piped-in water has created artificial oases, luring millions to settle in the region. Las Vegas has ranked as one of the fastest-growing major cities.
But scientists say climate change is shriveling the snow pack in California’s Sierra Nevada, the state’s main source of fresh surface water, and in the Rocky Mountains that feed the Colorado River, whose waters sustain seven states.
Further pressure from farming and urban sprawl is straining underground aquifers, placing a question mark over the future growth of cities from Los Angeles to Tucson, Arizona.
“There is going to have to be a big adjustment in the American Southwest and in California as we come to grips with limits in this century — not just limited water, but also limited water supply,” said James Powell, author of the book “Dead Pool,” exploring challenges facing planners in the West.
Reactions among local water authorities differ.
In Phoenix, the United States’ fifth-largest city, authorities say sustainable groundwater and ample surface water allocations from the Colorado and Salt rivers meet the city’s needs, even factoring in growth through a moderate drought. The city is also recycling waste water and plans to pump some back into the aquifer as a cushion.
Tucson will require new businesses to start collecting rainwater for irrigation in 2010.
California requires developers of large housing projects to prove they have sufficient water.
In Las Vegas, where rain is so infrequent that some residents can remember the days it fell in a given year, front-yard turf has been banned for new homes.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority also has hired “water cops” to fan out into the suburbs to identify violations of mandatory lawn irrigation schedules and wasteful run-off. Repeat offenders get $80 fines.
Major hotel-casinos such as the MGM Mirage and Harrah’s Entertainment have adopted “green” building codes, including modifications designed to slash water use by 40 percent.
Those measures are starting to pay off, with daily water use down 15 percent per person in the greater Las Vegas area.
BUYING TIME
In a wake-up call to California, water officials there recently announced that prolonged drought was forcing them to cut Sierra-fed supplies pumped to cities and irrigation districts by 85 percent.
That has led many California cities, topped by Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest, to plan for rationing, including price-enforced household conservation and tough new lawn watering restrictions.
“The level of severity of this drought is something we haven’t seen since the early 1970s,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in unveiling his city’s drought plan, which also would put more water cops on the beat.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last month called on the state’s urban users to cut water consumption 20 percent or face mandatory conservation measures.
The California drought, now in its third year, is the state’s costliest ever. Complicating matters are sharp restrictions on how much water can be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in northern California, which furnishes much of the state’s irrigation and drinking supplies, to protect endangered fish species.
Moreover, the severe dry spell is leaving the state more vulnerable to wildfires, which last year consumed some several Los Angeles suburbs. The previous year, fires forced a record 500,000 Southern Californians to flee their homes.
PLANNING FOR THE WORST
Conservation will buy time, experts say. But bolder steps are needed in anticipation of longer droughts and renewed urban expansion once the recession ends.
Cities like Los Angeles and San Diego are revisiting an idea once abandoned in the face of staunch political opposition — recycling purified sewer water for drinking supplies.
Disparaged by critics as “toilet-to-tap,” such recycling plans have gained new currency from the success of the year-old Groundwater Replenishing System in Orange County near Los Angeles.
That system distills wastewater through advanced treatment and pumps it into the ground to recharge the area’s aquifer, providing drinking supplies for 500,000 people, including residents of Anaheim, home of Disneyland.
Water specialists also see a need to capture more rainfall runoff that otherwise flows out to sea and to change the operation of dams originally built for flood control to maximize their storage capacity.
The situation in Las Vegas has grown so dire that water authorities plan to build a $3 billion pipeline to tap aquifers lying beneath a remote part of Nevada, a project critics call the greatest urban water grab in decades.
Southern Nevada water czar Mulroy says a broader national conversation about water is needed — but not happening.
Slideshow (10 Images)
“We are talking about investing in public infrastructure, we are looking at building projects, but I get frustrated because we are doing it in complete denial of the climate change conditions that we are facing,” she said.
“We are not looking at where the oceans are rising, where the floods are going to occur, where things are going to go from that normal state to something extraordinary.”Recently articles quoting two respected coffee professionals stated that roasted coffee beans should not be frozen because the water trapped inside the bean will freeze, expand and crack the bean. Starbucks Expert: How to Brew Coffee, Avoid Common Mistakes (quoting Major Cohen) http://go65g6Boo.gl/; Don’t Freeze Coffee, and Five Other Tips for Treating Beans (quoting Sherri Johns) http://goo.gl/mXMuHN The articles raise questions. How do these experts know that ice in the beans will cause cracks? Roasted coffee beans are full of cracks. How can you tell which cracks are from roasting and which from freezing? In addition, what difference does a few more cracks in the bean make? Neither article stated where the author got the information about freezing and cracked beans.
There are hundreds of theories about storing roasted coffee but very little valid research. Every coffee pundit is convinced that her particular method of storing coffee is correct and that everyone else’s method is wrong. The belief in freezing or not freezing roasted coffee beans goes beyond vigorous discussion. The discussion approaches the level of religious wars. Coffee “experts” are either for or against freezing. You are either a “freezer” or an “anti-freezer.”
There is no middle ground. Whichever side you choose you will be shunned and punished by the opponents. As an example, a small coffee shop owner in Baltimore froze some coffee beans it had purchased from a large roaster. He says the roaster told him that they were angry because he froze “their” beans and that they wouldn’t sell “their” coffee beans to him anymore. http://goo.gl/q1dzBH
The reasons given for not freezing coffee are varied:
beans will crack from freezing.
beans will attract odors from the freezer
beans will attract water from the freezer
beans will attract water when taken out of the freezer
bean shelf life is not extended by freezing
beans that have been frozen degrade very quickly after thawing
freezing breaks down the flavor oils in the bean
However, there is no research, of any kind, which supports any of these reasons.
All of the coffee pundits agree that coffee is best brewed from three to ten days after roasting. The freezing/no freezing discussion comes up when the consumer cannot brew all of her coffee beans in that time period and has to store them.
The National Coffee Association recommends not using a freezer for short term coffee storage. Their reasoning is that taking the beans in and out of the freezer exposes them to moisture in the air which will degrade their flavor. However, they recommend using a freezer for long term storage of roasted coffee. http://goo.gl/mlGbVl
Kalidi Coffee, a major roaster in Denver, freezes their roasted coffee. On their website they say: “Freezing is one practice that sets Kaladi Coffee Roasters apart from other roasting companies. We place our beans in the freezer directly after roasting so the staling process does not begin before you, the customer, purchase our coffee. Gasses expand at higher temperatures and contract at lower temperatures. Lowering the temperature of these gasses slows their rate of dissipation. Studies show that for every decrease in temperature of 10 degrees Celsius, the life of the coffee increases by 50%. Most home freezers are capable of temperatures of -10 to 0 degrees Fahrenheit, sufficient enough to store coffee beans for several months without degradation.” https://goo.gl/eb50E5
Andrew Hetzel, SCAA Board Member and coffee consultant, says ” I decided to try it myself and found that immediate freezing after roasting to be the single most effective method of delaying spoilage, hands-down. I now store coffees, mostly reference samples for purchases and experimental client blends in a dedicated coffee chest freezer for sometimes as long as a year after roasting without significant degradation, though frozen coffee will not have the same full usable shelf life of a fresh product once thawed. As with most coffee topics, scientific proof is practically nonexistent; however, I am entirely confident of the results …” Comment on Jay’s Strange Blog http://goo.gl/q1dzBH
Coffee Review states that “Freezing, however, is an excellent way to preserve whole-bean coffee if you do not intend to drink it within a week. Seal the beans in a freezer bag, put the bag in a part of the freezer that does not lose temperature every time you open the door, and remove only as many beans as you intend to consume in a day, returning the rest to the freezer. Thaw the liberated beans before grinding and brewing.” http://goo.gl/T0Khkj
A number of sites that advocate freezing roasted coffee refer to “studies” showing that freezing prolongs coffee freshness. However, they all appear to be referring to a book by Michael Sivitz. As stated on the Granite Ledge Coffee website: “Coffee can be stored in the freezer effectively if consumed within two months or so. While this discovery can contradict conventional belief, the empirical evidence is overwhelming.If interested in this subject, we recommend reading the comprehensive text written on the subject: Coffee Technology, Michael Sivitz, AVI Publishing Co., Westport CT, 1979″ http://goo.gl/nOkWTW
What Sivitz said is: ” Freezing coffee beans and …[roasted and ground] coffee is not often practiced, nor its usefulness appreciated. But freezing coffee to -10 F or -20 C, as in the household freezer, is a very effective way for extending the freshness of coffee aromatics for several reasons: 1) water reactivity is immobilized; 2) volatility of aromatics is reduced by 4-fold: 3) rates of oxidation are reduced about 50 percent for each 10° C reduction, hence about 15-fold: and 4) the vegetable-like coffee oil is congealed, thereby reducing movement of volatiles dissolved therein from convective rates to diffusional rates. Altogether, roast beans keep for months and …[roasted and ground] for many weeks, which is at least a 30-fold freshness factor for beans and over a 15-fold freshness factor for …[roasted and ground].” Coffee Technology, p.280
There are three published experiments about freezing coffee beans. They all used a panel to taste coffee made from beans that had been frozen against the same not frozen beans. The first Coffee: To Freeze or Not by Ken Fox http://goo.gl/wFB2RY compared sixty-four shots of espresso, half from frozen beans and half from never frozen beans. Half of the frozen beans were held in the freezer for four weeks, the other half for eight weeks. The shots were judged by the author and two espresso loving friends based on crema, flavor/aroma and preference. The author found that there was no statistical difference between the scores of the frozen vs the unfrozen beans. He concluded that “…it has demonstrated that freezing, done shortly after roasting in a very cold freezer delays staling for at least two months and hence extends shelf life for at least that long.”
The second To Freeze or Not to Freeze http://goo.gl/KEX3FI was done by the Don Francisco division of F. Gavina & Sons. In the study, the same roasted coffee was split three ways. One sample was put into a freezer at 0 F degrees, the second was placed in a refrigerator at 32 F degrees and the third was stored on a counter at 72 F degrees. The samples were brewed and cupped every two weeks for 12 weeks by a panel of three Q cuppers. Their conclusion was “… the best cup of coffee is achieved starting with whole beans stored in an airtight container in the freezer for a maximum of 6 weeks.”
The third Taste Test: To Freeze or Not to Freeze Coffee Beans http://goo.gl/lF5alQ was done by Erin Meister, a barista trainer at Counter Culture coffee roasters. She split a sample of coffee and froze half of it for two weeks. (Part of her taste test also included coffee in Ziploc bags vs sealed one way valve bags.) The other half was stored at room temperature. The frozen packages were all opened and allowed to defrost in the open before brewing. She then had seven people taste the coffees and rate them on aroma, acidity, body and aftertaste. The unfrozen beans scored significantly higher than the frozen beans. However, there is an anomaly in the test that suggests it may be flawed. All of the ground coffees both frozen and unfrozen scored higher then their whole bean cohort. It isn’t possible that eight samples of two-week old ground coffee would consistently outrank the same two-week old whole bean coffee, whether it was frozen or not.
Here are my conclusions:
Brewing coffee beans between 3 and 10 days after roasting is best. If coffee cannot be consumed before 10 days after roasting then freezing the coffee is a good alternative.The enemies of coffee freshness are heat, water and oxygen. Properly frozen coffee beans defeat all three. If coffee is going to be frozen, it is best to seal it in an airtight container immediately after roasting and then freeze it. If the coffee beans can’t be frozen immediately after roasting, placing the whole beans in an airtight container and freezing is still a good alternative. Double Ziploc bags, sealed one-way valve bags, airtight coffee containers and vacuum sealed bags are all good ways to store frozen coffee. If coffee is going to be partially extracted from the frozen sample, exposure to air and moisture should be minimized.
Hula Daddy Kona Coffee is the winner of the 2014 Kona Coffee Cupping Competition. Karen is a member of the Hawaii Coffee Association, the Kona Coffee Council, the Kona Coffee Farmers Association, and the Specialty Coffee Association of America. She is also the author of a number of articles on Kona Coffee including: Coffee Fraud https://www.huladaddy.com/?p=2337: Kona Coffee Farmers at a Crossroad https://www.huladaddy.com/?p=696 ;How Typica is Your Kona Coffee? https://www.huladaddy.com/?p=710 ; Are Roasters Eroding the Kona Coffee Brand?https://www.huladaddy.com/?p=952; Coffee Cupping Competitions – Real or Random Chance? https://www.huladaddy.com/?p=1670 ; Seven Easy Steps to Become a Gourmet Coffee Taster https://www.huladaddy.com/?p=1785 ; How to Brew Coffee Using a Pour Over Filter https://www.huladaddy.com/?p=1754; Before You Buy an Automatic Single Serve Coffee Brewer https://www.huladaddy.com/?p=1899; Siphon Coffee Brewers Suck! https://www.huladaddy.com/?p=2026; Sweet Coffee https://www.huladaddy.com/?p=2144;What Color is Your Coffee Roast? https://www.huladaddy.com/?p=4 You can email her at huladaddycoffee@gmail.comSEVEN INJURED in Houston Shooting; Suspect – Nathan Desai – Taken Out by Police (VIDEO)
At least seven people were injured Monday morning after a male opened fire at a strip mall in Houston.
The suspect was taken out by police.
Suspect identified as Nathan Desai, a local attorney.
Breaking: SW Houston Shooter has been Identified as NATHAN DESAI #debatenight #mondaymotivation vote Trump2016 pic.twitter.com/0KnvbQYDWt — A World of Truth (@aworldoftruth) September 26, 2016
Here’s video of officers confronting the shooter this morning.
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Shots fired as Houston Police confront suspect firing randomly near Weslayan, injuring nine. https://t.co/f9Vl1ZIgE6 pic.twitter.com/Y0xYj4esIt — abc13 Houston (@abc13houston) September 26, 2016
BREAKING NEWS: Police say officers have shot 1 suspect in Houston strip mall shooting; no other suspects reported https://t.co/dQbKhZhJXi — MSN (@MSN) September 26, 2016
At least seven people were shot in the attack.
BREAKING NEWS: Police say officers have shot 1 suspect in Houston strip mall shooting; no other suspects reported https://t.co/dQbKhZhJXi — MSN (@MSN) September 26, 2016
The initial reports said the shooter was a black male but it now looks like the shooter was Indian.
ABC13 reported:
At around 6:30 this morning, HFD scanners reported a suspect was at a strip center firing upon vehicles. The suspect was described as a black male with a revolver. “We received a call at 6:29 that we had a shooting at the Petco store…the first units were directed to the parking lot where the shooting was still active,” HFD’s Jay Evans says. “We now have approximately 20 EMS personnel vehicles on scene. We do not know, we do not have a count at this time as to how many people have been shot, but all of the people will be directed to local hospitals in the area that are going to be victims.” Emergency vehicles flooded the area around the strip center bordered by Weslayan, Bissonnet and Law Street. Officers concentrated much of their focus during the shooting on an apartment complex on nearby Law Street, located behind the strip center. HFD officials reported on radio the suspect was seen behind some trees as he opened fire on vehicles in the area. Our Eyewitness News crew saw firefighters and officers running up and down the street as the gunfire continued. From the air, Don Armstrong reported seeing bodies on the ground as officers worked to bring the active shooter situation to an end.
Bomb squads are on the scene.
BREAKING: Bomb squads at the scene to deal with a suspicious vehicle after a shooting in Houston, Texas https://t.co/6FhqUa1IcS pic.twitter.com/3Q5nL7xn6C — Daily Star (@Daily_Star) September 26, 2016& Boyce confirmed on Friday it would join an industry consortium being formed by the Indian Research Organisation (Isro) to build workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLVs) to send local and global satellites into
The agency has set 2020 as the deadline for the first privately built to be launched into space.
“It is at a nascent stage right now. The discussions are going on how to form a consortium and who will do what,” said Jamshyd N Godrej, chairman, & Boyce, on Friday.
So far, has built rockets used for the Moon and Mars missions on its own but has been constrained in scaling up to meet the growing global demand for launch services of smaller satellites. Besides, it also has to devote resources to build heavier rockets, satellites and launch deep space missions. This has prompted the space agency to look at private firms to build rockets under its guidance.
produces Vikas, the engine that powers both the and the heavier Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), besides various systems such as antennae and thrusters for
“If you have to really develop a major aerospace industry in India you need all these building blocks. with different expertise have to come together,” said Godrej.
Globally, there has been an explosion of that are building small and mini satellites but there is a shortage of launchers. Firms such as PlanetLabs and Spire Global have used the PSLV to hurl their satellites into space and the opportunity is only growing. is restructuring Antrix Corporation, its commercial arm, so that it can work in partnership with the private sector and promote homegrown space technology for global markets. Godrej is also investing in building its aerospace capabilities to service both the local and global markets.
“ such as Rolls Royce and Boeing want components from India. They want in large numbers, not on a small scale,” said Godrej.
He also concurred with a Boeing executive’s assessment that India’s private sector lacked the capability to manufacture complex military aircraft under transfer of technology. In September, Boeing India chief Pratyush Kumar had said only Hindustan Aeronautics had such capability, which Godrej said “is a fact”.Hurricane Maria ravaged the tiny island of Dominica with winds of up to 260 mph (257 kph) (AFP Photo/STR)
Miami (AFP) - Hurricane Maria left more than 15 people dead in hard-hit Dominica, the small Caribbean island's Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit announced on Thursday.
The toll from Dominica brings the overall number of confirmed deaths caused by Hurricane Maria to 18, including two in Guadeloupe and one in Puerto Rico.
"So far, we would have buried in excess of 15 people," Skerrit told a television network of Antigua and Barbuda, a neighboring country.
"If there (are) no other fatalities, it is a miracle," he said.
The hurricane devastated the island, which has some 72,000 inhabitants and was hit by the storm on September 18 when it was at the height of its Category Five power.
"It has been brutal. I saw almost complete devastation," said Skerrit, who has made several flights over the territory.
Now, "we have no water, no electricity, very limited communications," Skerrit said.
"The main hospital is functioning without electricity. It is very difficult. There are no generators, they have been set aside because of the flooding," he said.
Dominica, which is located near the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, has been almost completely cut off from the world.
Helicopter support is needed to airlift in supplies, with immediate needs ranging from food for babies and hygiene kits to generators and construction materials, the premier said.
"It is worse than a war zone," said Skerrit, who himself had to to be rescued during the hurricane, which blew the roof off his residence.In the furores over SOPA, CISPA and similar bills, many have suggested that politicians just don’t get technology. That’s not an accusation that can be leveled at the Pirate movement, which is gaining traction in Europe at impressive speed.
The Pirates saw their first major electoral success in the European elections of 2009, when voters in the movement’s birthplace of Sweden returned a Pirate to the European Parliament. The Swedes didn’t vote the Pirates into their own legislature, mind you, but now big wins are coming in Germany, the continent’s largest economy and the ideological home of the hacker movement.
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Why Germany? Because that’s what the Pirates are trying to do: hack politics, in the sense of making-and-tweaking-stuff sense, rather than destroying it. The movement may have begun with a narrow focus on intellectual property, but it has developed into an attempt to make the political process transparent — and of course better suited to the digital age.
Piratical beginnings
The first Pirate Party appeared in 2006, when Swede Rick Falkvinge (‘Falconwing’, a name he came up with for himself) decided to rally advocates of copyright reform. His case was strongly aided by legal attacks on The Pirate Bay, the notorious file-sharing site, but the remit grew to take in stances on software patents (bad), DRM (bad) and transparent government (good).
Then came the 2009 European elections, which eventually led to all the Pirates’ digital policies being adopted by an alliance of left-wing parties, including the Greens, and last year, when Pirates grabbed all 15 of the Berlin state parliament seats they stood for.
Then the Pirates moved up another step, winning four state parliament seats in the western Saarland region. They’re likely to repeat the trick again in two more upcoming state elections, and current polling has them on track to come third in the national elections next year.
If the German Pirate Party was a tech startup, now would be the phase where it’s seeing a surprising number of downloads and starting to panic about scalability. Pirate politicians are only now getting their first experience of power and responsibility, and they know it — they’ve ruled out joining any coalition federal government (Germany does coalitions, almost all the time) until the 2017 elections.
Not that anyone would want to form a coalition with them yet. The Pirates have declared that they will only go into partnership with a party that agrees to livestream the coalition negotiations, so everyone can see what deals are being cut. Right now, that’s a no-go for every party bar the Pirates themselves.
Liquid Feedback
One thing that’s important to remember about the Pirate movement is that, like Silicon Valley to some extent, it brings together a spectrum of people ranging from techno-utopian left-wingers to libertarian right-wingers. This creates a broad base — but means that on a lot of essential stuff that doesn’t relate to the common ground of intellectual property reform and transparency, the Pirates actually don’t yet know what they collectively stand for.
For example, how do you get the left and the right to agree on economic policies?
It should come as no surprise that they’re turning to technology to solve this kind of problem.
For the last year and a half, the German Pirate Party has been experimenting with a piece of software called Liquid Feedback, an online system for formulating and voting on policies. Right now those policies then go to a traditional vote at party meetings, but the Pirates are considering using Liquid Feedback to finalize position papers (something that the Italian Pirate Parties are already doing).
Any Pirate Party member can use Liquid Feedback to propose a policy, or to comment on or create alternative versions of other members’ proposals. Proposals get revised and voted up or down. Each member gets one vote — but here’s where the system becomes much more than a simple decision-making forum.
Not everyone wants to sit there marking up every piece of policy. That’s what elected representatives are for. But not everybody likes having elected representatives — some people really do want to treat every minor policy like a referendum.
So Liquid Democracy lets party members delegate their votes to other people for everything, or only for certain policy areas, or not at all. It’s effectively a sliding scale between representative and direct democracy, with each voter choosing what level of responsibility and control they want to have.
If someone has been delegated votes, based on their popularity or expertise, they can then re-delegate their votes to someone else. The system could theoretically allow the creation of a dictator, but because each member can cancel their delegation and reclaim their direct vote at any time, this outcome wouldn’t last for long.
Into the future
It’s hard to say how much of an attraction Liquid Feedback is for the general public. The system itself is as ugly as sin and, while the Pirates recently produced APIs to let people create sexier front-ends for smartphones and the like, it’s almost certainly not a draw in itself.
But the ethos behind it is. Make no mistake, the biggest reason voters are flocking to the Pirates is that they’re disillusioned with the opaque deal-making and elite hierarchies of traditional politics.
The Pirate movement on the other hand is very much born of the internet, with its open nature, ever-shifting meritocracy and low barriers to entry for new ideas. The goofiness of net humour is there in force — Pirates have been known to turn up to Berlin’s parliament in fancy dress — but the message is serious, and it is taken seriously.
And while the focus has shifted somewhat from intellectual property to transparency, the long-running war between tech and copyright also continues to send new converts the Pirates’ way.
The Pirate movement is really still in its infant stages. There are a tremendous number of kinks that need to be worked out in the way the party operates and what it wants, from the mechanisms of Liquid Feedback to much deeper internal ideological clashes. There are also questions to be answered about the alleged extremist past of some high-profile members — something that can carry a lot of weight in Europe.
And if they navigate all this, it will still be a few years yet before Pirates are taking weighty political decisions. But at this rate, they will almost certainly end up in that position. Of course, that depends on the country – Germany’s political system encourages the growth of new parties, whereas the UK’s and the United States, for example, do not.
However, even if the Pirate movement as we know it turns into something else, the foundations have been laid for a long-term phenomenon: politicians who not only get technology, but who enthusiastically use it to engage in a new relationship with voters.Everton will resist an offer in the region of £30 million from Chelsea for their central defender John Stones, sources have told ESPN FC.
The Premier League champions had a bid for Stones rejected last month and they are widely reported to be preparing another bid to try and sign 21-year-old Stones in the coming days.
Yet the Goodison Park club are determined to hang on to their prized asset unless the bidding for Stones reaches levels that will be challenging to resist, with boss Roberto Martinez telling Sky Sports that he views transfer interest in players like Ross Barkley and Stones as a compliment to his club.
"Players like Stones and Ross Barkley have an incredible future and will attract interest from the outside," the Everton boss said "As a football club these players are going to be a part of our success in the future, so we take [interest] as a positive compliment."
Chelsea are reported to be preparing yet another bid for Everton defender John Stones.
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho urged Everton to confirm that they would not sell Stones at any price last month, as his club made an aggressive bid to try and sign a player being hailed as the best young defender in the English game.
Yet Mourinho has since hinted that his club will not raise their bid much further in their attempts to sign Stones, as he has persistently stated that he is not concerned about adding to his squad before the close of the current transfer window.
Stones has yet to comment on Chelsea's bids to sign him this summer, with Martinez eager to hang on to a player who he sees as a key figure in his defensive lineup this seasonRecently, Breitbart News |
debt cycle.” –Ray Dalio
What does this mean? I think the simplest explanation is that over the past several decades we’ve gone from a nation of savers who paid cash for things including homes and cars to a nation of spenders who use debt like mortgages, car loans and credit cards to pay for things.
And it’s not just on the consumer level. It’s also happened at the corporate level.
“Corporate debt was $3.5 trillion– in 2007, arguably a period and– many would describe as bubbly. It’s 7 trillion now. So it’s gone from 3.5 trillion to 7 trillion. As you know, most of that mix has been in more highly leveraged stuff, Covenant-Lite loans– high yield, that’s where the majority of the rise has been. And if you look at corporations have been using it for, it’s all financial engineering.” –Stan Druckenmiller
Government debt has also grown to multiples of GDP around the world. But it can’t keep growing forever.
“In the past 20 to 30 years, credit has grown to such an extreme globally that debt levels and the ability to service that debt are at risk, relative to the private investment world. Why doesn’t the debt supercycle keep expanding? Because there are limits.” –Bill Gross
The debt boom over the past few decades has been a big economic stimulant. It reminds me of the steroids era in baseball. You take a great player, put him on the juice and he becomes a record-breaking home run machine.
But what happens when he comes off the juice? Have you seen a picture of Mark McGuire or Sammy Sosa lately? They are shadows of their former selves. Now that rates are zero and everyone has borrowed as much as they possibly can debt is no longer the super-stimulant it once was.
“The process of lowering interest rates causing higher levels of debt, debt service and spending, I think is coming to an end.” – Ray Dalio
The steroid era is over. So what are the implications for the economy and the markets?
“The implications are much lower growth, less inflation, lower interest rates, and less profit growth.” –Bill Gross
These are all symptoms that we’ve already witnessed since the financial crisis, right? Slower economic growth has been partially masked by rising asset prices and the wealth effect. Slower profit growth has been masked by the “financial engineering” Druck mentioned above. But that doesn’t change the fact that we are now facing a post-steroid era for the economy.
“We brought consumption forward and issued one giant credit card for the past 30 years. Now the bill is coming due. Investors need to get used to low returns, and low growth, inflation, and interest rates for a long time.” –Bill Gross
What’s probably most troublesome about the whole situation is that now that rates are zero or negative, debt levels have reached their maximum capacity and asset prices are already inflated (and spreads flattened), central banks no longer have the ability to ameliorate an economic slowdown by easing monetary policy.
“Central banks have largely lost their power to ease… We now have a situation in which we have largely no spreads and so as a result the transmission mechanism of monetary policy will be less effective. This is a big thing… So I worry on the downside ’cause the downside will come.” –Ray Dalio
With corporate debt levels twice what they were before the financial crisis, the covenants on much of that debt weaker than ever before and liquidity in the bond market disappearing, the next downturn could present a unique challenge for the Fed. And their traditional tool to address these sorts of challenges is now essentially impotent. No wonder Dalio is worried.Tokyo expresses regret for Moon’s remarks on Fukushima nuke disaster. June. 28, 2017 07:20. by Young-A Soh sya@donga.com.
The Japanese government expressed regret to the Korean government for what President Moon Jae-in commented on the number of deaths due to the Fukushima nuclear power accident, calling it “factually inaccurate,” the Jiji Press reported on Tuesday.
“We regret (President Moon’s remarks) because they are not based on accurate understanding of facts,” the Japanese foreign ministry told a senior diplomat at the Korean embassy in Japan on Thursday last week. President Moon made the remarks when declaring his administration’s decision to terminate the era of nuclear power plants as energy source at a ceremony to proclaim "complete halt of Gori 1 Nuclear Power Plant" on Monday last week. “Japan was considered the country that is better prepared for an earthquake than any other countries in the world, but a total of 1,368 people died as of March 2016 due to the Fukushima nuclear accident,” Moon said. “The number of deaths and patients who developed cancer due to radioactive materials following the accident cannot even be figured out.”
After Moon’s remarks, the Japanese daily Sankei Shimbun quoted an official at Japan’s Reconstruction Agency, as saying, “It is perplexing because we cannot know which source he cited.” The agency in charge of recovering damages from the East Japan Earthquake defined people who died due to deteriorating health during their evacuation period among the displaced people as "earthquake disaster-related deaths," but has not separately tallied the number of "deaths due to the nuclear power plant accident." The reason it cited is that it is sometimes difficult tell whether a death is due to the earthquake, tsunami or the nuclear plant accident.
In its briefing material on President Moon’s remarks released on Friday last week, the Korean Trade, Industry and Energy Ministry claimed, “Some Japanese media outlets reported on March 6, 2016 that ‘the number of those who has died while in evacuation from the disaster so far amounts to 1,368.’” The Korean ministry argued that the figure 1,368 was tallied by the Tokyo Shimbun based on documents filed to seek condolence money, which local governments within Fukushima Prefecture had received.Simon Vaughan, 31, from Newport, Shropshire, who was left brain-damaged after his vehicle was hit by a Taliban bomb, tried to kill himself after wife Donna, 33, walked out on him after'squandering' his payout
Lynee Baugh recalls the man her son Simon once was: strong, physical, active.
She reads from a framed Army citation on the wall. Simon was ‘universally liked, very capable... a highly professional commando-trained soldier, also excellent fun’.
Seven years ago, while serving in Afghanistan, Corporal Simon Vaughan volunteered to lead a reconnaissance patrol and was blown up by a Taliban bomb. He came so close to death that he was flown home with an obituary pinned to his bag.
Today, Simon still needs round-the-clock care. He is in a wheelchair and his speech is halting and indistinct. Yet despite everything, the accolade from his commanding officer cheers his mother.
‘He said Simon was one of his scruffiest soldiers, but also among the best and most conscientious — selfless in his commitment.
‘I was proud,’ adds Lynne, ‘but also broken-hearted.’
Were it not for his implacable spirit, Simon might have perished. But Simon is a fighter, and his stubborn will and humour are undiminished — qualities he has needed during a court battle with his former wife, Donna, over money.
Lynne suspects that even as Simon fought for his life in intensive care, Donna ‘was working out how much would be paid out if he died’.
Then, on Valentine’s Day 2013, after ten years of marriage, a pregnant Donna, 33, walked out, taking their son. She didn’t even tell Simon she was leaving. In the messy aftermath, he tried to strangle himself.
It later emerged that Donna had ‘squandered’ — in the words of Simon’s mother — a large part of the £1.1 million compensation money that was intended for his long-term care and rehabilitation.
She bought a bungalow in rural Shropshire for £295,000 without a survey, then found it was structurally unsound. It was demolished and rebuilt by her father, at a cost of £300,000, but still failed to meet building regulations.
By the time Donna took him to court in September, Simon’s compensation pot had been whittled down to £200,000.
She was demanding almost all the money he had left, plus a one-third share in the bungalow, which was specially adapted for his needs — even though he was still paying the mortgage on their former home in Telford, which is in negative equity.
As Lynne remarks bitterly: ‘She seemed quite happy to make him sell the bungalow — his home — because she wanted a share in it.’
Could Donna’s excessive demands possibly be justified? Last month, after a three-day hearing, a judge decreed that they could not; that Simon should keep his bungalow; and that his former wife should not be granted a share. Happy at least about this decision, Simon is nonetheless still worried about the future.
After ten years of marriage, a pregnant Donna walked out on Valentine's Day 2013, taking their son. It later emerged she had ‘squandered’ a large part of the £1.1m compensation money that was intended for his care
After walking out on him on Valentine's Day 2013, Mrs Vaughan tried to claim £185,000 of the remaining money from her husband's Ministry of Defence payout as well as monthly child maintenance fees of £1,500. The pair are pictured together above before their split, with medals warded to Mr Vaughan for his work in the line of duty
He must find £1,500 a month in maintenance for his children, aged 13 and two — payments he does not begrudge because ‘taking care of their needs was always my priority’.
What rankles is a raft of further payments he must find. Donna was granted ownership of the house they had shared in Telford and Simon was ordered to pay her £30,000 to offset the negative equity on the property.
Not only that, he had to give her another £10,000 for expenses such as buying a car.
Incredibly, he must pay her £84,163 legal bill and his own £28,615 court costs, and on top of that foot the £20,000 cost of putting right his new home — a sum he believes his former father-in-law, who built it, should have found.
Left with around £28,000 and unable ever to make more, he can no longer afford the thrice-weekly intensive physiotherapy sessions or the hydrotherapy and speech therapy that was improving his quality of life.
He had taken his first tentative steps with a walking frame, but can now afford only one physio session a week, so progress will be curtailed.
Mr Vaughan (pictured with Donna before their split) was left brain damaged and returned to Britain with a shattered pelvis, a broken back and collapsed lungs after his vehicle was hit by a bomb in Afghanistan
‘It’s a setback because he was making such progress,’ says Lynne. ‘We had hoped he’d be walking with a frame within two or three years.’
Lynne has become his carer. She does not claim the government allowance to which she is entitled because her husband Kevin, 55, a maintenance engineer, earns enough to meet their needs and those of their children, Abbie, 17, and Dylan, 14.
The family is close-knit. When Donna left, Lynne, Kevin, Dylan and Abbie moved in with Simon, Lynne’s son from her first marriage.
She is clearly dismayed by Donna’s stance, but strives to remain measured. ‘It can’t have been easy,’ she says. ‘I know how I felt when Simon was so badly injured. I don’t know how I’d have coped as his wife.
‘He was the money earner and an absolutely brilliant dad; physically strong — her protector and provider. In the blink of an eye, all that was gone.
‘But it is the way Donna has acted that hurts. Her love of money took over.’
Donna was invited to respond to this article, but chose not to. Her solicitors said: ‘This has been a difficult process for the Vaughan family, but Mrs Vaughan is pleased that a satisfactory outcome to the case for herself and her children has been reached.’
Simon and Donna married in 2002. ‘When our son was born I loved it,’ says Simon. (Lynne, attuned to the cadences of his voice, helps to interpret his speech.)
Even then, there were problems with money. He returned from six months in Iraq in 2003, expecting to find several thousand pounds in their bank account. In fact, it was overdrawn, and the couple rowed.
But the rift was healed. In the years that followed, Simon was posted to Northern Ireland and Plymouth, and then to Afghanistan in September 2008. Before he left, he doubled his personal accident insurance and discussed his will with his mother.
She recalls: ‘That conversation will never leave me. He said: “I don’t think I’ll be walking off the plane when I come home.”
‘He wanted to make sure the mortgage was paid off and the rest of his money put in trust for his son. He specified he didn’t want Donna to have charge of any payout.
‘Then, before he left, he went to see everyone who meant anything to him, to say goodbye.’ There was an awful prescience about his actions.
Two months later, Simon was stretchered off the homebound plane with brain damage, a shattered pelvis, a broken back and collapsed lungs.
‘When the casualty officer rang, I thought: “It’s come true,” ’ says Lynne.
‘I said: “Please just tell me he’s not dead.” I felt as if I was being strangled.
The judge ruled that Mr Vaughan (pictured outside an earlier court hearing) could keep his bungalow but said that Mrs Vaughan should be paid £1,500-a-month in child maintenance and her £84,000 legal fees be covered
Corporal Vaughan (pictured during his days serving in the Army) was seriously injured by a roadside bomb
‘The officer heard the sound I made. He said: “Would you like us to come and explain?” — and he came round with Donna.’
The path to even partial recovery was arduous. Simon was in intensive care for 44 days and then spent more than two years in hospitals and undergoing rehabilitation at Headley Court in Surrey.
In September 2009 — long before he was able to go home, in April 2011 — Army compensation of £570,000 was paid into Simon and Donna’s joint bank account.
Other sums, including payouts from his personal injury policies, and charitable donations, brought the total to £1.1 million.
But far from salting the money away for her husband’s future, Donna switched it into accounts in her sole name. Just two months later, she bought the bungalow for £295,000 in cash and registered it as her own.
In court, Simon’s barrister Richard Sear — who waived his fee — was scathing about Donna’s actions. She had spent Simon’s money without his consent, he told the court, because he could not at the time communicate — though she claimed otherwise — and was mentally incapable of agreeing to buy the bungalow.
‘It was your decision not to have a survey before purchasing the property,’ said Mr Sear. He pointed out that when problems emerged with the house, ‘you were advised by the Army to demolish it, sell the land and cut your losses’.
It can’t have been easy. But it is the way Donna has acted that hurts. Her love of money took over Simon Vaughan's mother Lynne
Her lawyers argued that Donna felt she was acting in her husband’s best interests. Instead, having commissioned her father to demolish the bungalow, she spent a further £300,000 on a replacement.
‘That was a terrible amount of money to have gone from the total compensation,’ said Mr Sear.
Donna’s financial decisions appeared to be injudicious at best, reckless at worst. Almost £600,000 was spent, yet Simon today has a property valued at just £410,000.
‘So much of Simon’s long-term compensation money was squandered because Donna flouted the good advice she was given by Simon’s Army medical liaison officer,’ says Lynne.
Moreover, Donna claimed she had put the remaining cash in a trust fund for Simon, when she had invested it in two bonds in her own name, according to his lawyers.
When Lynne saw a copy of Simon’s bank statements, there was only £4,000 left. ‘What I thought about Donna is unprintable,’ she says.
Donna also applied for a charitable donation from the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen & Families Association — while failing to mention the bonds she had in her name.
‘There were lots of charity events,’ says Lynne. ‘Simon’s father gave £15,000 to Donna from a golf day. We’ve no idea how that was spent.’
Lynne is now calling on the Ministry of Defence to ensure all injury compensation it pays out is protected.
‘The MoD should appoint an independent trustee for every injured soldier until they pass a mental capacity test,’ she says.
‘If they’d done that for Simon, as I suggested repeatedly when he was in hospital, I believe he would have proper money for his future.’
Simon Vaughan, 31 (right), who was left brain-damaged and in a wheelchair after his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in Helmand Province, said he tried to strangle himself to death after his ex-partner Donna, 33 (left), took him to court claiming she was entitled to the £200,000 he had left from his £1.1million compensation
Corporal Simon Vaughan with his estranged wife Donna - with whom he split on Valentine's Day in 2013
As it is, Lynne looks after her son — whose condition is greatly improved, she says — with the help of two paid carers.
‘His personality is fundamentally unchanged — his cheekiness and humour, his stubborn determination to improve. Just every now and then his brain injury kicks in and he gets frustrated and angry. When he can’t deal with himself, no one else can. We just retreat.’
A motto on the wall sums up Simon’s philosophy: ‘Take pride in how far you have come and have faith in how far you can go.’
Unsurprisingly, at one point he did sink into depression. Lynne would distract him by putting him on the sit-on mower to cut the grass or giving him a brush to paint garden furniture.
‘They showed me life wasn’t over by making me do manual labour!’ jokes Simon.
In his days with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, he was a joker. He played rugby and loved a party. No wonder his wheelchair felt like a prison.
He was in respite care when Donna left him, says Lynne, who received a call from Donna’s mother to say she had gone. She said she hoped Lynne would be the one to tell Simon what had happened.
It was ‘horrendous’, says Lynne. ‘I would put him to bed and every night he’d ask when Donna and his son were coming back. I had to say: “She’s left.” His brain didn’t seem to process the information.
‘Then one night he crumpled. He said: “They’re not coming back, are they?” It was the end of everything he had post injury.’
The first he knew of his daughter’s birth was seeing her photo on Facebook. Amid disputes and confusion over access to his children, and refusing to take anti-depressants, he reached a nadir.
His carer went in one morning and found the electric cable that adjusts his bed wrapped round his neck, his face purple. She managed to unwind the lead just in time.
Did Simon intend to take his life? ‘I think it was a stupid cry for attention,’ he says now. ‘Perhaps I wanted to die. I can’t remember.’
Today, he is optimistic, consoled that his home at least is safe.
Lynne, who used to work in accounting, is still worried. ‘I’ll never let him go into a home, but now his compensation has been eaten away, I fear for him when I’m not around.“This decision is not only deeply upsetting for the rights of LGBT individuals living in Mississippi, but also for the protection of religious liberty in our country,” said Roberta Kaplan, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, in a press release. “Our clients have already suffered enough. “
In the 16-page ruling, judges opined that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing because they hadn’t been injured by the law yet.
A federal judge blocked the law last July, arguing it was unconstitutional and sanctioned “arbitrary discrimination” against unmarried couples and the LGBTQ community. Thursday’s ruling by a three-panel judge in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals lifts the injunction, although lawyers for plaintiffs — many of whom are LGBTQ Mississippians — in the case noted that the law would likely remain blocked while they seek a review by the 5th Circuit or appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Mississippi Legislature passed “The Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act”, or HB 1523, in 2016, in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling that made gay marriage the law of the land. It seeks to allow businesses and government employees to deny services to LGBTQ people if they feel that doing so would conflict with their religious beliefs.
The Christian right is jubilant after a federal appeals court ruled Thursday in favor of a controversial law in Mississippi that makes it OK to discriminate against LGBTQ people in the name of religious freedom.
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The Christian right is jubilant after a federal appeals court ruled Thursday in favor of a controversial law in Mississippi that makes it OK to discriminate against LGBTQ people in the name of religious freedom.
The Mississippi Legislature passed “The Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act”, or HB 1523, in 2016, in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling that made gay marriage the law of the land. It seeks to allow businesses and government employees to deny services to LGBTQ people if they feel that doing so would conflict with their religious beliefs.
A federal judge blocked the law last July, arguing it was unconstitutional and sanctioned “arbitrary discrimination” against unmarried couples and the LGBTQ community. Thursday’s ruling by a three-panel judge in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals lifts the injunction, although lawyers for plaintiffs — many of whom are LGBTQ Mississippians — in the case noted that the law would likely remain blocked while they seek a review by the 5th Circuit or appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the 16-page ruling, judges opined that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing because they hadn’t been injured by the law yet.
“This decision is not only deeply upsetting for the rights of LGBT individuals living in Mississippi, but also for the protection of religious liberty in our country,” said Roberta Kaplan, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, in a press release. “Our clients have already suffered enough. “
“Good laws like Mississippi’s protect freedom and harm no one,” said Kevin Theriot, senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal powerhouse of the Christian right. “The sole purpose of this law is to ensure that Mississippians don’t live in fear of losing their careers of their businesses simply for affirming marriage as a husband-wife union.”
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican, who signed HB 1523 into law, also cheered Thursday’s ruling. “As have said all along, the legislation is not meant to discriminate against anyone but simply prevents government interference with the constitutional right to exercise sincerely held beliefs,” Bryant said in a statement.
Five states, Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, Vermont and Washington, and three cities, San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Seattle, banned their officials from state-funded, nonessential travel to Mississippi after Bryant signed the bill into law last year. Several large companies condemned the law, including AT&T, Nissan, and Tyson Foods, but none threatened to withhold business from the state.
HB 1523 was one of 85 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced by legislators in 28 states in 2016. There have already been more so far this year: Legislators in 29 states introduced a total of 100 anti-LGBTQ bills, six of which have become law. LGBTQ advocates, who have been on the defense as they weathered the onslaught of such legislation, attribute its proliferation to GOP lawmakers feeling emboldened after the election of President Donald Trump, and to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Cover: Jan Smith, left, and her partner Donna Phillips sit with their 9-year-old daughter, Hannah, in a playground outside their church in Brandon, Mississippi. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
DV.load("https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3873195-Barber-v-Bryant-and-Campaign-for-Southern.js", { responsive: true, container: "#DV-viewer-3873195-Barber-v-Bryant-and-Campaign-for-Southern" }); Barber v Bryant and Campaign for Southern Equality v Bryant 5th Circuit Opinion (PDF)
Barber v Bryant and Campaign for Southern Equality v Bryant 5th Circuit Opinion (Text)flike, an all electric personal flying bike
flike, an all electric personal flying bike
all images courtesy of bay zoltan nonprofit ltd
some of the greatest science fiction movies of all time all include personal flight. now, an unexpected development coming out of hungary could really make it a reality. a few flight aficionados from bay zoltan nonprofit ltd, developed a fully electric personal flight device named ‘flike’. the project started in the summer of 2014 at an applied research institute in the country. it is a coaxial ‘Y6’ layout tricopter, which means that the lift is generated by six rotors, grouped in counter rotating pairs of three axes that are positioned uniformly around a circle.
video courtesy of balazs kerulo
for power, the ‘flike’ is equipped with lithium polymer batteries, so far allowing only 15 to 20 minutes of hover flight. the lift is supplied by six fixed-pitch, carbon composite rotors, which provided airborne behavior similar to helicopters. the rotors are driven by separate electric disc motors that produce zero emissions. the design is based on tripod stability, with the thrust directed in three steady directions. for safety, the rotors are paired with counter rotating blades to deliver emergency lift in the event the motors become inoperable. to deal with flight stability the onboard computers calculate everything so the pilot doesn’t have to. the company plans on building a second working prototype of ‘flike’ with similar features and designs as the anticipated end product.
the demonstrator had a takeoff weight of 210 kg (463 lb)
the group who designed the ‘flike’
a rendering of the anticipated end productby
In the summer of 2009, when the military brig at Quantico transitioned from a “Level One” facility to a 30-day pre-trial facility, few would have pegged it as the first choice of locations to house the man accused of one of the most significant leaks of classified government documents in United States history. And yet, that’s precisely where PFC Bradley Manning wound up after a late-night, unexplained transfer from his crude cell in Kuwait’s Camp Arifjan.
Throughout this week, military officers of various levels and brig staff presented exhaustive testimony about the inconsistent and poorly documented care PFC Manning was afforded given the facility’s infrastructure. While discussion of Quantico’s resources and expertise may pale in comparison to some of the treatment Manning endured during his nine-month stay, much of defense attorney David Coombs’ arguments this week concentrated on how his client’s mere placement at the Northern Virginia brig set the stage for disaster.
Manning’s imminent arrival at Quantico in late July 2010 prompted discussions between former Security Battalion Commander Robert G. Oltman and Gen. Flynn, in which Oltman articulated how inadequate the detention center was for the task. “It had been a while since we’d been inspected,” he told the court earlier this week, describing an overdue need to identify shortcomings and ensure Quantico was in regulation. Manning constituted a “drain of resources” for the brig, testified Oltman, who noted, “we don’t have the long-term resources for prisoners.”
In the course of the transition, Quantico’s inmate population dropped significantly, with prisoners being “turned away” due to capacity. Staff at the brig, meanwhile, shrunk from 79 to 44. When protests began flaring up outside the base in January of 2011, heightened security measures made for added duties and stress to brig staff—a situation some say may have translated into rough treatment for Manning.
According to Oltman, Quantico was not fully equipped for pre-trial staples, even including some amenities PFC Manning would have gladly done without, such as audio recording devices in the visitation area.
Even forgiving minor details, such as military code that varyingly discourages or outright bans, pre-trial confinement beyond one year, Quantico also suffered from scant resources where extended confinement is concerned. During a cross examination with Prosecutor Ashden Fein, the former Security Battalion Commander inventoried basics the brig had in place, such as hot meals, routine medical care, and limited exercise areas, describing a facility capable of meeting its core function but unprepared for the challenging job of long-term incarceration. One brig psychiatrist, Captain William Hoctor, had made do since 2009 without a computer, using phones that worked only by holding exposed copper wires together by hand for a dial tone and live line.
If Hoctor’s office conditions sound scant, his working relationship with higher brig staff and command weren’t much better, according to this week’s testimony. Staff Sergeant Ryan Jordan described Hoctor’s visits to the brig as a “whirlwind”—a sentiment echoed by Gunnery Sergeant Craig Blenis later that same day. According to brig Officers-in-Charge (OICs), Hoctor’s recommendation notes (which strongly pressed that Manning be removed from Prevention of Injury status) lacked what they considered sufficient elaboration. Meanwhile, both Blenis and Jordan recounted incidents where Brig Commander James Averhart shared his distrust in Hoctor’s job performance. Neither of the prosecution’s two witnesses, however, were able to explain why Hoctor—who reads as noticeably professional and compassionate on the stand—was never provided critical feedback nor relieved of his duties.
While Dr. Hoctor may not have scored particular favor from Quantico bigwigs, Brig Commander Colonel Daniel Choike’s sense of professionalism seems more liberal, given this week’s testimony, wherein emails between him and brig OICs exchanged jokes about stripping Manning of his “panties” and rejecting his mail because “we felt like dicks.”
So, it seems Quantico was a curious choice to house a high-profile detainee that military top brass was already aware would attract intense public, political, and media scrutiny. The decision is even more baffling considering some of the correspondence between Col. Choike and Lt. Gen. Flynn, who described Choike’s newest guest as a “young man with a lot on his plate” whose “life has fallen apart,” requiring suicide-watch status. Despite the demanding level of resources this implies, Quantico was getting by on a revolving cast of part-time, visiting mental health care providers. This proved problematic in March 2011 when a simple scheduling issue sent brig officials scrambling in a “full court press” just to secure another of Manning’s regular psychiatrists, Col. Rick Malone. Roughly eight months since Manning’s arrival, Quantico had yet to hire one full-time mental health professional.
Such inadequacies point to Quantico’s main function as a short-term facility better equipped for out-processing inmates bound for discharge or other locations. The severity of Manning’s charges, as well as the complexity of the government’s developing case, quickly suggested an extended, two-year detainment. Housing a detainee beyond 30 days, however, according to Oltman’s testimony, was beyond the brig’s means.
Col. Choike’s assessment that Manning should not be detained at Quantico for more than 90 days, meanwhile, wound up still six months shy of the ultimate duration of Manning’s detainment at the Virginia brig–an amount of time at least two military psychiatrists agreed could be harmful to anyone’s health, given the confinement conditions. Although Choike’s timeline stretched farther than others, even he felt strongly enough about Quantico’s inadequacy to raise this issue with superiors such as Gen. Flynn. Judge Denise Lind herself sought clarification in court this week, asking Oltman about the facility’s capability of accommodating detainees for three months, let alone six or more.
The effect of this pairing amounted to something of a square peg forced into a round hole, leaving Manning confined to a 6×8-foot cell for up to 23 hours a day in conditions garnering international outcry from supporters, as well as human rights advocates ranging from Amnesty International, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez, Archbishop Emeritus and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, director Michael Moore and “Pentagon Papers” whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.
Throughout his roughly nine months at Quantico, the already meager dimensions of Manning’s incarceration were exacerbated by the intense administrative restrictions of his Suicide and Prevention-of-Injury statuses, which brig psychiatrists consistently criticized as lacking sound clinical basis.
When Manning was finally transferred to Fort Leavenworth in April 2011, his new brig’s commander Lt. Col. Dawn Hilton testified the move was ordered because her facility could better meet PFC Manning’s requirements. The comparably new Fort Leavenworth brig, in stark contrast to Quantico, was designed with long-term pre-trial confinement in mind.
Manning’s sudden change of circumstance represented a drastic improvement in his quality of confinement due to Leavenworth’s sophisticated level of medical care, permanent, in-house mental health providers, and an extensive, segregated area for pre-trial detainees, featuring 8×10-foot cells designed for 35 square feet of unencumbered living space, as well as windows and natural light.
Coincidently, within two months of Manning’s transfer, directives from Marine headquarters restructured their classification and assignment systems at Quantico to allow for a prevention-of-injury status outside of the taxing maximum custody category.
Mike McKee is a member of the Bradley Manning Support Network.Kurt Snibbe/ESPN.com
Not only is Oregon scoring 54 points per game; the Ducks are snapping the ball and scoring so fast the whole thing goes by in a blur. "What did I just see?" both defensive coordinators and spectators must be asking themselves. Call it the blur offense.
Does this mean the Ducks have discovered a fundamentally new way to play football?
First, let's examine what Oregon is doing. The blur offense combines four existing ideas -- the "pistol" set developed at the University of Nevada (itself a high-scoring team, averaging 43 points); the single-wing run fakes used since football became a sport, then forgotten as old-fashioned, and now revived; the triple-option that is a standby of high school and college football, though very rare in the NFL; and the spread set that was considered radical a decade ago but now is practically conventional.
[+] Enlarge Steve Dykes/Getty Images Stanford coaches and players alike have been working toward the revenge game against Oregon.
The blur offense combines these four existing ideas then executes really quickly. Not only are Oregon's offensive players swift, but the team signals in plays so rapidly that an average of just 15 seconds passes from the spot of the ball to the next snap. That's extremely fast. Even polished no-huddle teams typically take 20 to 25 seconds from spot to snap.
Oregon is not the only college team to be snapping really fast. Two weeks ago, yours truly watched Amherst, an elite academic college, run a version of the blur, snapping in an average of 18 seconds; Amherst is undefeated and averaging 40 points a game. But 15 seconds 'til the snap -- the actual average being posted by the Ducks, not a boast -- is unprecedented.
Indeed, one could argue that the most impressive thing about the blur offense is how rapidly and effectively the signals come in. All plays are called by hand signal from the sideline, and busted plays by Oregon are surprisingly few considering the pace. Players glance at the sideline, race up to the line of scrimmage and go. Here, Pete Thamel of The New York Times, one of the top writers on college football, details how the blur-offense pace is learned in zany max-speed practice sessions.
Things to know about the blur offense:
• The pistol set means the quarterback is 4 yards behind center, rather than 7 yards as in a shotgun. (A pistol is smaller than a shotgun.) Like the high school version of the spread, the blur involves lots of hitch screens, in which the quarterback quickly throws sideways to a wide receiver who's hitching. Being only 4 yards behind center means the quarterback gets the snap a bit faster and the hitch screen throw has slightly less distance to travel, arriving one second earlier. Saving a second helps accelerate the tempo. In the pistol, the tailback is behind the quarterback rather than next to him as in the shotgun. This means the tailback takes his handoff moving forward with momentum, rather than standing still as in a shotgun's draw action.
• The old single-wing involved constant confusion about whether the ball was going forward, end-around or to a pitchman who came in motion from the outside back toward the formation. The Miami Dolphins rediscovered single-wing fakes in 2008 with the Wildcat formation, and the blur offense uses lots of single-wing confusion. Sometimes the quarterback fakes to the tailback into the line and then goes into the opposite side of the line in an old-fashioned move, now being rediscovered, called the "midline option." Sometimes the quarterback sprints outside with the motion-man pitchman behind him, basically a high-tech variation on the triple-option. Often, the quarterback executes a zone-read with the tailback. Everybody's doing the zone-read in college football this season; the blur offense just executes it really quickly.
• Almost every blur offense down is either a run or a play fake. There are hardly any conventional dropbacks. Since play fakes are the most effective college passing action, Oregon basically cuts out the middleman and always play-fakes.
• Pass patterns are minimal, which keeps the quarterback's mind from melting under the pace. Oregon runs hitch screens, then occasionally fakes a hitch screen and sends a receiver on the fake side deep. That's it -- that's the blur offense passing tree.
• The blur offense has maybe 20 plays, though several involve an option about who carries the ball. A very simple playbook allows Oregon to perfect the execution and snap really quickly. Players on the field couldn't possibly understand hand signals for a conventional 50-play college playbook.
• The fast pace tires defenses more than the Oregon offense. Oregon has outscored opponents 128-13 in the second half; this is the most impressive |
38+0.58/2.0/0+0.98 ms cpu, 4->5->0 MB, 5 MB goal, 48 P gc 15 @0.044s 2%: 0.095+0.45+0.21 ms clock, 1.0+0.78/1.9/0+2.3 ms cpu, 4->4->0 MB, 5 MB goal, 48 P gc 16 @0.045s 3%: 0.10+0.45+0.23 ms clock, 0.10+0.70/2.1/0+0.23 ms cpu, 4->5->0 MB, 5 MB goal, 48 P gc 17 @0.046s 3%: 0.088+0.40+0.17 ms clock, 0.088+0.45/1.9/0+0.17 ms cpu, 4->4->0 MB, 5 MB goal, 48 P.... gc 6789 @9.998s 12%: 0.17+0.91+0.24 ms clock, 0.85+1.8/5.0/0+1.2 ms cpu, 4->6->1 MB, 6 MB goal, 48 P gc 6790 @10.000s 12%: 0.086+0.55+0.24 ms clock, 0.78+0.30/4.2/0.043+2.2 ms cpu, 4->5->1 MB, 6 MB goal, 48 P
The first round of GC kicks in at 0.021s, then it starts collecting every 3ms and then every 1ms. That is insane, the benchmark runs for 10 seconds, and I saw 6,790 rounds of GC. The number that starts with @ is the time since program start, followed by a percentage that supposedly states the amount of time spent collecting garbage. This number is clearly misleading, because the performance indicates at least 90% of the time is wasted (indirectly) on GC, not 12%. The synchronization overhead is not taken into account. What really is interesting are the three numbers separated by arrows. They show the size of the heap at GC start, GC end, and the live heap size. Remember that a collection is triggered when the ratio of freshly allocated data to live data remaining after the previous collection reaches this percentage, and defaults to 100%.
I am running a benchmark, where all allocated data is immediately discarded, and collected at the next GC cycle. The only live heap is fixed to the Go runtime, and having more goroutines does not add to the live heap. In contrast the freshly allocated data grows much faster with each additional goroutine, triggering increasingly frequent, and expensive GC cycles.
Clearly what I needed to do next was to run the benchmark with the GC disabled, by setting GOGC=off. This lead to a dramatic improvement: ECDSA-P256 Sign,413740.30, op/s.
But still not the number I was looking for, and running an application without garbage collection is unsustainable in the long run. I started playing with the GOGC variable. First I set it to 2,400, which made sense since we have 24 cores, perhaps collecting garbage 24 times less frequently will do the trick: ECDSA-P256 Sign,671538.90, op/s, oh my that is getting better.
What if I tried 4,800, for the number of threads? ECDSA-P256 Sign,685810.90, op/s. Getting warmer.
I ran a script to find the best value, from 100 to 20,000, in increments of 100. This is what I got:
Looks like the optimal value for GOGC in that case is 11,300 and it gets us 691,054 signatures/second. That is 22.56X times faster than the single core score, and overall pretty good for a 24 core processor. Remember that when running on a single core, the CPU frequency is 3.0GHz, and only 2.1GHz when running on all cores.
Per goroutine performance when running with GOGC=11300 now looks like that:
The scaling looks much better, and even past 24 goroutines, when we run out of physical cores, and start sharing cores with hyper-threading, the overall performance improves.
The bottom line here is that although this type of benchmarking is definitely an edge case for garbage collection, where 48 threads allocate large amounts of short lived data, this situation can occur in real world scenarios. As many-core CPUs become a commodity, one should be aware of the pitfalls.
Most languages with garbage collection offer some sort of garbage collection control. Go has the GOGC variable, that can also be controlled with the SetGCPercent function in the runtime/debug package. Don't be afraid to tune the GC to suit your needs.
We're always looking for Go programmers, so if you found this blog post interesting, why not check out our [jobs page](https://www.cloudflare.com/join-our-team)?^ Denotes at-large bid
College Baseball Field of 64 (May 20) Nashville, Tenn., Regional 1. Vanderbilt* (1)
4. Columbia*
2. Troy*
3. Ohio State^
Bloomington, Ind., Regional 1. Indiana*
4. Kent State*
2. Virginia Tech^
3. Alabama^
Chapel Hill, N.C., Regional 1. North Carolina* (2)
4. Maine*
2. UNC Wilmington*
3. Florida Atlantic^
Starkville, Miss., Regional 1. Mississippi State^
4. Army*
2. South Alabama^
3. Austin Peay^
Baton Rouge, La., Regional 1. Louisiana State^ (3)
4. Jackson State*
2. Rice*
3. Louisiana-Lafayette^
Clemson, S.C., Regional 1. Clemson^
4. Western Carolina*
2. Ole Miss^
3. Coastal Carolina^
Corvallis, Ore., Regional 1. Oregon State* (4)
4. South Dakota State*
2. Cal Poly^
3. Auburn^
Manhattan, Kan., Regional 1. Kansas State*
4. Illinois State*
2. Arkansas^
3. Sam Houston State*
Charlottesville, Va., Regional 1. Virginia^ (5)
4. Rider*
2. Arizona State^
3. William & Mary^
Eugene, Ore., Regional 1. Oregon^
4. Gonzaga*
2. Oklahoma^
3. BYU^
Fullerton, Calif., Regional 1. Cal State Fullerton* (6)
4. Milwaukee*
2. New Mexico*
3. Houston^
Los Angeles Regional 1. UCLA^
4. CSU Bakersfield*
2. San Diego^
3. UC Santa Barbara^
Tallahassee, Fla., Regional 1. Florida State^ (7)
4. Savannah State*
2. Mercer*
3. Florida^
Columbia, S.C. Regional 1. South Carolina^
4. Bryant*
2. Georgia Tech^
3. Campbell*
Louisville, Ky., Regional 1. Louisville* (8)
4. Saint Louis*
2. Miami^
3. Illinois^
Raleigh, N.C., Regional
1. North Carolina State^
4. Tennessee Tech*
2. Oklahoma State^
3. Seton Hall^ Last five: William & Mary, BYU, Houston, Ohio State, UC Santa Barbara. Next 10: Pittsburgh, San Francisco, UC Irvine, Michigan State, Creighton, Texas A&M, North Florida, FGCU, South Florida, Kansas.
Conference automatic bids
America East: Maine
Atlantic 10: Saint Louis
Atlantic Coast: North Carolina
Atlantic Sun: Mercer
Big Ten: Indiana
Big 12: Kansas State
Big East: Louisville
Big South: Campbell
Big West: Cal State Fullerton
Colonial Athletic: UNC Wilmington
Conference USA: Rice
Horizon: Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Ivy League: Columbia
Metro Atlantic: Rider
Mid-American: Kent State
Mid-Eastern Athletic: Savannah State
Missouri Valley: Illinois State
Mountain West: New Mexico
Northeast: Bryant
Ohio Valley: Tennessee Tech
Pac-12: Oregon State
Patriot: Army
Southeastern: Vanderbilt
Southern: Western Carolina
Southland: Sam Houston State
Southwestern Athletic: Jackson State
Summit: South Dakota State
Sun Belt: Troy
West Coast: Gonzaga
Western Athletic: CSU Bakersfield * Denotes automatic bid^ Denotes at-large bid
* Oregon dropped a tough series to rival Oregon State over the weekend and dropped out of a national seed in the latest projections. The Ducks, with the series loss, still have a chance to be a top eight national seed, but just need to finish the regular season in flawless fashion. The Ducks are now 5-4 vs. RPI Top 25, 9-4 vs. RPI Top 50 and 21-10 vs. RPI Top 100. This week, we give the final national seed nod to Louisville, who's up to 13 in the latest RPI with a 1-3 mark vs. RPI Top 25, 8-4 mark vs. RPI Top 50 and 20-8 vs. RPI Top 100. I'd also keep an eye on Indiana, which has a high RPI and respectable overall resume, while the NCAA could always throw a curveball at us and give North Carolina State a fourth ACC national seed. The Wolfpack actually has a very good resume entering this weekend. For instance, the Wolfpack is 11-8 vs. RPI Top 25, 16-9 vs. RPI Top 50 and 24-12 overall record. Meanwhile, it's my opinion the other seven national seeds are set unless someone stumbles in ugly fashion this week.* I feel very good about the 16 NCAA host sites as we enter conference tournament week for most leagues around the country. Mississippi State is our last host in this week's projections, and the Bulldogs have a rather solid resume. Despite playing an incredibly difficult Southeastern Conference schedule, the Bulldogs have a nice record and resume. The Bulldogs are 6-8 vs. RPI Top 25, 19-14 vs. RPI Top 50 and 21-16 vs. RPI Top 100. I'd also continue to keep a close eye on South Alabama if it gets hot in the Sun Belt tournament. The Jaguars still have a high RPI, but the resume needs some work. USA is 2-3 vs. RPI Top 25, 5-9 vs. RPI Top 50 and 14-14 vs. RPI Top 100. I'd also keep an eye on Arkansas as the week progresses. The Razorbacks still have an RPI in the 40s entering the SEC tournament, but the overall resume is very respectable. Arkansas is 7-7 vs. RPI Top 25, 15-15 vs. RPI Top 50 and 15-16 vs. RPI Top 100. The Hogs clearly have a lot of work to do, but the SEC tourney could be a major resume booster.* Another intriguing situation in the postseason picture right now is just exactly how many bids the Big East will get into the NCAA tournament. We were feeling good about Pittsburgh going into last weekend's series against Louisville. However, the Panthers tumbled in the RPI and pecking order after failing to win a single game against the Cardinals. Meanwhile, South Florida, which has been fighting an uphill RPI battle the entire season, hasn't been great the past few weeks. Both teams have a chance to get on the good side of the bubble at the Big East tournament, Pitt having the better shot at this point. The Panthers have eclipsed that always-important 40-win mark and finished tied with Seton Hall, who's clearly in the field at this point, in the Big East standings. The strikes against the Panthers are their resume from an RPI standpoint. Pitt, which has an RPI of 64, is just 3-3 vs. RPI Top 50 and 6-9 vs. RPI Top 100. It's easy to see why the NCAA Selection Committee would dislike that resume, but personally speaking, I think Pitt's in-conference resume speaks for itself. I'd have the Panthers in if I were on the committee going into the conference tournament. Meanwhile, there's a reason USF is fighting more of an uphill battle than Pitt. For instance, the Bulls are 2-10 vs. RPI Top 50 teams and 9-13 vs. RPI Top 100 teams, along with an RPI of 63. The Bulls also finished behind Pitt in the conference standings.* Two more things to keep an eye on this week include the new West Coast Conference tournament, which includes Gonzaga, San Diego, San Francisco and BYU. The Zags probably need to win the conference tournament to make the NCAA Field of 64, though, there's always a chance at an at-large by virtue of winning the WCC regular season crown. However, with USD safely in the field as of now, the interesting story line is following what BYU and San Francisco do. For now, we have the Cougars, who have the head-to-head series win over the Dons, leading the charge. However, USF is right on their heels and could change the game this week. Breaking down the two resumes, BYU has an RPI of 62 with a 3-2 record vs. RPI Top 50 teams and 12-15 mark vs. RPI Top 100 clubs. Meanwhile, San Francisco has an RPI of 55 with a 1-4 mark vs. RPI Top 50 and 12-16 mark vs. RPI Top 100. Again, USF might slightly have an edge RPI-wise, but head-to-head, for now, is the difference … The other thing to watch with intrigue this week is the Big Ten tournament as it relates to Ohio State and Illinois. Illinois joined the field of 64 this week, but a bad showing in Minneapolis could be the difference between in and out. The Fighting Illini have some really nice wins this season, including a road series sweep of a solid Baylor club earlier in the year. Illinois has an RPI of 30 with a 3-6 mark vs. RPI Top 50 and 9-11 mark vs. RPI Top 100. By comparison, even though Ohio State finished out of winning the Big Ten regular season crown, the postseason resume isn't all that special. For instance, the Buckeyes have an RPI of 49 with a 10-15 mark vs. RPI Top 50 teams and 11-15 mark vs. RPI Top 100. For now, I think both clubs are in the field if the season ended today, but will that be the case later this week? Stay tuned.* Fans are always intrigued to see how individual conference breakdown from a postseason bids standpoint. Here's the breakdown by conference, in order from most to least: SEC (9), ACC (8), Pac 12 (4), Sun Belt (4), Big 12 (3), WCC (3), Big Ten (3), Big West (3), Big East (2), Big South (2), Ohio Valley (2), Colonial Athletic (2), Conference USA (2), America East (1), Atlantic 10 (1), Atlantic Sun (1), Horizon (1), Ivy League (1), Metro Atlantic (1), Mid-Eastern Athletic (1), Missouri Valley (1), Mountain West (1), Northeast (1), Patriot (1), Southern (1), Southland (1), SWAC (1), Summit (1), WAC (1).* Out of the current one-bid leagues, the Atlantic Sun and Missouri Valley potentially have the most to gain this week during conference tournaments. Illinois State won the MVC automatic bid, and though the Redbirds could miss the postseason all together if they won't win the MVC tournament, for now, we're putting ISU on the good side of the bubble for capturing that regular season crown. That leaves the door open for Creighton to step in as one of the 64 teams with a very strong showing this week. The Bluejays, admittedly, have some serious work to do. Creighton has an RPI of 44 with a 30-16 overall record. However, the Jays are just 1-4 vs. RPI Top 50 and 6-8 vs. RPI Top 100. That must improve … As for the A-Sun, North Florida and Florida Gulf Coast are very much still in the postseason picture, though again, both have some work to do this week to put themselves on the good side of the postseason bubble. UNF has struggled a bit the past couple of weeks, but still has an RPI of 54 with an impressive 38-17 overall record. The Ospreys are 4-4 vs. RPI Top 50 and 11-9 vs. RPI Top 100. Again, not a bad resume. Then there's FGCU. FGCU went through a skid in the middle of the season, but certainly showed at times this season it's a club that could win an NCAA Regional when clicking on all cylinders -- just ask Florida. With that said, FGCU, which has an RPI of 61 with a 37-18 overall record, has some work to do. The Eagles are 3-8 vs. RPI Top 50 and 6-12 vs. RPI Top 100. In other words, FGCU still must not only pass UNF in the pecking order, but also other teams on the national stage. Not exactly an easy chore to say the least.* Many questions posed in this week's college baseball chat were in regard to the postseason bid situation for the Pac 12 Conference. Right now, I have four teams from the league in the postseason, including Oregon State, Oregon, UCLA and Arizona State, three of which are expected to earn host sites barring a huge surprise. Will the Pac-12 get a fifth bid to the postseason? It's looking unlikely at this point unless Stanford or Arizona take care of business this weekend, and the committee feels rather generous. Stanford is currently fifth in the Pac-12 with a.500 record with an RPI of 89. The Cardinal is 3-9 vs. RPI Top 50 and 8-14 vs. RPI Top 100. By comparison, Arizona has an RPI of 76 following a huge rivalry series win over Arizona State. However, the Wildcats are 2-11 vs. RPI Top 50 teams and 7-16 vs. RPI Top 100. Should either of those teams get into the field as of today? Not if you're asking me. The resumes don't warrant it.-- The projected national seeds are listed on the left, seed denoted in parenthesis. Regional on the right matches up to be projected NCAA Super Regional.Since Libby is so terrible at blogging, I’m here to fill in the gaps while she takes her hiatus. Don’t worry she’ll be back as soon as finals are over. So I’ll talk about the decks that IVE been working on while she has been working on her izzet and green deck.
The Boros Deck
Check the deck list here
This was the deck that I made when I had just started playing magic. After buying some starter decks, I thought that a really interesting combination of cards would be having angel cards and instant red spells that did direct damage. At first, it was a totally failure against Libby’s aggressive green deck. I really don’t remember what was in it back then, but it started off having Shock and Guttersnipe along side cards like Wojek Halberdiers. It really had no cards that worked together to beat decks that had a planned strategy. This was long before I had ever heard of an aggro deck or a control deck.
After many defeats I had to choose to make another deck that I thought would be better against Libby (but that deck is for another post). The whole time that I was playing this other deck, I still wanted to alter the cards in the boros deck to make it better. It eventually made it to something close to how it is now. At this point I wanted to make a mostly battalion deck because I knew that Boros Reckoner and Wojek’s were strong in 3’s, and cheap enough to beat really strong green creatures onto the battlefield. This worked against Libby much better than any other deck that I had so far, so I took it to our very first Friday night magic and learned of what the competitive decks were doing to win.
At FNM, as soon as I faced the esper control and U/W control decks, I wanted to beat them with a slow boros deck. I now have cards main-boarded or side-boarded that would counter cards in esper control and U/W. I’ve found that one of my favorite anti-control deck cards is Glare of Haresy. Not only will it get rid of Elspeth, but it also removes Detention Sphere. I also have 2 Elspeth’s of my own, if the game goes long (I’m debating on removing Assemble the legion because is seems like they fill the same roles but I don’t have room in the deck for them both). The rest of the deck is pretty straight forward, get 3 creatures on the battlefield, and abuse the strength of them with the battalion mechanic.
So that’s the boros deck! If you have an advice I will gladly take it. The next post I’ll be writing is about my newest deck that I’m obsessed with, a U/W/G deck.Guzelian
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A WAR, a riot, a terrorist attack or a row over blasphemy: not long ago, Britain's government knew exactly what to do when a crisis loomed in relations with the country's Muslims. As recently as July 2005, after bombs in London killed 56 people, Tony Blair was confident that he could avoid a total breakdown of trust between Muslim Britons and their compatriots.
Using an old formula, the prime minister called in some Islamic worthies and suggested they form a task force on extremism. Then, hours before the worthies were due to reconvene and mull their response, Mr Blair breezily announced that a task-force of top Muslims had just been created. They moaned, but dutifully went to work.
That system of trade-offs, the equivalent of the “beer and sandwiches” once used to woo trade unionists, had some big drawbacks. It gave hardline Muslims—generally male, old and new to Britain—disproportionate sway. It also led to some dubious bargains; for example, Muslim resentment of British foreign policy was parried by, in part, huge generosity towards the cultural demands of some Muslims—such as the right to establish schools where the curriculum bears scant relation to the lessons other young Britons get.
But in its own odd terms, the old system “worked”. Messages could be relayed between the corridors of power and the angriest and poorest parts of the Muslim street; and Muslim leaders could be induced to expend personal and political capital urging their flock to co-operate with the police and provide useful information.
Now that system, and its unspoken compromises, lies in ruins. It was jettisoned in the autumn of 2006, when the government downgraded existing ties with the Muslim Council of Britain (in which movements close to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamists of Pakistan were strongly represented) and tried to find different interlocutors.
But attempts to define a new policy towards Islam in Britain have been floundering since then. The Muslim population is in many ways diverging still more from the mainstream. With its large, young families, it is also growing much faster (see chart): there are 2.4m Muslims today, according to the Labour Force Survey; the census of 2001, a rather different measure, put it at 1.6m. The government is under fire from the political centre-right for being too soft on radical or reactionary Muslim groups who stop just short of endorsing violence. It is also attacked from the left (Muslim or otherwise) for using the fight against terrorism as an excuse for a general assault on Muslims and their cultural rights.
Hazel Blears, the communities secretary, sought to clarify official thinking in a speech on February 25th, after a stream of reports that the government was about to launch an ideological war against illiberal or extremist ways of thinking, even if they were not directly associated with violence. The government, she said, would reserve the right to deal with people whose ideas were unpleasant through a “spectrum of engagement, carefully calibrated to deal with individual circumstances”. With groups that have “an equivocal attitude to core values such as democracy, freedom of speech or respect towards women” there might be “some scope for limited engagement”, the minister carefully added. But on certain forms of “absolutely unacceptable behaviour”—such as homophobia, forced marriage or female genital mutilation—the government would firmly enforce the law with no regard for a cultural “oversensitivity” that had gone too far.
Her speech suggests that a debate within the cabinet on which war to prioritise—the one over ideas and values or the one against terrorism—is unresolved. The government wants to keep its options open.
But the failure of current policies aimed at fostering moderate Islam can hardly be overstated. After spending lavishly on a strategy called Prevent that was supposed to empower moderates—at least £80m ($116m) will have been dished out on such efforts by 2011—the very word “prevent” has become discredited in the strongholds of British Islam, which include east London, Birmingham and a string of northern industrial towns. At the Muslim grass roots, there is a sense that any group or person who enjoys official favour is a stooge.
Many in the government, meanwhile, think their partners are not delivering value for money. The whole relationship has deteriorated since August 2006. After a foiled plot to blow up transatlantic flights, and amid huge ire over the war in Lebanon, a group of prominent Muslims, including two now in government, signed an open letter arguing that British foreign policy in general, and its softness towards Israel in particular, was an important factor behind a surge in extremist sentiment.
Nearly three years on, the government's biggest problem is that it is struggling with two big questions at once. One is the set of problems described under the catch-all term of “cohesion”—narrowing the social, economic and cultural gap between Muslims (especially in some poor urban areas of northern Britain) and the rest of society. The second is countering the threat from groups preparing to commit violence in Britain or elsewhere in the name of Islam.
The government says the two problems are related: poor, frustrated and mainly self-segregated groups are more likely to produce terrorists. Muslims as a group lag behind other Britons in qualifications, employment, housing and income (see chart). But in fact the overlap between exclusion and extremism is messy. And attempts to fight terrorism through tougher policing, which can alienate whole communities, make boosting cohesion harder.
Among those who claim to speak for disadvantaged Muslims and articulate their grievances, there has been an outpouring of indignation over the government's stated aim of “preventing violent extremism” by making Muslim communities more “resilient” and better at dealing with hotheads. The idea seems to stigmatise all Muslims, many complain, while the violent extremism of, for example, the white far right is ignored.
Another gripe is that the Prevent programme has poisoned relations between central government and the city councils through which the money is channelled. Some say councils are being strong-armed into carrying out “community” programmes that are really thinly disguised police and intelligence work.
In Birmingham the council's loudest activist, Salma Yaqoob, complains that Prevent money goes only to those who avoid suggesting that British foreign policy helps to foment extremism, even though the link obviously exists. (Indeed, a government security minister, Lord West, admitted in January that to deny it was “clearly bollocks”.) Resentment of the gag was exacerbated by the recent Israeli assault on Gaza. Many Muslims followed it on Middle East-based media that presented an even gorier picture of Palestinian suffering than other British viewers saw.
The Gaza crisis also triggered a round of name-calling within the world of British Islam that has laid bare a rapid diminution of the middle ground on which emollient types hope to stand. Senior Muslims at the Quilliam Foundation, a “counter-terrorism think-tank” which has received nearly £1m in funding from the home and foreign offices, issued in January a denunciation of Israeli actions that was mocked as faint-hearted by more radical Muslims, while voices on the political right questioned whether the government's “investment” in this body was paying off.
Torn between remaking the Muslim community—a task that turns out to be much harder than the designers of the Prevent strategy ever imagined—and simply fighting terrorism, the government, understandably, feels it can hardly be expected to abandon the latter. Probing and pre-empting attacks by Muslim extremists is now understood to occupy about 75% of the energy of the British security services, who claim to have had some success in reducing the number of terrorist plots that are stopped only at the last minute. Another less obvious factor in British thinking is strong American concern over the risk that a British-born Muslim could enter the United States and commit a terrorist spectacular there. A healthy slug of America's anti-terrorism spending goes to forestall just such a possibility.
Meanwhile a string of high-profile court cases involving terrorist conspiracies has served to increase the emotional chasm between Muslim Britons and their compatriots. As an example of two worlds diverging, take reactions to the plight of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian who sought asylum in Britain and was later incarcerated in Guantánamo Bay. He says he was tortured by his American captors, with help from the British secret services.
Mr Mohamed returned to Britain on February 23rd, to mixed reviews. For Muslims (and human-rights campaigners on the secular left) his saga is a tale of American brutality and British collusion. In the rambunctious popular press, however, he is portrayed as a nuisance whose presence in Britain will burden the taxpayer and waste the security services' valuable time in surveillance.
For all the problems besetting British Islam, however, there are plenty of individuals who exemplify at least part of the solution. Among them—at least until the recession makes it harder for strivers to climb out of poverty—are successful young professionals and entrepreneurs, often women, who have managed to fly high in business, medicine, accountancy or the media. “We have prevailed in a two-fronted struggle” against social conservatism and discrimination, says Saeeda Ahmed, the founder of a social-affairs consultancy in the north (to hear an interview with Miss Ahmed, see article).
But successful British Muslims as well as poor ones resent the fact that the rest of society often sees them mainly as potential extremists. Sarah Joseph, a convert to Islam who edits the glossy monthly Emel, says Muslims are fed up with being asked if they are against violence; they want people to know what they are for, such as social justice. The sad fact, in a country that has come to live in fear of terrorism, is that many Britons are indeed more interested in assessing Muslims' potential for violence than in anything else about them.Share
Moment Case — Mobile photography case
We first encountered Moment about a year ago, back when they were launching their first smartphone camera lens. Now they’re back with with a new product — a smartphone case that supercharges your smartphone’s photographic capabilities. Each case sports one of Moment’s amazing lenses (which are nearly perfect, and won’t leave you with any image distortion, chromatic aberration, or blurring around the edges of your photo) as well as a few other features that make it easier to use.
The Moment team added a new quick-attach lens system, improved software, and a special shutter button that supports both half and full presses. The latter addition is particularly awesome, since it allows you to lock focus and exposure as you shoot — just like a DSLR. The project has already crushed its $100,000 goal, and expects to ship the first units to backers as early as June.
Glow — Laser-illuminated earbuds
At first glance, a pair of Glow headphones might seem like gimmicky glow-in-the-dark earbuds that are designed to get your attention and not much else. But look a little closer and you’ll find something a whole lot more interesting: Glow purports to be the “world’s first” pair of smart headphones embedded with laser light.
Yep, that Tron-like glow from the cable emanates from something called Fibrance, a special light-diffusing fiber from the folks over at Corning — the same company that makes Gorilla Glass. As for what makes it so smart? Well, the colored light of the cable isn’t static — it actually pulsates to the beat of the music. The project has blasted past its initial 100K funding goal, and if it can make it to the million dollar mark in the next 42 days, the creators will incorporate heart rate sensors into the earbuds, so your music can pulse along with your blood.
Qmote — Minimalist smart remote
The Qmote is, at its heart, a Bluetooth remote control for your Android or iOS smartphone. The body is a big button, which can have up to 11 different functions programmed into it, ready to activate various features on your phone. For example, it can control music playback, act as the camera’s shutter release, activate apps, or turn on a find-my-phone alarm system. Each function can have its own combination of button presses and holds specified, all of which are configured through an app.
Additionally, the Qmote works with IFTTT, so recipes can be cooked up to control aspects of your smart home, or more complex functions on your phone. Made from brushed aluminum, the Qmote is water resistant and has a coin-cell battery inside which should be good for a year’s worth of use. No, the notification feature isn’t included anymore, but the company is promising firmware updates to add new features over the year.
Coolbox — The ultimate toolbox
Remember the Coolest Cooler? The tricked-out ice chest outfitted with speakers, charging ports, and an integrated blender for making margaritas? Well, good news: Somebody took the same concept an applied it to a toolbox … sort of. You wont find a margarita station built into the Coolbox, but it does boast a lot of the same features as Coolest Cooler — a rechargeable battery, a pair of Bluetooth speakers, and a slew of different outlets and ports so you can charge your gadgets and tools — as well as few other additions that make it unique and different.
Under the hood you’ll also find a set of LED floodlights; a retractable, 10-foot power cord; a pair of rollers for easy transport; a tablet stand; a whiteboard; and even an integrated bottle opener — basically everything you’d ever need at the job site. Oh, and it holds all your tools, too. I think we forgot to mention that. The box sports nearly 1800 cubic inches of space and can hold up to 65 pounds of gear.
Luna — Smart mattress cover
The Luna smart mattress cover helps you keep a close eye on your shut-eye. Hundreds of sensors woven into the machine-washable fabric gauge your body’s movements, temperature, heart rate, and the ambient noise. By measuring your pulse and respiration, Luna knows when you’re sleeping and when you’re awake; a microphone even detects when you’re snoring. The wireless controller transmits all this data to an iOS or Android app to gives you an overall sleep quality score.
Luna can also make your bed toasty warm on those cold winter nights, and lets you set up separate temperature zones for each side of the bed. Eventually, Luna’s creators say it will learn the temperature your body finds most conducive to slumber and automatically adjust to it. Oh, and it integrates with other smart home gear as well, so when you climb into bed, your house can automatically crank down the heat, dim the lights, and lock the front door.Chile has one of the most effective disaster relief infrastructures in the world – led by a general who lost his wife in the 2010 quake in Haiti. How? It’s all down to rigorous building codes, evacuation simulations and, above all, preparation
When the Chilean city of Coquimbo was hit by a 4.5-metre tsunami wave on 16 September, the surge of water crushed a neighbourhood of small, independent fishing outfits. Nearly 200 boats were destroyed: some dragged out to sea, others piled onshore like driftwood or dumped inland, many blocks from the ocean.
A river of water pushed debris and sand throughout a bustling section of the town’s waterfront just as darkness was settling on the 150,000-person city. Nine people were killed in the Coquimbo region, and a further four elsewhere in Chile.
So why did only 13 die in an quake measuring 8.4 on the Richter scale – the world’s strongest earthquake to date this year – while far weaker earthquakes in Haiti and, more recently, Nepal, killed tens of thousands?
Part of the answer lies inside a field hospital tent in Santiago, Chile’s capital and largest city where, on Wednesday 24 September, huddled around plastic tables and squished against the walls of a military tent lit by fluorescent tubes, search and rescue teams from Peru, El Salvador, the United States and Spain take part in a previously scheduled rescue simulation known as Simex 2015. Sipping tepid coffee, they debate where to search with dogs, which collapsed building might possibly contain dead bodies and how best to rescue tsunami victims along the coast.
Organised by the UN humanitarian affairs office and the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group [Insarag], the Simex meetings were launched in the wake of huge quakes in Armenia and Mexico. Today Insarag is a leading authority on best practices to organise urban search and rescue operations following earthquakes. The weeklong meeting in Santiago includes a full-scale emergency reaction to a simulated 9.0 earthquake hit with an epicentre in Santiago.
“This is an exercise,” says Ricardo Toro, a former army general now in charge of Chile’s disaster relief agency, ONEMI. “We have a plan called ‘Chile Prepares’ of which the principal and most important part is evacuation exercises. Every year we – at a minimum – run |
, especially during the Civil War period to ensure vigilance over Confederate activities on recognition, trade, etc. I unfortunately have not been able to track down much info on the individuals who served as US consul to Reval during this period, such as Charles Leas (of Baltimore) and Henry Stacey (of Vermont, who died in Tallinn, was buried in Kopli before being repatriated to the US to an unknown location) before the downsizing of US foreign representations during the scandal-plagued Grant Administration. Eugene Schuyler served as the final Consul in Reval for that short period in 1869-1870 before closing the office on Narva road, moving to take over as Consul in St Petersburg. Schuyler was an incredibly well-educated individual, having translated Turgenev’s Father and Sons, and even edited an early translation of Kalevala. After his short Estonia posting, he became one of the first Americans to explore Central Asia before a long career in diplomacy; his role in describing Ottoman atrocities against Bulgarians led directly to the war that liberated Bulgaria — which, unsurprisingly led to an angry Constantinople to demand his expulsion. He died from malaria contracted during his later posting in Cairo, and is buried on the historic cemetery island of San Michele in Venice.
Not until 1919 would a US representative return to the region. Although the Wilson Administration had not recognised Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania de jure, this de facto appointment brought John Allyne Gade (of New York) to Riga. Gade, already a well-known figure in navy intelligence and relief efforts, having worked with the tireless Herbert Hoover on many of them through World War I, was sent as Commissioner to the Baltics. Secretary of State Robert Lansing, a visionary in the murky world of intelligence, ostensibly sent Gade to keep an eye out on Soviet Russia and its activities as the Baltic states were all mired in wars of independence at the time (Lansing’s nephew-in-law, Allen Welsh Dulles, would later become an intelligence pioneer and CIA Director).
Gade played a significant role during his short stint in the Baltics, earning honours for not just his public role as head of the US mission to the region, but as an advocate in the background. Before departing in 1920 after peace was achieved in Estonia and Latvia, he advocated for permanent US representation — despite the lack of de jure recognition.
Gade continued a long career in banking, military and diplomacy, and died in 1955. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any of his burial information, despite his storied career. He was succeeded in Riga by Evan Young (of South Dakota), who became the first Minister when the Harding Administration recognised the three Baltic states de jure in 1922.
The “Other” Enemy of Baltic Independence
With World War I in full force, one of the horrors of that cataclysmic war was the plagues of hunger and disease. Even before the entry of the US into the war, some took it upon themselves to act.
One of the principle individuals of this effort was future President Herbert Hoover, who started the Commission for Relief in Belgium. This noble, volunteer effort faced opposition from the occupying Germans and from Britain, who thought this was enabling the occupation. Nevertheless it saved countless lives. This led to the creation of the US Food Administration when the US entered the war, with Hoover directing the efforts to distribute food. After the armistice that ended the war, it evolved into the American Relief Administration, which played an enormous role in helping Poland, the Baltic countries and Russia to survive post-war famines.
But the real crisis for the Baltic countries, alongside many others, was the scourge of disease. Typhus was a major problem all over Europe, and claimed countless lives as it spread in those pre-vaccination days. The Red Cross sprung into action, alongside many volunteers, and stemmed the spread of the disease all over the continent, again saving countless lives. Many of these volunteers risked their own lives, as they themselves were exposed to typhus.
One heroic individual, sadly lost to history, was Doctor Edward William Ryan. A courageous soul who constantly volunteered around the world to aid those caught up in conflict, he first volunteered to help evacuate Americans caught up in the Mexican Revolution. With World War I raging, the American Red Cross sought volunteers to help with relief efforts in Europe, and Dr Ryan quickly signed up to help in Serbia. Many credit him for saving Belgrade from the onslaught of the Habsburg forces, and is recognised by Serbia as a hero. He risked his own life in the typhus epidemic there, and despite nearly dying from it, saved thousands of lives running the ARC hospital there.
When the US entered the conflict, he was given a military commission by the US Army, and he continued his work on the front lines in France and Greece. At the end of the war, he continued his work in Berlin until fate took him to Estonia in 1919. Concerned by what he saw in the Estonian War of Independence, he helped to create and lead the American Red Cross Commission to Western Russia and the Baltic States.
Dr Ryan, with his deputy Loy Henderson (more on him later) who he recruited at the time, travelled through the region in the midst of several wars of independence, setting up ARC offices from Kaunas to Helsinki. During the worst of the typhus epidemic in Estonia, Dr Ryan took charge of the efforts in Tallinn, often butting heads with the government. But the widely-respected Dr Ryan managed the situation, with Henderson leading the same efforts in Narva at the front lines, at the massive field hospitals set up at Narva and Ivangorod/Jaanilinn castles. When the White Army of General Yudenich pushed deep into Red Russian territory, Dr Ryan followed, running Red Cross units in western Russia.
During this time, two American soldiers working with the ARC in Estonia lost their lives to typhus, which Henderson also nearly died from. Both men, Lieutenant Clifford Arthur Blanton and George W Winfield, were first buried at Tallinn’s Sõjakalmistu in 1920 but repatriated home; Blanton is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Chattanooga (sadly I could not locate the flat marker, listing his place of death as “Narva, Esthonia” during my visit); for Winfield I have not found any information.
What became a remarkable side story, is how Dr Ryan travelled with the Estonian delegation to negotiate the Tartu Peace Treaty in early 1920. His unauthorised trip angered Commissioner Gade, but his first-hand information on the state of Soviet Russia was so negative that his report likely played a role in the decision of Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby to not recognise Soviet Russia. Commissioner Gade would write in his memoirs:
“Ryan proved himself to be a wild, fighting Irishman, constantly getting himself into hot water and me into a state of exasperation, doing things which I highly disapproved, even going to Moscow despite my having forbidden it. Absolutely fearless, often gambling with death, he did a grand job of holding high the shining fame of American charity.”
Dr Ryan remained in the Baltics until 1922, springing into action wherever a hotspot appeared that required his energy and dedication. Henderson, mourning the loss of his twin brother, had shifted to the Berlin office to co-ordinate regional efforts from there. He was honoured by the Baltic-American Society upon returning home, just as the Harding Administration officially recognised the three Baltic states.
Sadly, the restless Dr Ryan did not survive his final posting, having volunteered to help battle disease in Tehran. He died there, succumbing to disease at the young age of 39, and was buried in his home town of Scranton. Ants Piip, who was the Riigivanem who at times butted heads with Dr Ryan during the typhus epidemic of 1920, happened to be the Estonian Minister to the United States at the time, and made his way to St Peter’s Cathedral to pay his respects.
I managed to find Dr Ryan’s beautiful grave at Scranton’s Cathedral Cemetery thanks to the help of a wonderful staff member — despite the cemetery’s loss of records from that era. Turns out it was very close to the entrance gate. Again, a beautiful stone for a hero of Estonia and so many other countries. I was humbled to have stood in his presence.
As for his protégé, Loy Henderson, his career had just started. He went on to be a principle figure in US diplomacy, returning to the Baltics in 1924 to work in the legation in Riga. He managed to work in all 3 Baltic embassies, going first to Kaunas in 1927 and then to Tallinn in 1930. Then alongside a few junior officers in the Baltics such as George Kennan and Charles Bohlen, he helped open the US Embassy in Moscow under Ambassador William Bullitt. For a short time as charge d’affaires, Henderson warned the State Department about collusion between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, but the warnings were unheeded.
When the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic states, Henderson was considered the principle drafter of the Welles Declaration. In fact, his anger over Soviet activities clashed with the Roosevelt Administration upon Moscow turning into a war ally he asked to be transferred out of European affairs within the State Department, and was given the post of Minister to Iraq in 1943. He would later serve as Ambassador to India and Iran, ironically in the same city where his mentor lost his life 30 years earlier. In his time as a Middle East specialist, he warned about Moscow’s links with Syria — something we are dealing with decades later. Henderson also likely had a hand in the CIA-led coup in Iran while he was posted there.
Henderson is buried at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington DC, in a section that is the resting place for dozens of US diplomats; unfortunately my photo is blighted by sunlight, requiring me to re-visit one day. He is not buried far from Latvia’s Ambassador Anatols Dinbergs (and the entire Latvian section), nor far away from Sumner Welles — whose historic declaration he helped to draft. For a historian, this is one of the most interesting cemeteries; buried here are several cabinet members, scores of politicians and generals, writers like Gore Vidal, Supreme Court justices, Russian nobles, KGB defectors — and of course Upton Sinclair, whose infamous novel The Jungle featured a Lithuanian immigrants as the main character.
A sad side note to this story is the fate of Sumner Welles, who was caught up in the ugly situations that DC rivalries can create. As Undersecretary of State under Cordell Hull, both men sought the attention of their boss President Roosevelt. Hull, despite his illness, was continuously unhappy with Welles’s access to FDR. When Welles was caught in what is still suspected as a honey trap, Hull sent his friend William Bullitt (Henderson’s boss in Moscow) to leak the hushed-up story to Klan-supported, Maine Senator Owen Brewster (in the Martin Scorsese film The Aviator he is played by Alan Alda), which pressured Welles to resign. He was replaced by Edward Stettinius, who became Secretary of State after Hull died a few months later (entombed at the National Cathedral); Stettinius was later criticised for pushing FDR to concede too much to Stalin at Yalta. Ironically, where Stettinius is buried (Locust Valley Cemetery on Long Island, one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the country) is where a lot of Latvian Americans are buried. Bullitt is buried in The Woodlands Cemetery next to the University of Pennsylvania, and Brewster is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in the central Maine town of Dexter.
The Early US Diplomats
As mentioned earlier John Gade was the first Commissioner to the Baltics, succeeded by Evan Young — who would become the first Minister upon de jure recognition. During that time, other US diplomats played significant roles in setting things up as the minister was based in Riga full-time.
The US Consulate in Tallinn was first opened in 1919 by John Patrick Hurley (of New York). A decorated soldier who fought in units under Generals “Wild Bill” Donovan (father of the OSS) and Douglas MacArthur, he was charged with setting up the consulate by Commissioner Gade; ironically, the location of the first US Consulate is today where the Russian Embassy is located in Tallinn’s Old Town. He switched to become US Consul in Riga until 1924, becoming one of the longest early American residents of Riga. He had a long career in foreign service, and is best known for his heroic work in helping evacuate those trapped in Marseille in 1940 where he was US Consul. He was replaced in Tallinn in 1920 by Charles Albrecht (of Pennsylvania) for the next 2 years. Unfortunately I have not been able to find the final resting places of these individuals.
One of the non-diplomatic advocates for the recognition of the Baltics in the meantime came in the form of Congressman Walter Chandler of New York. The progressive from Manahttan was defeated in his quest for a 4th term in 1918, which gave him the opportunity to travel to assess the post-war situation in Europe. He became the first former US congressman to visit the newly-independent countries, despite the wars of independence raging. He returned to Washington and became a vocal advocate for the recognition of the Baltic countries, testifying at House hearings that sadly proved futile at the time. He returned to the House in 1920 to serve one last term, but spent time in the Baltics before then. He continued to lobby on behalf of the Baltics, his speeches can be read in the Congressional Record. He pushed the Harding Administration as well, lobbying with Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, and finally succeeded when the recognitions came in July 1922. Unfortunately, Chandler lost re-election later that year to the legendary Sol Bloom, who would hold the seat for the next 25 years. Chandler, the best friend of the Baltics in the US Congress of the era, died in 1935 and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Jacksonville. I was unsuccessful in locating his marker during a previous visit to the sprawling cemetery, fighting the intense heat and humidity, endless bugs, and a severely sprained ankle (yes, cemetery trekking can be dangerous!). No doubt I will return one day to pay my respects to this great individual.
Also mentioned earlier, with US recognition of the three Baltic states in 1922 during the Harding Administration, Commissioner Young was upgraded to that of Minister to all three countries; however, this role was temporary as the State Department under Hughes (buried at the historic Woodland Cemetery in the Bronx) sent a new team to the newly-recognised countries.
Hughes in September 1922 sent Frederick Coleman to be Minister to all three Baltic countries. Little did anyone know at the time Coleman would serve three administrations (Harding, Coolidge, Hoover) in this capacity, staying in Riga until his 1931 departure. His extremely long, nine-year tenure saw the Baltics grow very quickly, but also witnessed them experience major challenges such as the 1924 attempted Soviet coup in Estonia, the 1926 move to authoritarianism in Lithuania, and of course the Great Depression. Few outsiders saw so much of Riga and its dramatic changes during this turbulent but exciting period of the nation’s early history.
As Coleman resided in Riga yet was accredited to all three countries, Tallinn and Kaunas (remember, Vilnius was occupied and annexed to Poland at the time) were served by consulates. Various individuals ran the consulates during the period until 1930, when both were upgraded to full legations, and the residing consuls were deemed charges d’affaires.
The heavily decorated Coleman departed from Riga in 1931 and was given a recess appointment as Minister to Denmark. Though he was later confirmed by the Senate, he only presented his credentials in early 1932 and served for just one year due to President Hoover’s loss to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I didn’t manage to find much info of his post-Copenhagen life, but Coleman passed in 1947. I have not managed to find his final resting place, though the search is taking me to the Carolinas at this point.
While Coleman served as Minister in Riga for nine years, little did he know that when Harry Edwin Carlson arrived in Tallinn in August 1926 as Consul he would surpass that longevity mark. Carlson would remain in Estonia as Consul and charge d’affaires (after the legation’s upgrade in 1930) until 1937; few, if any, Americans had lived in Estonia for so long during this era.
Carlson had already been Consul in Kaunas since 1924 before he was transferred to Tallinn. During his 11-year tenure in Estonia, Carlson saw Estonia experience the Great Depression, the rapid recovery, the Päts takeover, and the country’s continual growth despite the unsettling international environment. They played significant roles in society; together with his wife Laura, Carlson made the most of his Estonian life. They constantly travelled around the country, owning a suvila in Haapsalu, and Carlson was known for his love of fishing. He helped to found the Rotary Club, and Laura was instrumental in making the now-famous 1939 feature article in National Geographic happen. Carlson was also responsible for moving the legation to Kentmanni, where the current US Embassy is located.
After this long, storied time in Tallinn, Carlson went to London as Consul. No doubt, he played a role in suggesting to the son of the then-ambassador, Joseph Kennedy, to visit Estonia — future President John F Kennedy. Ironically one of the critics of the visits was one of the diplomats working under Carlson in Tallinn, the legendary George Kennan. Carlson then had the difficult job of serving as US Consul in post-Anschluss Vienna, serving from 1939 until the US declaration of war against Nazi Germany in 1941. Carlson then served a very important posting as Consul in Stockholm for the duration of the war, where no doubt he had re-connected with his Estonian friends who had fled. After several more postings he retired, and passed in 1960; Laura would pass in 1978.
Both are buried in the small Berkshires town of Sheffield, Massachusetts. Though the cemetery is not very big, their small markers were not easy to find on a sunny late afternoon. My zeal to pay my respect to them took me from stone to stone, crossing the entire cemetery. About half an hour later, I found the stones, against the edge in the back section. I stood there for ten minutes, thinking that they didn’t get to see Estonia proud and free and successful again. But later I would learn that one of their two children, both born in Estonia by the way, would marry a Latvian American.
As mentioned earlier, the legendary George Kennan had worked in the legation in Tallinn under Carlson for a short time before moving onto Riga to work there until 1933. Kennan had then, under Bullitt and Loy Henderson, worked in the new Embassy in Moscow. Kennan treated Carlson rather harshly in his memoirs, though part of the tension is likely due to career paths — Carlson enjoyed his Estonia time, Kennan used it as a springboard to his desired Russia posting. Kennan of course became a legend in dealing with the Soviet Union, becoming Ambassador before being expelled by Moscow. Kennan is buried in Princeton Cemetery, not far from President Grover Cleveland, Vice President Aaron Burr, and scores of other famous individuals.
Working under Carlson in Tallinn was also Charles Eustis Bohlen, who joined the team under Bullitt in the Moscow Embassy. Bohlen was likely the first US diplomat to get his hands on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact’s texts — including the secret protocols — leaked by a German diplomat. Bohlen followed Kennan as Ambassador in Moscow before becoming Ambassador to France — like his grandfather James Eustis. He is buried in his family plot at the historic Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, and his daughter continues the family tradition working as career diplomats. His brother-in-law was Charles Thayer, who ran VOA in 1948-49 but often seen as being soft on Soviet dominance like Bohlen — something that led to the latter’s falling out with his mentor Kennan.This is Venice of the Seas, a large Minecraft Cruise
Ship
*New ship, for a winterized cruise full of snow and fun anytime of the years*
and now a collection of the Normandies Veranda Staterooms, just foward the entrance.
Welcome to the Canal
I utilized Pauplemousse resource pack
This ship has many staterooms, resturants, stores, and entertainment venues from theaters to clubs. The ship is fully decorated above the water line including some crew areas and a full spa with private rooms and a sauna. The ship also features a recreation of the SS Normandie's Grande Salle a Manger,I would appreciate color references for or even descriptions of the actual color or the dining room and rooms. From foward on the ship will be incorperation elements from the SS Normandie, including the new funnel.The ship is also a community project as you are free to contribute a resturant or shops which you will be accredited for, just follow the instructions in the update logs to find out how to help. If you have an suggestions for what to modify or even add leave a comment and I will read it. This ship is still WIP with a cruise ship terminal under construction so it is not set in stone. Please feel free to contribute to the ship's construction.and McEdit for editing the world with optifine to balance my preformance.20th Century Fox has released a new cast pic for legendary director Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant, featuring our first official look at James Franco in the film.
The news broke back in December that the Rise of the Planet of the Apes actor would be appearing in the Prometheus sequel/Alien prequel as Branson, the captain of the Covenant and hubby of Katherine Waterston’s Daniels.
But don't get attached to the character too much. Apparently, Franco is set to roughly appear in the first 10 minutes of the movie, with several small scenes later in the film. He'll also pop up in some viral footage shot for the film. Will Franco be the first victim of the movie's big bad Xenomorphs?
Alien: Covenant also stars Michael Fassbender, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, Jussie Smolett, Amy Seimetz, Carmen Ejogo, Callie Hernandez and Billy Crudup, with Noomi Rapace returning as Elizabeth Shaw and Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland.
Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world — whose sole inhabitant is the'synthetic' David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.
Alien: Covenant will burst into movie theaters on May 19. Just click on the pic below to embiggen it and let us know what you think!
Zoom In
(via Coming Soon)And another one bites the dust.
This week has been a bad one for celebrities and their relationship with Twitter, with a couple choosing to distance themselves from the social medium. Now Fifth Harmony's Lauren Jauregui is calling it quits. Her decision comes after Internet trolls attacked her for sharing her political views. "Did you know there's a Woman named Dr. Jill Stein yes DOCTOR who is beautifully educated and actually cares about people instead of money?" she tweeted. "Did you also know she's running for president?!" Almost immediately people began to criticize the "Work From Home" songstress for endorsing a third party.
"PS I'm aware a split vote is reality and that it's a bit too late, however I feel like we as a people need to do better as far as educating," she responded.Guest Blog by David Braun
Several years ago, I was a volunteer organizer with MoveOn and we had just finished campaigning to get the affordable care act passed. At the time, our focus was on the most pressing issue facing our democracy—corporate influence in government. This was before Occupy Wall Street, and while we knew what the problem was, the path forward in terms of how to stop corporate influence in our government wasn’t clear. Should we go after the banks and Wall Street? Should we instead turn our efforts towards overturning Citizens United? Without a clear consensus between advocacy groups, a strategic path forward wasn’t really apparent.
Enter fracking into New York. It had all the makings of a corporate power grab, and was a clear manifestation big money in politics pushing public policy. How else would an inherently dangerous practice like fracking, which involves injecting on average over 400,000 pounds of toxic chemicals with fresh water deep underground at extremely high pressure ever have been justified? Only in a world where big money calls the shots would a clear and present danger like fracking be allowed, let alone become commonplace. Clearly, any rational person with no financial ties to the oil and gas industry, would look at something like fracking and know it was a preposterous idea and completely out of the question. “We’re going to do what?!”
But that wasn’t happening. Instead fracking was getting the cover of some of my favorite elected officials, including President Obama, who I had worked to get elected. Worse than that, after several studies Obama’s EPA conducted had preliminary findings that fracking was linked to water contamination – something unsurprising to the people of Pennsylvania and other places where fracking was going on – the studies were suddenly, and mysteriously shut down with no explanation. One of those studies found benzene at over 50 times the allowable level. If this was what we were finding with a handful of studies, what else lay beneath, where 40,000+ new fracking wells were being drilled each year?
The good news is that the people of New York weren’t dummies, and even if our federal government was going to be duped by big money’s charm and coercion, we weren’t. We understood the science, and we knew that the catastrophic rates of well casing failures meant that the toxic contaminants couldn’t be contained and would be likely to cause contamination. And that’s why we fought it – the science was really clear. And what happened in New York was an amazing thing. It was as if the state of New York deputized hundreds of thousands of normal everyday people who up until then had been going about their lives, and turned them into powerful water warriors to stop fracking. And we won. We forced our elected officials to listen to the independent science and the will of the people, rather than the big money of the corporations. And contrary to the naysayers – many of them our friends – who told us we’d never beat big money – “They’re too powerful,” they’d tell me – we proved that nothing was impossible, and sometimes when you fight on the side of right, you can win.
And now, friends in New York – and all my antifracking allies everywhere – we’re getting called to action again. Join us this week in Washington DC for Democracy Spring and Democracy Awakening.
This Saturday we’ll be rallying, and then sitting in together and risking arrest because while we killed one of the heads of the giant hydra by banning fracking in the state of New York, this ugly beast continues to grow, and more heads are appearing in the form of pipelines, compressor stations, power plants, and other dangerous forms of toxic energy. Not only that, but places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado and West Virginia continue to be ravaged by this fracking beast. And until we get to the root of the problem, and stop corporate influence in government, the dilemma will never be solved.
So join us! If you don’t want to risk arrest on Saturday, you don’t have to, we need people there to participate with the rally, and support the action.
On Sunday there will be another rally, and also an action on Monday. Find more information and sign up here: www.democracyspring.org and www.democracyawakening.org
Here are the trainings for the Saturday Sit-In:
Friday Night – 6:30-9:30 PM — Impact Hub DC, 419 7th St NW, Washington, DC 20004, 3rd Floor
Saturday Morning -9:00-11:00 AM — Sanctuary, Lutheran Church of the Reformation, 212 East Capitol St NE, Washington, DC 20003
And for the complete schedule of events, transportation and other information click here.
Join us and be a part of this historic moment!
=============================
David Braun is a co-founder of Americans Against Fracking and New Yorkers Against Fracking, and recently relocated back to his home state of California to fight fracking and toxic oil and gas practices. Working closely with Californians Against Fracking, a coalition of over 200 organizations, David co-founded Rootskeeper, a non-profit project which facilitates grassroots action and builds power. As a part of this ongoing work, David has been organizing with grassroots activists, health professionals and faith leaders, and recently directed the film Faith Against Fracking which has been screening in places of worship as well as film festivals. While in New York, David founded and worked with several grassroots anti-fracking organizations including United for Action, Sane Energy Project, among others and helped design and implement the successful campaign which banned fracking. Previously, he was the grassroots coordinator for the films, GASLAND and GASLAND II. Before working on the fracking issue, he organized with MoveOn and has also engaged with numerous other social, environmental and economic justice campaigns. And before hearing the call to save the planet, David was a partner in a successful events business in NYC.Winnipeg police are warning residents to ask repair people to show ID before letting them into their homes, after a man claiming to be an electrician gained entry to a home in Norwood Flats.
The man showed up at the home on Wednesday, telling the people inside that he was on a service call.
The man was allowed in and he spent some time inside the home, but he did not have any further contact with the residents before he left without incident, according to police.
Officers later learned that while the homeowners did have work done on the home recently, they were not expecting any repair people on Wednesday.
Const. Eric Hofley said residents should take precautions when anyone claiming to be a repair person comes to their door, regardless of whether they're expecting someone or not.
For starters, he said, workers from legitimate businesses should have identification that include the name of the business or organization they represent.
"Even then … some people, for whatever reason, you get that sense," he said. "Feel free to deny entry. This is your home; you have a right to protect it."
The man is described as around 30 years old, standing six feet one inch tall and weighing more than 200 pounds with a double chin.
He was wearing jeans, a blue shirt, white casual shoes and a black work-style jacket with no logo on it. As well, he was carrying a leather binder, according to police.MARSEILLE - French police on Tuesday rounded up some 200 members of the Roma minority from a camp in Marseille in the south, sparking the ire of rights groups six months ahead of presidential elections.
President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to make security a central theme of his as-yet unannounced re-election campaign, and last year courted international outrage by targetting foreign-born Roma for expulsion.
Around 150 police took part in the round-up of a group that included children and babies. There was no violence, but the local head of the Human Rights League (LDH), Bernard Eynaud, criticised the raid as "aggressive".
"There are two Roma camps left in Marseille. This one, which is old, houses children at school. Once more, they will be split up and the children will not be able to go to school today," Eynaud said.
He accused the town hall of reneging on an August offer for a negotiated solution, declaring: "Today the only answer they have is the police."
The families were living in caravans and corrugated iron and wooden huts next to a railway line. Many of those rounded up will be expelled to Romania or Bulgaria if they cannot show how they can support themselves.
Sarkozy's UMP party has been accused of trying to outdo the far right-wing, anti-immigrant National Front party ahead of next year's presidential election.
France drew a chorus of criticism last year for rounding up hundreds of Roma from illegal camps and sending them back to Romania and Bulgaria.
The European Union's justice chief, Viviane Reding, angered Sarkozy at the time by comparing the rounding up to World War II-era deportations.
Paris insisted there was nothing racist in the moves against the Roma, saying they were rounded up simply because they had overstayed the period they were allowed in France without any visible means of financial support.
On September 12, Sarkozy's hardline interior minister Claude Gueant launched an offensive against what he called "Roma delinquency", saying that 10 per cent of people brought before Parisian justice were Roma.
"We have to accelerate the return (of alleged Roma delinquents) to their country of origin," Gueant said.Hillary Clinton would continue this fundamentally conservative outlook. She’s not suggested a single policy change that, if implemented, would immediately convulse America’s overseas relationships or social fabric. On election eve, the fact of her gender will spark excitement. Other than that, in overseas capitals, and atop America’s core institutions, observers would greet her election with a sigh of relief and a yawn.
How did Democrats become the more conservative party? Partly, it’s incumbency. The party in power always has a vested interest in arguing that the status quo is pretty good, and requires only modest tinkering. The party out of power always has a vested interest in arguing that the status quo is pretty bad and requires wholesale change. But that’s only a partial explanation. Even compared to past de facto incumbents, Clinton is sanguine. She’s running a more upbeat campaign than Al Gore did in 2000 even though the country is less peaceful and prosperous than it was back then. For his part, Trump is more apocalyptic than previous GOP insurgents. In 2000, George W. Bush titled his campaign book A Charge to Keep. In 2012, Mitt Romney titled his No Apology. Trump’s is titled Crippled America. In his convention speech, altogether, Trump used the words “crisis,” “chaos,” “death,” “destruction,” and “violence” 19 times. In his 2012 convention speech, Romney didn’t use any of those words even once.
There’s something deeper going on. Democrats have become the more conservative party because their voters are more optimistic about America’s long-term trajectory. They are more likely to believe that America is headed in the right direction and thus doesn’t require radical upheaval. A new Pew Research Center poll finds that 81 percent of Trump supporters say life in America is worse “for people like you” than it was 50 years ago. Only 19 percent of Clinton supporters agree. More than two-thirds of Trump supporters say the next generation will be worse off. Among Clinton supporters, it’s less than one-third.
African Americans and Latinos are particularly optimistic. The very demographic and cultural trends that make Republicans pessimistic about America’s long-term course—immigration, female empowerment, LGBT rights, growing secularism—make Democrats optimistic. Democrats feel less of a need to turn American politics upside down because they represent, in Ron Brownstein’s phrase, the “coalition of the ascendant.”
What’s odd about this is that while Democrats are more optimistic than Republicans, they’re also poorer. As Nate Silver has noted, the average Trump primary voter boasted a household income $11,000 higher than the average Clinton and Bernie Sanders voter. In states with large non-white populations, the gap was even greater. In Florida, the income gap between Trump and Clinton voters was $19,000. In South Carolina, it was $33,000.I finally got the chance to watch episode number 8 of the National Geographic Channel TV series Doomsday Preppers.
The show focused on three groups of preppers Tuesday night, March 27. In order of appearance:
Bruce Beach, rural Ontario, Canada
Bruce and his family have built a massive underground shelter in anticipation of an inevitable nuclear war. “We are not about survival. We are about reconstruction.”
Jeremy and Kelly, outside Salt Lake City, Utah
“I’m preparing for the collapse of society due to peak oil”
Bradford Frank, San Diego, California
“I’m preparing for a worldwide pandemic that will end life as we know it”
Here are my thoughts about episode 8 of Doomsday Preppers, broken down by prepper group:
Bruce Beach
Bruce Beach is a retired scientist who thinks the world as we know it will end by nuclear destruction. According to Bruce:
This is going to be a universal catastrophe. It’s that sudden. I don’t think there’s going to be a two-minute warning. There’s a distinct possibility that mankind can destroy itself. I think nuclear war is inevitable. In a catastrophe this size, 80 percent of the population will die during the first 2 years. The things that will kill them are social disruption, plagues, lack of food, lack of heat, exposure. It’s a random sort of thing as to who’s going to be saved and who isn’t.
Thinking this will be our fate, Bruce has been preparing for decades now to rescue humanity. From the show:
To save mankind from apocalyptic destruction, Bruce has taken it upon himself to build a haven for humanity. A unique place to sit out the end of the world.
Bruce and his wife Jean have constructed a 10,000 square-foot shelter that’s been designed to survive a nuclear war. Built in 1985, it’s intended to be an “underground orphanage.” Bruce explained:
Save the children. That’s a basic human characteristic. They’re our hope for the continuation of life for building a new and better world.
According to the show:
Bruce’s protected safe house is constructed from building blocks that many kids would consider familiar surroundings: 42 recycled school buses, linked together and buried under 18 inches of concrete and 14 feet of earth… School buses can support over one-and-a-half times their weight, and can cost as little as $300 second-hand, making them a prepper favorite for bug-out vehicles, and even safe mobile homes… It’s been estimated that if a global nuclear war occurred, up to a billion lives would be at risk in the months and years following.
Bruce revealed:
We can have 500 people in here, but have to have a number of people to watch over the children.
The underground shelter complex is named Ark 2- in honor of Noah’s Ark.
The extended Beach family contributes to the upgrade and maintenance of the |
on Drugs to be an “abysmal failure.”
Currently, the U.S. has more non-violent drug offenders incarcerated than any other country on earth. A staggering 25 percent of all people incarcerated worldwide, are being held in a U.S. jail or prison. This fact becomes even more disturbing when combined with the knowledge that the U.S. represents only 5 percent of the world population.
In a break from the approach of taxation and regulation, taken in all of the numerous other states that have reformed their marijuana laws, the Texas bill would offer no regulation or taxation.
Simpson told KETK that he would like to “reframe the current marijuana discussion” by focusing on prohibition repeal in terms of conservative values such as deregulation and less government.
The issue was hotly contested at the Texas Republican Party convention in Fort Worth. Numerous delegates supported legalization but ultimately voted to oppose legalization in the official party platform.
“It’s the official party position that we don’t favor legalization of marijuana, however it should be noted that a sizable minority voted in favor of allowing medical marijuana usage,” Steve Munisteri, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, told the Houston Chronicle. “It was hotly contested by a sizable number of delegates on both sides.”
In typical police state fashion, spokesman for the Sheriff’s Association of Texas, AJ Lauderback said, “we’ll oppose [Simpson’s] bill and any bill that wishes to legalize marijuana in the State of Texas.” He said that marijuana is a “gateway drug,” and that society bore high costs such as drug rehab programs and users driving under the influence.
These statements are simply outright lies, as the true cost to society is locking up non-violent drug offenders and criminalizing citizens that committed a crime against no one.
“The conservative approach, the liberty approach, is to recognize force and violence is not a good way to deal with drug abuse,” Simpson said. “Putting people in prison and teaching them a whole lot about crime, separating them from the family, taking away the breadwinners simply for possessing a plant that God made—that’s wrong.”
Rather than treating people suffering from addiction as criminals, with enormous associated costs of incarceration, addiction should instead be regarded as a public health issue. This approach could be done so at a fraction of the cost of incarceration.
For his part, Simpson believes in a small government that plays a very limited role.
“We should use our resources in law enforcement to deal with murder, with rape, with theft, but just possessing a substance that God made is not wrong,” he said.
Almost half of states in the U.S. have legal medical marijuana and four states have legalized recreation marijuana. There are two bills in Congress that would completely legalize and regulate federally. The winds of change in the drug policy debate are blowing strongly in favor of ending prohibition.
The approach outlined in this bill should be used as a model for all marijuana legislation going forward.
Jay Syrmopoulos is an investigative journalist, freethinker, researcher, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs. Jay’s work has previously been published on BenSwann.com and WeAreChange.org. You can follow him on Twitter @sirmetropolis, on Facebook at Sir Metropolis and now on tsu.On Tuesday night in California, Jeb Bush tried the once-unthinkable: He picked a fight with Hillary Clinton on Iraq.
"It was a case of blind haste to get out and to call the tragic consequences somebody else’s problem,” Bush said of the Obama administration's decision to pull troops out of Iraq. “Rushing away from danger can be every bit as unwise as rushing into danger, and the costs have been grievous.”
What Bush is up to isn't hard to figure out. Taking on Clinton on really anything is good politics for someone who wants to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2016. And Republican candidates and GOP voters believe Clinton is deeply vulnerable on foreign policy issues she oversaw during her time as Obama's secretary of state -- from the Benghazi attacks to the rise of ISIS.
So, Bush's attack isn't terribly surprising. What makes it profoundly interesting, however, is his last name. In case you have been hiding under a pile of coats for the last 15 years, it was Jeb's brother, George W. Bush, who led the country into war against Iraq under pretenses that were later proven to be false. And it was George W. Bush who, as president, began the process of drawing down American forces in Iraq.
Earlier this year, Jeb had been tripped up by the complexity of the Iraq war as an issue, spending a week unable to come up a cogent answer to the question of whether, knowing what we know now, he would have invaded Iraq. He sought to put the past in the past quickly in this foreign-policy focused speech, which was delivered at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif.
Here's the key passage:
No leader or policymaker involved will claim to have gotten everything right in the region, Iraq especially. Yet in a long experience that includes failures of intelligence and military setbacks, one moment stands out in memory as the turning point we had all been waiting for. And that was the surge of military and diplomatic operations that turned events toward victory. It was a success, brilliant, heroic, and costly. And this nation will never forget the courage and sacrifice that made it all possible. So why was the success of the surge followed by a withdrawal from Iraq, leaving not even the residual force that commanders and the joint chiefs knew was necessary? That premature withdrawal was the fatal error, creating the void that ISIS moved in to fill – and that Iran has exploited to the full as well.
Bush's message? Sure, mistakes were made getting into Iraq. But eventually America triumphed. Then President Obama and Clinton screwed it all up and gave us the Islamic State, which is and will continue to be a major threat to the United States well into the next president's term.
That's a tough argument to make -- particularly because the public generally believes 1) the war in Iraq was not worth fighting, and 2) the blame for getting us into the war lies with George W. Bush (although Obama's share in the blame game is rising.) It's an even tougher argument to make if your last name is "Bush" and you have said that your older brother (aka George W.) is one of your top advisers on U.S.-Israel policy.
The calculation by the Bush campaign is that he can't be cowed from confronting Clinton by his last name or his older brother. Which makes sense. I am just not sure whether a Bush can sell the public on the idea that the problems in Iraq are the fault of Clinton without acknowledging, in a much more detailed way, the role his brother's administration played in destabilizing the region too.
Such aggressiveness -- particularly on this issue -- is a gamble for the Bush campaign. But if Jeb is ever going to be able to operate free of his brother's legacy -- something that remains a real and unanswered question -- then he needs to stand up at some point and try to frame that legacy, particularly in Iraq, in the best possible light.
Tuesday's speech was an attempt to do just that.Lois G. Lerner used yet another private email account to do government business, the IRS revealed in a court filing late Monday that tries to clear up confusion over the former agency executive’s email practices.
At least 400 messages were sent or received from the newly revealed account, IRS lawyers said — though they insisted those messages were already part of the tens of thousands turned over to Congress.
The lawyers withheld the name and address of the new account, but said it’s different than the “Toby Miles” account they revealed in a previous court filing last week. That account, the IRS now says, is actually just a different alias for Ms. Lerner’s main personal account.
But the 400 messages came from a secondary account the agency is just now making public.
“The undersigned attorneys have now confirmed that Lerner also sent or received work-related emails from a second personal email account,” Geoffrey J. Klimas and Stephanie Sasarak, two Justice Department lawyers representing the IRS in the case, told Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.
The revelation is the latest twist in an open records lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch, a public interest law firm that has prodded the IRS to release Ms. Lerner’s emails.
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said the agency’s latest explanation continues a pattern of making it difficult to understand what went on with the Lerner emails.
“Once again they’re moving the goalposts. It’s not so much misleading the public, which is troublesome. It’s that the court can’t rely on their representations,” Mr. Fitton said.
“It is confusing, and I think purposely so,” he said.
Judicial Watch is seeking records detailing any talks between the IRS and Congress about the tea party targeting. The IRS said it has gone back and redone the search now to see if any of Ms. Lerner’s 400 messages from her second personal email address were implicated, but said nothing new was found.
The IRS, in an agency statement, said Ms. Lerner’s messages have already been processed and sent to congressional investigators, who were probing the broader tea party-targeting scandal.
“It’s important to keep in mind that emails and other information being shared with Judicial Watch through the FOIA process have already been released to Congress,” the agency said. “This information has been reviewed by Congressional committees as part of their investigations, and much of this has been included in their various public reports.”
Ms. Lerner is a central figure in the tea party-targeting scandal, which saw the tax agency delay conservative groups’ nonprofit status applications for years, while prodding them with inappropriate questions. Ms. Lerner retired from the agency months after the behavior was revealed, and after she invoked her right against self-incrimination in declining to testify to Congress.
The revelations about Ms. Lerner’s email come as the Obama administration is facing scrutiny over other top officials’ use of private emails for government business — a practice that, while not illegal at the time, was frowned upon and was supposed to be done under strict rules.
Messages sent from personal accounts were supposed to be forwarded to accounts on official government servers so they could be archived properly and made available for congressional investigations, subpoenas or open records requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
In Mrs. Clinton’s case, she didn’t turn her messages back over to the government until nearly two years after she left office, when she was prodded by the congressional probe into the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack.
For Ms. Lerner, it’s unclear how much she used her personal email accounts for business. The messages that have been made public were captured because she included official government addresses in the chain.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Description: With the pre purchase bundles released, Cordovan reacts to an interview about the Mordor expansion
So we announced the Mordor expansion earlier this year
Everyone was so hyped
in the stream and on the forums
So we released the pre purchase bundles this month
130 dollars for the ultimate fan bundle
130 dollars
and the best part is
it doesnt even include anything worth that price
but people are still going to buy it
Everyone thought we would make this the best expansion ever
We even made a new race, High Elves
hyped it for months, everyone was excited
and now it turns out
its not even in the base edition
40 dollars for the high elf
can you believe it?
It gets better
you cant even buy it in the lotro store
its only available in the winter
so now people will be forced to buy it with real money
what a marketing strategy
just lock it for half a year after release
No but seriously
We have some new features planned
there's this allegiance system
basically a glorified reputation grind
for each faction
with no real rewards
we thought Hytbold was fun
so we made another useless grind system
just like the flowers
being the only end game for months
we even made a dev diary
filled with only 10 sentences
so I guess I can say the expansion will be a succes
Great job
Great job he says
We even tricked Chance Thomas in coming back
so the music will be on point
There's also a new Valar gift
what does it do?
Brings you to level 105 and gives some bonusses
like virtue increase and some gear
its very special
it costs 7000 LP in the store
only for the 10 levels extra
3 relics for your chars, unpolished cosmetics, a lot of hard work was put into it. Please pre orderFor the love...
I have been working with wood as a hardwood floor craftsman for years. I see a lot of small scraps of beautiful wood get thrown away. This includes both new pieces and pieces that have been torn out of floors in historic homes, gorgeous old pieces of wood you can't get anymore. Sometimes I hoard these beautiful pieces of wood that would otherwise end up in someone's fire or in the landfill. One man's trash is another's treasure.
One day my boss borrowed my hammer. He left it on a job far from home. When I asked for it back he told me to just go buy a new one. What?! For me a hammer is kind of personal. I decided right then that I'd make my own hammer. It would so unique that no one would mistake it for theirs. I figured that way I would always get my hammer back. I thought out how to put the hammer together for a while. Then spent some time putting it together with scraps of exotic hardwood I'd collected and a vintage hammer head I found. I started using my new hand-built hammer on the job. Everyone was jealous as hell of my awesome hammer, but I never lost it again!
After a year of everyone asking me to make them custom hammers too and seeing how well my original hammer was holding up to hard use I decided to try my hand at making tools for the individual. It has been a lot of fun! I am constantly inspired by and full of gratitude for the Etsy community and my fellow tool enthusiasts.
Over time my designs keep evolving and my tool building skills keep growing. My love of skateboarding bled in when I broke one of my favorite boards. I've also really enjoyed making custom orders for people that include other things I might not have thought about adding to a handle design before. Ive made a football hatchet and a new handle for an antique meat tenderizer. Who knows what's next?That economic growth is the natural state for humans is a statement of the obvious. We want things, so we produce in order to get them. And because our desires are limitless, we’re constantly devising ways to enhance our productivity so that our work can be exchanged for more. Life is simple. So is economic growth.
The problem is that what’s blindingly easy actually confuses the simple minds at the Federal Reserve. Its leading lights quite literally believe that economic growth causes inflation. The feeling among economists at the central bank is that economic growth drives demand that outstrips supply, thus leading to higher prices. Readers needn’t worry. Ben Bernanke was confused, so is Janet Yellen, and so will be Jerome Powell. Thank goodness the Fed is largely irrelevant to the direction of the economy.
The above sentence isn’t a misprint. The Fed’s just not that important despite what economists, politicians and pundits think. That which projects its always overstated influence through antiquated and hyper-regulated banks can’t much impact a dynamic economy decidedly not reliant on stodgy banks. Still, it’s always a worthwhile exercise to address the kind of thinking that passes for logic inside the monument to illogic that is the Fed. The Fed instructs, through its confusion.
For one, demand can never outstrip supply. It can’t because supply is the source of all demand. Our production represents our demand. That’s one of many reasons why economic growth doesn’t result in rising prices. It doesn’t simply because increased demand signals increased supply.
Furthermore, economic growth is an effect of investment. Always. And logically so. An economy grows thanks to the enterprising being matched with capital such that their productivity increases. Reducing this to the basics, a farmer who only has a shovel won’t be able to produce very much. But if backed by capital such that the shoveling can be augmented by a gasoline-powered tractor, suddenly this farmer is producing a great deal more. The addition of the tractor is an effect of savings and investment, and it renders the farmer exponentially more productive.
Fast forward to modern times, those in the Fed’s employ quite literally believe that “too much” economic growth is once again a driver of inflation. As they see it, too much economic growth causes economies to “overheat.” Their reasoning is backwards. It is because economic growth is merely a euphemism for increased productivity wrought by investment. With increased productivity we’re able to produce more with less in the way of effort.
Let’s apply the above to the flat screen televisions that are flying off retailer shelves, and that in particular will be sold en masse today, Black Friday. If Fed theories are true, flat-screen televisions have become more expensive over the past few years in response to rising economic growth. As previously mentioned, Fed economic models indicate that growth drives up consumer prices. But it doesn’t, and for obvious reasons.
Economic growth is yet again an effect of investment; investment that enhances our ability to produce a great deal more with less. Consider the first 4K Ultra High Definition tvs. USA Today recently reported that the original models marketed in the U.S. in 2012 set consumers back $20,000. In 2013, the prices of these most advanced tvs had fallen to $7,000. In 2017 on Black Friday? Shoppers at Best Buy will be able to purchase a Sharp, 50” 4K television (Roku included) for $180.
What’s crucial here is that falling prices are the norm in a growing economy despite what Fed officials believe. That’s why readers should loudly mock Fed conceit that it can and should use its toothless interest rate targets to “slam the brakes” on economic growth in order to “keep inflation in check.” Even if the Fed could "manage" the economy with its rate targeting, such a view would still be backwards. Investment drives productivity growth which is economic growth, and the result is falling prices. The paradoxical truth is that we’ll know the economy isn’t growing as quickly when prices aren’t falling as quickly; all of this directly contradicting Fed models that are near totally divorced from reality. But wait, it gets sillier.
You see, falling prices terrify the Federal Reserve. Its economists believe that the falling prices which powerfully signal economic growth are actually a sign of stagnation. So while we individuals who comprise the economy logically cheer cheaper goods, the Fed fears that falling prices will cause us to consume less. Who cares that unspent wealth and the resulting investment are what drive economic growth, and who cares that no act of saving (short of stuffing money under a mattress) ever subtracts from demand, Fed officials think falling prices will deter consumption. Except that they don’t.
There’s endless evidence supporting the above claim, but the easiest is Apple. When it introduced the first iPhone to great acclaim, any mildly sentient human being knew that there would be many versions of the phone in the future; versions that would be sleeker, faster, and most definitely cheaper. Such is the genius of economic growth. Investment is always and everywhere pushing down the price of everything. Despite this, demand for the original iPhones was monstrous even though subsequent versions have rendered the first rather dated. Flat-screens and iPhones make Fed officials look silly.
Which brings us to the iPhone X. Fed officials once again believe that falling prices are economically harmful because they cause delays in consumption. Who cares that the latter is utter nonsense, but Apple’s iPhone X further ridicules the Fed’s thinking. We know this because sales of the cheaper iPhone 8 were apparently slower than normal based on consumer anticipation of the X’s arrival. Wait a second! The Fed tells us falling prices cause consumption to be delayed, but a more expensive Apple smartphone that was released after the cheaper 8 is what apparently reduced demand for the 8? How do the Fed’s models explain this? Can they?
The correct answer is to not care, and to ignore a central bank that’s long been important, and that will soon enough be commonly seen as irrelevant. How can any sane human being take seriously an entity populated by individuals who believe so much of what plainly isn’t true? For now the Fed instructs through its delusions. Shoppers will see today why the Fed is not only irrelevant, but also staffed by the eerily confused and deluded.Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout.
Told to prepare a budget that cuts spending by 4 percent, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is drawing up a legislative request for the 2018-2019 biennium that would slash its operating budget by about $250 million.
The agency won't say what potential savings — including closing prisons or figuring out how to release more nonviolent inmates — might be in the mix, but its request will launch the biennial dance with lawmakers over funding for the nation's largest prison system.
In late June, Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus instructed most state agencies to submit budget plans reflecting the 4 percent reduction target, setting that as the "starting point" for 2017 budget negotiations.
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With a more than $3 billion annual operating budget, about 40,000 employees and close to 150,000 inmates, TDCJ could chase that goal by closing prisons, reducing the inmate population and changing how Texas uses its state jail system, policymakers and analysts say.
In 2013, the agency shut down two privately run state jails after the Legislature cut almost $100 million from its budget. More closures may be in the offing, said Scott Henson, author of the criminal justice blog Grits for Breakfast.
Dawson State Jail, one of the two former TDCJ facilities, closed down to the Dallas community's delight because it was by the Trinity River where major development efforts were in the works. City officials welcomed the opening up of the land.
"If we were to assume that that would probably be the driving interest that the Legislature cares about most going forward, that leads you to look at a little cluster of prisons outside of Richmond, also in Fort Bend" near where high-dollar homes sit, Henson said. "[That] sounds more possible because there's so much more economic incentive."
What could work in Fort Bend County, though, might not in other places, Henson said.
"The reason they don't want to close prisons is 'cause it's jobs," he said. "You go into Palestine, Texas, and say you're going to close prisons. Well, that's a significant part of the labor force. But Fort Bend County's growth has nothing to do with the prison industry, and in fact, there are higher, better uses for that property."
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“ The reason they don't want to close prisons is 'cause it's jobs. You go into Palestine, Texas, and say you're going to close prisons. Well, that's a significant part of the labor force. But Fort Bend County's growth has nothing to do with the prison industry, and in fact, there are higher, better uses for that property. ” — Scott Henson, author of criminal justice blog Grits for Breakfast
Outdated and dilapidated units might also be prime for closure, Henson said, such as the Pack Unit near Navasota where inmates have sued TDCJ over high arsenic levels in the drinking water.
Money might also be saved by cutting down inmate populations in the state jail system, which is separate from the prison system but run by TDCJ, said Michele Deitch, a senior lecturer at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. The 19 state jails hold low-level offenders for no longer than two years and was designed as a backup for people under community supervision.
"It's moved so far from its original conception that it's unrecognizable," said Deitch, who was part of the office that designed the system in the early 1990s. "It has not been a success at all. It has the largest recidivism rate of any part of the criminal justice system, within any part of TDCJ, and the inmates are not getting the kinds of programs and services they need. They get no supervision or services when they get out, and so reentry is very problematic. And there's a lot of people who are locked up in state jails that really don't need to be there."
On the front end, the Legislature and local communities could whittle the inmate population with drug sentencing reforms and by using treatment and other diversion techniques as alternatives to locking up offenders for nonviolent crimes, policy analysts said.
Diversion could save the agency and taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, said Marc Levin, director of the Center for Effective Justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. A prisoner who costs the state $53 a day could cost $3 a day as a parolee or less than $2 a day as a probationer because they pay fees out of their own pockets, Levin said.
Utah and Alaska recently enacted laws reducing drug possession offense classifications from felonies to misdemeanors, he said.
Texas could also lock up fewer people for violating conditions of their probation and supervised release, Levin said.
“Do these folks need to be locked up for the fact that person abused drugs, or can they stay in their community and participate with substance abuse counseling, get the treatment they need in an effective way?” — Elizabeth Henneke, policy analyst for the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition
An emphasis on treatment, especially within an offender's community, makes a positive difference, Levin said. "What we really want to avoid is to make sure budget cuts don't come from probation, diversion programs, parole," he said.
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Locking someone up for nonviolent, drug-related offenses does little to help them, said Elizabeth Henneke, a policy analyst for the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. Keeping them in prison, where there are "no bills, no stress of job, no stress of family, that doesn't translate well when they get home because additional stressors come in."
"Do these folks need to be locked up for the fact that person abused drugs, or can they stay in their community and participate with substance abuse counseling, get the treatment they need in an effective way?" Henneke asked.
State Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat and the Senate's most powerful voice on criminal justice issues, said he will try to spare the prison system from budget cuts next session.
"TDCJ's greatest expense is personnel. You have to secure the prison. So you sure as hell can't cut that," Whitmire said. "Rehabilitation – drug, alcohol, is too critical a service to cut, because it's actually what reduces recidivism and allows us to save money from having to build more prisons and also increases public safety because you have a better person released than the one that you received. Mental health services – we all know what a priority that is."
Most state services are underfunded, and it shouldn't be that way in Texas, Whitmire said.
"We do not live in a broke state," he said. "We live in a state led by those who want 'less government,' which I guess means we cut the budget. But it's early in the process."
Disclosure: The Texas Public Policy Foundation and the University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed here.President Trump announced Wednesday a wave of 10 nominations to the federal bench.
The announcement includes one nomination to the 10 th Circuit Court of Appeals and nine nominations to U.S. district courts. Eight of the 10 nominations were sent to the Senate.
Trump’s latest wave of judicial nominees comes after he broke the record last week for most federal appeals court judges confirmed during a president’s first year in office. The Senate has confirmed 12 of Trump’s appeals court judges.
Trump nominated Wednesday Joel M. Carson of New Mexico to the 10 th Circuit Court of Appeals. The U.S. district court nominations are:
Susan Paradise Baxter of Pennsylvania to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania
Colm Connolly of Delaware to the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
Kari Dooley of Connecticut to the U.S. District Court of Connecticut
Gordon Giampietro of Wisconsin to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin
Marilyn Jean Horan of Pennsylvania to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania
William Jung of Florida to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida
Chad Kennedy of Pennsylvania to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Maryellen Noreika of Delaware to the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
Jill Otake of Hawaii to the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii
Trump assumed the presidency with more than 100 federal judicial vacancies, including one on the U.S. Supreme Court.
The White House has touted Trump’s success with federal judicial nominations, but he has had to withdraw three nominations to U.S. district courts.
Two of the nominees were scrutinized for their lack of experience, and the third was found to have made disparaging remarks about transgender children.At this point, you’ve probably seen article after article about Net Neutrality. I’m not going to spend a ton of time talking about what the issue is. You can find that all over the internet. What I do want to spend time doing is talking about the impacts to Smart Homes. While it may not seem like there are any at first, you’ll be surprised to find out that you could definitely be impacted, even if all of your devices are local only.
Let’s start with the most obvious: WiFi devices. Right now, the devices you use have just as much priority as any other internet traffic. When you open up your phone and load up your Belkin app, it’s connecting to Belkin’s servers to get the status of all your devices. When you press a button to turn a light on, a message is sent from your phone, to Belkin, and back to the device in your house. The device then turns on and reports status back to Belkin, which then updates the status on your phone. All of this is routed through the internet.
Let’s look at the Samsung SmartThings setup. When you open the SmartThings app on your phone, it reaches out to Samsung’s servers, over the internet, to get the status of all your devices. The server responds back with the latest status and updates your phone app. Similarly to the Belkin app, when you press a button to turn a light on, a message is sent from your phone, to Samsung, and back to the hub in your house. The hub then turns the light on and updates Samsung’s servers, which then update your phone. All of this is routed through the internet.
So what happens if Net Neutrality is repealed? How does this impact you?
Let’s use Verizon as an example, since Ajit Pai, the current chairman of the FCC and the person who is leading the Net Neutrality repeal effort, came from Verizon. Verizon currently offers home internet service to many homes across the United Status. Today, with the current rules in place, Verizon cannot prioritize Samsung’s traffic over any other traffic. Devices like Garadget, which were started by an engineer in his garage, have just as much priority as devices like the Belkin WeMo. If the Net Neutrality rules are revoked, that will no longer be the case. Verizon can then determine which devices have higher priority than others. A company like Samsung, which has billions of dollars, can pay to have its smart home traffic have higher priority over others. Your Garadget will all of a sudden require an additional fee for you to use, all because the Garadget founder can’t put up as much money as Samsung.
Consider the alternative: what if Verizon decides to get into the Smart Home business? Once they start offering their own hub and smart devices, they can prioritize their traffic over others. Do you want to continue to use SmartThings to manage your home? You sure can, for an additional $10-$15 a month.
I keep saying “Prioritize their traffic”. What does this mean? What are the real world impacts to you? What it basically comes down to is speed, or even availability. The traffic to Samsung can be severely slowed down, to the point where it’s unusable. Right now, it takes less than a second for me to turn a light on or off from my phone. With no Net Neutrality rules in place, Verizon can make it so it takes as long as they want it to take, while still keeping traffic to their smart home devices taking less than a second. Verizon can also simply deny access to Samsung’s servers, unless you pay a premium.
Now that’s for devices that use the internet. What if you don’t have any of those devices? What if all your devices are on Z-Wave, and your hub is local only and doesn’t touch the internet. Well, my question to you is, do you ever research how to fix any of your devices over the internet? What if those websites don’t pony up any money to be part of the premium packages that Verizon offers? All of that data that you might want to research could quickly not become available.
Let’s talk about my website, DadInASmartHome.com. I do this as a hobby. It costs me money for hosting, each month. As you can see, I run no ads. I have referral links every once in a while, but that’s rarely enough to compensate for hosting. I just do this for fun. What happens if Net Neutrality rules are removed? If I publish an article that isn’t completely positive, companies like Verizon can simply not prioritize any traffic to my site. They can prioritize traffic to sites that stay positive. Objective articles could simply go away, all without you even knowing.
Is all of this fear mongering? Potentially. If you want to see what it’s like without Net Neutrality rules, though, I encourage you to look at the country of Portugal. Here’s an internet offering from that country:
That’s not theoretical or a possibility, that’s happening right now.
This is why Net Neutrality is so important.
What Can You Do?
Head to https://www.battleforthenet.com/. They’ve made it really simple for you to get your message across to your representative. Make your voice heard before it is too late.Image: Yle
Kari Harju, head of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service’s security unit says Finland should take steps to ban the Finnish Resistance Movement, a neo-Nazi organization.
“It would be a signal to the people, now that so many incidents have taken place,” he said.
The Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle’s Thursday A-talk programme was devoted to a discussion of the white supremacy organization. The National Police Board and the National Office of the Prosecutor agreed in October that the National Police Board would continue an exploration of a possible prohibition.
“We are talking about our Constitutional rights, like freedom of assembly, but the Constitution under no circumstances permits the enactment of criminal offenses. Many difficult questions are however linked with a ban: for example, can we officially prohibit the symbols? And the group exists throughout the Nordics, so what will happen if we ban it in Finland and it is not banned in Sweden? The Swedish branch might even become a political party there, so what kind of situation would that present?” Harju said.
Finns Party MP opposes idea
Populist Finns Party MP Juho Eerola was also on the discussion panel Thursday evening. He is not in favour of banning the group.
“In my opinion it shouldn’t be banned. It’s not really an organized, registered association now. Instead it is a scattered group, even though it does have a hierarchy. Legally prohibiting it would mystify it, bringing it more notoriety and pushing it underground. If we ban their symbols, what is to stop them from dressing in a suit or some sports club’s tracksuits? On the contrary, it is better that people see the familiar symbols, so they know to keep their distance and call the police, if necessary,” Eerola said.
Former member: Ban won’t stop activity
Esa Holappa also appeared on A-talk. He was a founding member of the Finnish Resistance Movement back in the day, and has since renounced his former activity and resigned from the group.
“A prohibition wouldn’t make the problem go away. If the group is banned, it can simply pop up again the next day with a new name and logo. The same people will continue their activities on some level,” the former member said.
Publicity is best weapon
The last panellist, Helsinki city councillor and author of two books on Finland’s far-right Dan Koivulaakso says that bringing the activities of the group to the attention of the public is the only way to keep extremist groups like the Resistance Movement on the margins.
“I think that sending clear signals is good, but we can’t deny people freedom of assembly and expression. We have to challenge groups like this, so they cannot expand undisturbed. Publicity is often the best tool: in Helsinki, they have been evicted by landlords who have been informed about just what they are up to.”Hi everyone! It’s confession time:
With that in mind, submissions are now open for articles for the first issue of the Diplomacy Openings Journal. I encourage you all to put you minds to it and come up with an article; maybe we can land this plane together!
The recommended length for an article is between 500 words (for example: a short piece that discusses the benefits of a specific move) up to 10,000 words (for example: a complete dissertation on the opening options available to England and their strategic consequences). In other words: don’t write a paragraph; don’t write a book.
Submissions are accepted from all levels of players, from World Champions to brand new e-mail players, so please share this with any sites you know to discuss Diplomacy.
For more information, get in touch through Facebook or Twitter.
AdvertisementsMarc Kasowitz speaks after Comey’s appearence before the Senate intelligence committee, saying leak of ‘privileged communications’ should be investigated
Donald Trump’s lawyer flatly denied two of the key claims made by James Comey on Thursday and attacked the fired FBI chief over his admission he had leaked a story to the press.
In an aggressive attempt to push back against Comey’s testimony before the Senate intelligence committee, Marc Kasowitz accused Comey of “unilaterally and surreptitiously” making “unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications” with the president.
James Comey punched back hard – and put Trump's truthfulness centre stage |
became, after 1952, one of the hardest-hitting adversaries of the late Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin, a notable exponent of jugular-vein politics. Moreover, Mr. Stevenson turned into an articulate spokesman for internationalism and an active titular leader of his party. To the shallowness of practical politics, he added a philosophy of liberalism that was almost Jeffersonian in its literate defense of the rights of the individual, its educated revulsion against mob-inflaming demagoguery. "When demagoguery and deceit become a national political movement," he asserted, "we Americans are in trouble; not just Democrats, but all of us." Genial, with a touch of shyness, this product of Princeton, Harvard and Northwestern University seemed so out of place in practical politics that a more seasoned politician tutoring him for active campaigning recalled, "Godawmighty, we almost had to tear off the starched dickeys and the Homburg hat he used to wear." Trained to the law and diplomacy, he was a realist at dealing with essential political compromise. But when moved deeply by principle he risked political sabotage and personal obloquy for his convictions. Thus, during 1952, when he was asked why, in 1949, he had signed an affidavit speaking well of the reputation of Alger Hiss, later convicted of perjury, Mr. Stevenson replied: "I am a lawyer, I think that one of the most fundamental responsibilities, not only of every citizen, but particularly of lawyers, is to give testimony in a court of law, to give it honestly and willingly, and it will be a very unhappy day for Anglo-Saxon justice when a man, even a man in public life, is too timid to state what he knows and what he has heard about a defendant in a criminal trial for fear that defendant might be convicted. That would to me be the ultimate timidity." On July 25, 1952, what was described as the first "open" Democratic National Convention in 20 years nominated Mr. Stevenson as its Presidential candidate and Senator John J. Sparkman of Alabama as his running mate. They opposed General Eisenhower and the then Senator Richard M. Nixon of California. Mr. Stevenson, then Governor of Illinois, had insisted repeatedly that he would "rather not" be President. He was quoted as having said that he was not fitted mentally, temperamentally or physically for the office. The Stevenson boom began in the spring of 1952, after he had visited President Truman in Washington. But keeping outwardly aloof from the scramble for convention delegates, he refused to identify himself as a candidate down to the moment the voting began. In his acceptance speech to the convention the candidate told the cheering delegates: "Sacrifice, patience, understanding and implacable purpose may be our lot for years to come. Let's face it. Let's talk sense to the American people." His candor cost him many votes. On the question of who should receive the benefit of royalties from offshore oil deposits, he took his stand with President Truman that the Federal Government had "paramount rights" in the deposits. This cost him much support in Texas Florida and Virginia. He refused to take a stand in favor of continuing discrimination against Negro citizens, which antagonized "white supremacy" elements in the Democratic party in the South. At the same time his firm belief in states' rights and responsibilities cost him some Negro votes. Among other issues that influenced the vote substantially were corruption in Washington, Communist infiltration, the Korean war, high taxes and the high cost of living, fear of inflation and the growth of Federal centralism. These were pressed by Republican campaigners. But the greatest obstacle to Mr. Stevenson's success was the popularity of his opponent. Analyses of the vote indicated that although labor had gone solidly for Mr. Stevenson and although he had retained much of the farm vote, he had lost the support of women voters and particularly the so-called independent voters of both sexes. But the strength of Mr. Stevenson's candidacy was shown in the fact that under circumstances that should have produced an overwhelming Republican landslide--a popular candidate, popular issues and an incumbent Administration whose party had been in power for 20 years--the Democratic candidate rolled up 3,000,000 more votes than were received by President Truman in 1948 in his victory over Thomas E. Dewey. With the 1952 election over, Mr. Stevenson took the role of Opposition leader, although he admitted that he envied one man--the Governor of Illinois. His first speech and a four-day visit to Washington rallied nearly all Democrats to his side. He received such an admiring welcome from the jubilant Republicans at the capital that political opponents jested that he could not have been feted more if his candidacy had been successful. Part of the tribute arose because he took immediate steps to heal the wounds of the bitter phases of the campaign and did what he could to rally his fellow Democrats behind the incoming President. During the visit, Mr. Stevenson met with Democratic leaders and mapped plans to unite the party in opposition. He also conferred with leaders of the Republican Administration about his plans for a nonpolitical world tour, covering particularly the Far East. On the five-month tour he talked with leading figures and studied conditions in Korea, Malay, Burma, India and the then Indochina, as well as in various European countries. He said the real purpose of his tour had been self-education. Mr. Stevenson underwent a kidney stone operation in Chicago in April, 1954. A month later it was reported that he had completely recovered. Taking a vigorous part in the bitter Congressional election campaign of 1954, he hammered in his speeches at the three principal issues of foreign policy, domestic economy and internal security. This confirmed him as his party's chief national spokesman. The Democratic victory in the elections made him the leading contender for the 1956 Presidential nomination. He Said Republican Party Was 'Half McCarthy' His attacks on the Republicans concentrated on the influence of Senator McCarthy. The Republican party, he charged, had become "half McCarthy and half Eisenhower" and Vice President Nixon, the principal Republican campaigner, he accused of preaching "McCarthyism in a white collar." Mr. Nixon declared that Mr. Stevenson had "not changed since he testified for Alger Hiss," and he accused Mr. Stevenson of unconsciously having spread Communist propaganda. After the election of 1954 Mr. Stevenson announced that he was returning to the private practice of law in Chicago. "I have done what I could for the Democratic party for the past two years," he said, "and now I shall have to be less active and give more attention to my own affairs." Mr. Stevenson was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court and was engaged by the Radio Corporation of America to defend it in a $16,000,000 antitrust suit. He lost the first two legal skirmishes of the case. He still kept in touch with political and foreign affairs, however. In April, 1955, after a long Democratic silence, he made a national radio address opposing the defense of the Chinese Nationalist islands of Quemoy and Matsu. He also called for a joint declaration by the United States and its Allies pledging united defense of Taiwan pending its final disposition. Although Mr. Stevenson repeatedly refused to say whether he would be a candidate for the Presidential nomination in 1956, he had won the support of the party's most influential leaders. However, many in the South who had opposed him in 1952 still did so. In sharp contrast with his preconvention attitude of indifference toward the 1952 nomination, Mr. Stevenson quickly jumped into the fight for the 1956 nomination. He formally announced his candidacy on Nov. 15, 1955. Moderation was the keynote of his campaign, particularly with respect to enforcement of the Supreme Court's decision abolishing racial segregation in public schools, but generally with respect to all issues, foreign and domestic. Mr. Stevenson took an early lead in the race for the nomination. The support of political organizations in large-population states gave him an imposing list of delegate strength. However, he suffered setbacks in early 1956 states primaries, where Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee showed surprising popular support. These reverses stimulated Mr. Stevenson to more aggressive tactics. Instead of holding aloof from the crowds, he began to make hand-shaking tours asking the voters for support. As the primaries continued, he began to fare better, and by May the political observers seemed to agree that he had reversed the tide, which then appeared to be running in his direction. Mr. Stevenson's campaign managers from the beginning claimed victory for him. They asserted that more delegates had been pledged to him than the majority necessary to nominate at the Democratic National Convention. In 1952 Mr. Stevenson had surrounded himself largely with "amateurs," but in the 1956 campaign he put more emphasis on practical politics in choosing top aides at his Chicago campaign headquarters. He pitched his early campaign speeches to a vigorous attack on President Eisenhower's foreign policy. Whenever possible he ignored his Democratic opponents for the nomination, and sought to draw the issue from the beginning as Stevenson versus Eisenhower. In the election, he was defeated by a greater margin than in 1952, polling 26 million popular votes to more than 35.5 million by President Eisenhower. The Electoral College figures were 73 to 457. His Father Was Executive Of Hearst Enterprises Mr. Stevenson was born on Feb. 5, 1900, in Los Angeles, where his father, Lewis Green Stevenson, was at the time an executive of Hearst newspapers, mining and ranching properties. His family roots went back to the pre-Revolutionary War period. He was a grandson and namesake of a Vice President of the United States--the Adlai Stevenson who held the office in the second term of Grover Cleveland's Administration. Through his mother, he was a fifth-generation Illinoisan, a grandson of Jesse Fell, who was the first to propose Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency. When Adlai was 6 years old, the family moved back to their home town of Bloomington, Ill., where Mrs. Stevenson's family owned The Daily Pantagraph. Adlai's father later became State Secretary for Illinois and, from 1914 to 1917, served as chairman of the State Board of Pardons. Mr. Stevenson went to the Choate Preparatory School, Wallingford, Conn., and Princeton University, from which he was graduated in 1922. He was managing editor of The Daily Princetonian. After leaving Princeton, Mr. Stevenson went to Harvard Law School for two years. He got passing marks but was disinterested in his studies. A legal case that evolved from the death of an uncle redistributed shares in The Pantagraph between members of the family. As a result, Mr. Stevenson and his cousin, Davis C. Merwin, decided they would learn the newspaper business. Mr. Stevenson spent a couple of years on the paper in various editorial posts, but by the time the courts had ruled that the Stevenson and Merwin families should have equal shares of ownership, his interest in becoming a newspaper editor had waned. He decided to finish his law course and, having fallen a year behind his classmates, who already had been graduated from Harvard, he entered the law school of Northwestern University. He received his law degree in 1926. Soon after his graduation, he settled in Chicago to practice law. In December, 1928, Mr. Stevenson married Ellen Borden of Chicago. Her father, a socialite and financier who made the first of several fortunes as a colleague of John Hertz in the Yellow Cab Company, later became active in mining in St. Louis. The Stevensons were divorced in 1949. His wife was said to abhor politics and to have wished to devote herself to the world of art and literature. No other person and no scandal were involved in the legal proceedings, held in Las Vegas, Nev. The couple had three sons, Adlai Ewing III, Borden and John Fell. Soon after the 1952 Presidential boom started for Mr. Stevenson, he was approached by a would- be biographer. The man told the Governor he was going to write a book about him. "I don't see how you are going to do it," Mr. Stevenson said. "My life has been hopelessly undramatic. I wasn't born in a log cabin. I didn't work my way through school nor did I rise from rags to riches, and there's no use trying to pretend I did. I'm not a Wilkie and I don't claim to be a simple, barefoot La Salle Street lawyer. You might be able to write about some of my ancestors. They accomplished quite a lot at one time or another but you can't do anything much about me. At least, I'd hate to have to try it." Mr. Stevenson had laid the groundwork for his political career by public service that began in 1933, when he first went to Washington as one of the many bright young lawyers President Franklin D. Roosevelt had summoned to help formulate the New Deal. For two years, Mr. Stevenson was special counsel to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, touring the country, holding hearings and advising regional groups of farmers, ranchers, orchardists and dairymen how to utilize the measure and then returning to Washington to try to work out marketing agreements. At the end of the two years he went back to private law practice in Chicago. He served as president for one term of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations--a post in which he got considerable experience as an after-dinner speaker--and he also became Chicago chairman of the William Allen White Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. Mr. Stevenson brought people like Wendell Willkie, Carl Sandburg and Dorothy Thompson to address meetings, one of which, in 1941, filled the Chicago Stadium. In the summer of that year the late Frank Knox, then Secretary of the Navy and a close friend of Mr. Stevenson's, telephoned. Mr. Stevenson later quoted Mr. Knox as saying, "Everyone else around Washington has a lawyer and I guess I ought to have one too." He was in Washington within a few days, starting to prepare legal machinery whereby the Navy, in case it became necessary, could take over the strike-bound Kearny shipyards in New Jersey, then building essential warships. He continued to do similar legal work for the Navy Department until 1943, when he led a mission to Italy to plan occupation policies. Later he served as an assistant to Secretaries of State Edward Stettinius and James Byrnes. He also was a representative to the San Francisco United Nations Conference, and then was an aide to the United States delegation in the United Nations General Assembly. At the meeting of the General Assembly held in London in January, 1946, Mr. Stevenson was senior adviser to the American delegation. He resigned after the session ended in March, but President Truman appointed him alternate delegate to the second session that fall. Mr. Stevenson returned to Chicago in 1947. His friends backed him as a "clean-up" candidate against the Republican administration of Gov. Dwight. W. Green. Winning the backing of Jacob M. Arvey, chairman of the Cook County Democratic Committee, Mr. Stevenson was nominated for Governor. Paul Douglas, then Professor of Economics at Chicago University, was named for Senator. The Democratic "clean-up" team swept into office, Mr. Stevenson defeating Mr. Green by 572,000 votes, while President Truman was nosing out Thomas E. Dewey in Illinois by a mere 34,000. The self-styled "amateur" in politics consecrated his Government in an inaugural address to "plain talk, hard work and prairie horse sense." Drive on Gambling Listed Among Acts as Governor During his term in office Mr. Stevenson was credited with the following accomplishments: He sent state policemen to stamp out commercial gambling downstate when local officials failed to act. He lopped off 1,300 non-working politicians from the state payroll. He set up a merit system in the state police force that ended the system of political by preferential appointments. He increased state aid to school districts. He started a broad road improvement program that included enforcement of truck-weight limits, a higher gasoline tax and increased truck licenses to pay construction costs. He overhauled the state's welfare program, placing it on a merit basis and forcing financially able relatives to pay for the care of patients. He streamlined the state Government by pushing through 78 reform measures. He converted the political State Commerce Commission, the utility rate-fixing agency, into a bipartisan body. An attendant at the birth of the New Deal, Mr. Stevenson supported Mr. Truman's successor Fair Deal, but his differences with the Administration on some phases of domestic policy were implicit in his own record in Illinois. The variance was evident in his stand on the cost of Government, taxation and negligence toward official irregularities and corruption. "I think government should be as small in scope and as local in character as possible," he said on one occasion. Mr. Stevenson was the author of seven books: "Major Campaign Speeches, 1952," "Call to Greatness," "What I Think," "The New America," "Friends and Enemies," "Putting First Things First" and "Looking Outward."Aspiring to do better than one's parents The American dream promises that hard work and opportunity will lead to a better life. Although the specifics of what constitutes a better life vary from generation to generation, one constant is that children expect to do better—or at least to have a good chance at doing better—than their parents. Chetty et al. show that this dream did come true for children born in the middle of the 20th century, but only for half of children born in 1984 (see the Policy Forum by Katz and Krueger). A more even distribution of economic growth, rather than more growth, would allow more children to fulfill their dreams. Science, this issue p. 398; see also p. 382
Abstract We estimated rates of “absolute income mobility”—the fraction of children who earn more than their parents—by combining data from U.S. Census and Current Population Survey cross sections with panel data from de-identified tax records. We found that rates of absolute mobility have fallen from approximately 90% for children born in 1940 to 50% for children born in the 1980s. Increasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates alone cannot restore absolute mobility to the rates experienced by children born in the 1940s. However, distributing current GDP growth more equally across income groups as in the 1940 birth cohort would reverse more than 70% of the decline in mobility. These results imply that reviving the “American dream” of high rates of absolute mobility would require economic growth that is shared more broadly across the income distribution.
One of the defining features of the “American dream” is the aspiration that children have a higher standard of living than their parents (1). When children are asked to assess their economic progress, they frequently compare their own standard of living to that of their parents (2, 3). Such measures of “absolute income mobility”—the fraction of children earning or consuming more than their parents—are also often the focus of policy-makers when judging the degree of economic opportunity in the United States (4).
Despite longstanding interest in the topic, empirical evidence concerning absolute income mobility remains scarce, mainly because of the lack of large, high-quality panel data sets linking children to their parents in the United States (5). Some studies have used panel surveys such as the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to measure the level of absolute income mobility for recent U.S. cohorts (6–9). These studies have produced conflicting results because estimates of absolute mobility using available panel income data sets are sensitive to econometric assumptions and sample specification (5). Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence on trends in absolute income mobility, although prior work has documented declining absolute mobility in terms of occupational status (10) and educational attainment (11).
Here, we developed a new method of estimating rates of absolute mobility that can be implemented with existing data sets covering the 1940 to 1984 birth cohorts. Our approach combines two inputs: (i) marginal income distributions for parents and children, and (ii) the copula of the parent and child income distribution, defined as the joint distribution of parent and child income ranks.
We used cross-sectional data from the decennial U.S. Census and Current Population Surveys (CPS) to estimate marginal income distributions for children in the 1940 to 1984 birth cohorts and their parents. The census data sets cover between 1% and 5% of the U.S. population, yielding samples of 20,000 to 35,000 families per cohort, whereas the CPS samples include approximately 1500 to 3000 people per cohort. In our baseline analysis, we measured income in pretax dollars at the household level when parents and children were about 30 years old, which we refer to as the amount of income “earned” by parents and children for convenience. We adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index Research Series (CPI-U-RS). Finally, we ensured that our results are robust to a variety of alternative specification choices, such as using different inflation adjustments, adjusting for taxes and transfers, measuring income at later ages, and measuring income at the individual rather than family level.
We estimated the fraction of children who earn more than their parents in each birth cohort by combining the marginal income distributions with the copula in each cohort. For children born in or after 1980, we followed Chetty et al. (12) and directly estimated the joint distribution of parent and child ranks, using information from de-identified federal income tax returns covering more than 10 million parent-child pairs. For cohorts born before 1980, such population-level panel data are not available. We addressed this missing data problem in two ways. First, we determined estimates of absolute mobility under the assumption that the copula remained stable across all birth cohorts, a benchmark motivated by evidence of copula stability (i.e., stable relative mobility) since the 1970s (13–15). Because we have no evidence that the copula was in fact stable prior to 1970, we additionally constructed upper and lower bounds on absolute mobility for each birth cohort by using linear programming methods to search over all plausible copulas (16). Our key technical result is that these bounds are very tight for the 1940 to 1950 birth cohorts, allowing us to obtain a reliable time series on rates of absolute mobility despite the lack of historical panel data.
Using this methodology, we found that rates of absolute upward income mobility in the United States have fallen sharply since 1940. Under the benchmark of copula stability, the fraction of children earning more than their parents fell from 92% in the 1940 birth cohort to 50% in the 1984 birth cohort. Relaxing the copula stability assumption for earlier cohorts, we found that the rate of absolute mobility for the 1940 birth cohort is bounded between 84% and 98% across all plausible copulas, well above the rates observed for recent cohorts. Thus, the key piece of missing data that has hampered direct measurement of absolute mobility—the lack of historical panel data linking parents and children—turns out to be inessential for characterizing trends in mobility.
Why have rates of upward income mobility fallen so sharply over the past half century? There have been two important macroeconomic trends that have affected the incomes of children born in the 1980s relative to those born in the 1940s: lower Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates and greater inequality in the distribution of growth (17). We considered two counterfactual scenarios to assess the relative contribution of these two factors.
First, we considered a “higher GDP growth” scenario, in which children in the 1980 cohort experience GDP growth from birth to age 30 that is comparable to what was experienced by the 1940 cohort, but GDP is distributed in proportion to GDP shares by income percentile in 2010. In this scenario, absolute mobility rises to 62%. Second, we considered a “more broadly shared growth” scenario, in which the actual GDP in 2010 is allocated across income percentiles as it was in the 1940 cohort. In this scenario, the rate of absolute mobility rises to 80%. Together, these simulations show that increasing GDP growth without changing the current distribution of growth would have modest effects on rates of absolute mobility. Under the current distribution of GDP, we would need real GDP growth rates above 6% per year to return to the rates of absolute mobility seen in the 1940s. Intuitively, because a large fraction of GDP goes to a small number of high income earners today, higher GDP growth does not substantially increase the number of children who earn more than their parents. Hence, reviving the “American dream” of high rates of absolute mobility would require more broadly shared economic growth rather than just higher GDP growth rates.
Methods and data Let denote the income of child i in birth cohort c, and let denote the income of his or her parents. In our baseline analysis, we measure income as pretax family income (summing income across spouses) at age 30. We measure incomes in 2014 dollars, adjusting for inflation using the CPI-U-RS. In sensitivity analyses (discussed below), we consider several variants of this income concept: using alternative price deflators, measuring income at age 40, measuring income after taxes and transfers, and adjusting for family size. We define the rate of absolute mobility in cohort c, A c, as the fraction of children in cohort c that earn weakly more than their parents: (1)where N c is the number of children in the cohort. We estimate A c by decomposing the joint distribution of parent and child income into the marginal distributions of parent and child income and the joint distribution of the ranks (the copula). Let denote the percentile rank of child i in the income distribution for children in birth cohort c. Similarly, let denote the percentile rank of child i’s parent in the income distribution of parents who have children in cohort c. The joint distribution of parent and child ranks for cohort c is given by C c (rk, rp), the probability density function of observing a child with income rank rk and parent income rank rp. Let and denote the rth quantile of the child and parent income distributions (measured in dollars), respectively. and summarize the marginal distributions of parent and child incomes. With this notation, we can write absolute mobility as (2)Intuitively, a child with rank rk earns weakly more than her parent with rank rp if the rkth quantile of the child’s income distribution is weakly higher than the rpth quantile of the parent’s income distribution; that is,. The copula, C c (rk, rp), measures the probability that each pair of ranks (rk, rp) occurs. Absolute mobility is the fraction of cases where, integrating over the copula. Equation 2 shows that absolute mobility can be calculated by estimating (i) the marginal income distribution for children (which yields ), (ii) the marginal income distributions for parents (which yields ), and (iii) the copula, C c (rk, rp). We next describe how we estimate these three distributions (see the supplementary materials for details). Children’s marginal income distributions We obtained marginal income distributions at age 30 for children in the 1940 to 1984 birth cohorts directly from the CPS March 1970 to March 2014 samples. The sample of children includes U.S.-born members of the 1940 to 1984 birth cohorts who, at age 30, were present in the U.S. and not institutionalized. We exclude immigrants in order to have a consistent sample in which we observe both parents’ and children’s incomes (18, 19). We compute family income as the sum of spouses’ personal pretax income. Parents’ marginal income distributions Estimating the income distributions of parents at age 30 who have children in a given birth cohort is more complicated because of the lack of historical panel data. We construct parents’ income distributions for children in each of the 1940 to 1984 birth cohorts by pooling data from census cross sections between 1940 and 2000, using the 1% IPUMS samples (20). We restrict our attention to individuals who have children between the ages of 16 and 45. To cover all parents via decennial censuses, we estimate parents’ incomes when the highest earner is between the ages of 25 and 35, a symmetric window around age 30. For example, we estimate the income distribution of parents of children in the 1970 birth cohort as follows. First, we use the 1970 census and select parents between the ages of 25 and 35 who have a child less than 1 year old in 1970. Next, we turn to the 1980 census and select parents between the ages of 26 and 35 who have 10-year-old children (i.e., individuals who had a child in 1970 when they were between the ages of 16 and 25). Third, to identify parents between ages 35 and 45 who had children less than 1 year old in 1970, we turn to the 1960 census and select all individuals aged 25 to 35. We give this group a weight equal to the fraction of individuals in the 1970 census between the ages of 35 and 45 who had a child less than 1 year old in 1970. This approach assumes that the income distribution of those who have children after age 35 is representative of the income distribution of the general population. Such an assumption is unavoidable, as one cannot identify parents who will have children in the future in cross-sectional data. Fortunately, this assumption turns out to be inconsequential in practice because most children are born before their parents are 35. In the supplementary materials, we show that restricting attention to parents who have children between the ages of 25 and 35, thereby avoiding this assumption entirely, yields very similar results. We estimate income distributions for parents with children in each of the other birth cohorts from 1940 to 1984 using an analogous approach. Summary statistics on parents’ and children’s incomes by birth cohort are reported in table S1. Copula For children born in the 1980s, we estimate a nonparametric copula—a 100 × 100 matrix giving the probability of each child and parent rank pair (rk, rp)—exactly as in Chetty et al. (12). The sample includes all children born in 1980, 1981, or 1982 who are linked to parents according to dependent claiming on tax forms. For both parents and children, we define family income in the tax records in a manner that is as similar as possible to the measures in the CPS and census. For those who file tax returns, we define income as adjusted gross income (AGI) plus the nontaxable portion of two types of income distributed by the U.S. Social Security Administration: Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Income. For nonfilers, we measure income using third-party information returns, defining income as the sum of the W-2 wage earnings, Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Income, and unemployment insurance income. If individuals do not file a tax return and have no information returns filed on their behalf, taxable income is coded as zero. Following (12), we measure children’s incomes as mean income in 2011 and 2012, when children in the 1980 to 1982 birth cohorts are between the ages of 30 and 32. We measure parents’ incomes as mean taxable income between 1996 and 2000, the first 5 years in which population tax records are available. Parents are between the ages of 30 and 60 when we measure their incomes because we limit the sample to parents who have children between the ages of 15 and 40 during 1980–1982. Chetty et al. (12) showed that the distribution of income ranks is stable between the ages of 30 and 60. Because of this rank stability, this approach provides an accurate estimate of the copula that one would obtain if one could observe income ranks at age 30 for all parents. We exclude parents with zero or negative income when constructing the copula because parents with no earnings typically do not file a tax return and hence cannot be linked to their children on the basis of dependent claiming. This does not pose a problem for measuring absolute mobility because children whose parents have zero income always earn at least as much as their parents. We calculate the fraction of parents with zero income in each cohort based on census data and include these individuals when computing average rates of absolute mobility, assigning the group of children whose parents have zero income an absolute mobility rate of 100%. We define children’s percentile ranks based on their incomes relative to other children in their birth cohort. We include children with zero income when constructing these ranks by defining their ranks as the fraction of children with zero income divided by 2; for instance, if 10% of children have zero income, all children with zero income would be assigned a percentile rank of 5. Likewise, parents are assigned percentile ranks based on their incomes relative to other parents (among those with positive income). The copula is then estimated as a 100 × 100 matrix that gives the joint probability of each child and parent rank pair (rk, rp). For children born before 1980, we lack the panel data necessary to estimate the copula. Chetty et al. (15) used a 0.1% IRS Statistics of Income panel to show that the copula (relative mobility, measured by percentile ranks) is approximately stable from the 1971 birth cohort to the 1984 birth cohort. Motivated by this result, we begin by assuming copula stability across all cohorts since 1940, applying the copula estimated for the 1980 to 1982 cohorts to all cohorts. We then compute bounds on absolute mobility searching over alternative copulas, as there is no empirical evidence that copula stability holds going back to 1940. The statistics we construct on absolute mobility by birth cohort, parent percentile, state, and gender can be downloaded from www.equality-of-opportunity.org.
Baseline estimates Our baseline estimates of absolute mobility assume copula stability from 1940 to 1984 and measure family income in real pretax dollars at age 30. Figure 1A plots rates of absolute mobility by parent income percentile for the decadal birth cohorts, 1940 to 1980. Each series shows the percentage of children earning more than their parents versus their parents’ income percentile, limiting the sample to parents with positive income. Fig. 1 Baseline estimates of absolute mobility by birth cohort. (A and B) The fraction of children earning more than their parents (“absolute mobility”) by parent income percentile for selected child birth cohorts (A) and on average by child birth cohort (B). Only parents with positive income are included in (A); within this group, parent income percentiles are constructed according to their ranks in the distribution of parents’ incomes within each child cohort. Parents with zero income are included in (B), defining absolute mobility as 100% for that subgroup when computing the mean rate of absolute mobility by cohort. Child income is measured at age 30 in the CPS March supplement as the sum of individual and spousal income, excluding immigrants after 1994. Parent income is measured in the census as the sum of the spouses’ incomes for families in which the highest earner is between ages 25 and 35. Children’s and parents’ incomes are measured in real 2014 dollars using the CPI-U-RS. Absolute mobility is calculated by combining these income distributions with the copula estimated for the 1980 to 1982 cohorts in tax data by (12). In the 1940 birth cohort, nearly all children grew up to earn more than their parents, regardless of their parents’ income. Naturally, rates of absolute mobility were lower at the highest parent income levels, as children have less scope to do better than their parents if their parents had very high incomes. Rates of absolute mobility have fallen substantially since 1940, especially for families in the middle and upper class. At the 10th percentile of the parent income distribution, children born in 1940 had a 94% chance of earning more than their parents, compared with 70% for children born in 1980. At the 50th percentile, rates of absolute mobility fell from 93% for children born in 1940 to 45% for those born in 1980. And at the 90th percentile, rates of absolute mobility fell from 88% to 33% over the same period. Figure 1B aggregates the rates of absolute mobility across parent incomes (including those with zero income) and plots average absolute mobility (A c ) for each birth cohort from 1940 to 1984. Absolute mobility declined starkly across birth cohorts: On average, 92% of children born in 1940 grew up to earn more than their parents. In contrast, only 50% of children born in 1984 grew up to earn more than their parents. The downward trend in absolute mobility was especially sharp between the 1940 and 1964 cohorts. The decline paused for children born in the late 1960s and early 1970s, whose incomes at age 30 were measured in the midst of the economic boom of the late 1990s. Absolute mobility then continued to fall steadily in the remaining birth cohorts.
Bounds under alternative copulas We now assess the sensitivity of the estimates reported in Fig. 1 to the assumption that the copula remained stable at the values observed for the 1980 birth cohort going back to 1940. We do so by deriving bounds on the rate of absolute mobility in each birth cohort, searching over all copulas C c (rk, rp), defined nonparametrically by a 100 × 100 percentile-level matrix. We restrict our attention to copulas satisfying the intuitive requirement that children from higher-income families are less likely to have lower incomes (relative to children from lower-income families). Formally, we assume that the income distribution of children with higher-income parents first-order stochastically dominates (FOSD) the income distribution of children from lower-income families: (3)For each birth cohort, we calculate bounds on absolute mobility by solving for the copulas C c (rk, rp) that minimize and maximize A c, as defined in Eq. 2, given the empirically observed marginal distributions, and. We impose two sets of constraints on this problem: (i) the FOSD requirements for each (rk, rp) pair in Eq. 3, and (ii) integration constraints requiring that each of the columns and rows of C c (rk, rp) sum to 1. This optimization problem has 100 × 100 = 10,000 arguments, which might appear to be computationally intractable. Fortunately, because the objective function in Eq. 2 and all the constraints are linear, this problem can be solved rapidly with a standard linear programming algorithm. The results of this bounding exercise are presented in Fig. 2A. The series in circles reproduces the baseline estimates under the assumption of copula stability shown in Fig. 1B. The dashed lines show the |
Rehren said. "It shows a pretty advanced skill with this difficult material. It might not have been on large scales, but by the time of the Iron Age, they had about 2,000 years of experience working with meteoritic iron."
This is not the first time beads from this Egyptian tomb have been linked to the cosmos. Earlier this year, in May, researchers at the Open University and University of Manchester published a paper in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science about the celestial origins of the ancient beads.
Other researchers have identified different artifacts that also have space origins. Last year, German scientists discovered a Buddha statue that was carved from a meteorite between the eighth and 10th centuries.
The detailed findings of the new study were published online today (Aug. 19) in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
This story was provided by LiveScience, a sister site to SPACE.com. Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.3D Systems, the biggest and oldest 3D printing company in the World has filed litigation against Formlabs and their Form 1 printer. The infringement stems from one of 3D System’s stereolithography patents, a technique that uses a UV laser to selectively bind a vat of photoresin into a solid object. Not only that, Kickstarter is also targeted in the litigation, for aiding Formlabs in raising $2.95 million last October.
When the Suits Coming Marching In…
General Counsel for 3D Systems Andrew Johnson had this to say:
3D Systems invented and pioneered the 3D printing technology of stereolithography and has many active patents covering various aspects of the stereolithography process. Although Formlabs has publicly stated that certain patents have expired, 3D Systems believes the Form 1 3D printer infringes at least one of our patents, and we intend to enforce our patent rights.
This was to be expected. A lot of people in the community were surprised that Formlabs would try to use a technique that was clearly 3D System’s bread and butter. Although the original patents had expired, yet there are plenty of other related patents and techniques surrounding the technology. Take a look at the 8,000+ patents under their name here. Design patents are one thing, technical patents are another.
The part I can’t believe is that Kickstarter is also named in the suit. Details are murky, but one would expect it because Kickstarter made money from the campaign as well. This puts Kickstarter in a very bad position where they may have to vet projects even more closely, complete with patent lawyers vetoing campaigns before they get out the door.
…oh Lord, what is that Patent Number?
I’ve seen the Form 1 multiple times, talked to the representatives there and asked about this issue. Basically, they said the Form 1 uses expired patents. One was unaware that there could be an issue, which is pretty interesting. I don’t like the patent system that much – 3D Systems is a big company and day-by-day are becoming the complete anti-thesis of what the 3D Printing revolution stands for. It’s fair to suggest that they ought to protect their hard earned investment. But the basic patent of stereolithography died years ago. Maybe let this one go. Look at Stratasys – they invented FDM, the preferred method of RepRap, Makerbot and everyone else. And have they been chasing people down? No, actually.
Chill 3D Systems. Innovate, don’t sue. You can afford it.
Tank/copyright image: Andrew B. MyersCHENNAI: The state government plans to construct seven flyovers at vital junctions and seven bridges over water bodies in Chennai. These includes plans to link the North Usman Road and South Usman Road flyovers into a single grade separator up to Anna Salai or extend the South Usman Road flyover up to Anna Salai, for which a feasibility study has been proposed.Tabling the policy note for his department in the assembly on Monday, local administration minister K P Munusamy said: "A feasibility study for the construction of flyovers will be taken up through consultants." The announcement is seen as an endorsement of the corporation's plan spelt out in its budget presented in March.Apart from T Nagar, flyovers have been proposed at the junction of Adithanar Salai, Pantheon Road and Dr Rukmani Lakshmipathy Road, near the Mandaveli bus stand, at the K K Nagar-Arcot Road junction; at the Gandhi Mandapam Salai-Ponniamman Koil Salai junction in Kotturpuram, the Bharathi Salai-Royapettah Clock Tower junction, and at the Sterling Road junction.Most residents seem happy. S Abhaya Kumar of Mylai Ranganathan Street said the plan to link the two flyovers in T Nagar would ease congestion to a great extent. "Presently, residents of adjoining lanes find it difficult during emergencies," he said.Munusamy also announced a plan for small/large bridges across water bodies, including Otteri Nullah, Captain Cotton Canal, Virugambakkam canal and Kodungaiyur canal. However, Raj Cherubal of City Connect, a NGO, threw a sour note saying, "We don't know how far these plans will go. Often, feasibility studies are done for flyovers but we don't know if they will even materialize."This article is over 3 years old
Actor and charity present seven-year old Alex, who was born with a partially developed arm, with 3D-printed robotic arm
To most young fans, actor Robert Downey Jr is better known as the beloved superhero Iron Man.
To seven-year-old fan Alex, he’s just Robert.
Joining with the non-profit charity Limbitless Solutions as “another bionics expert”, Robert Downey Jr recently presented a 3D-printed bionic arm to Alex, who was born with a partially developed arm. The bionic arm, built by Albert Manero, is a recreation of Downey Jr’s own Iron Man gear.
Downey posted a video of the encounter to his Facebook page on Thursday, calling Alex “the most dapper 7-year-old I’ve ever met”.
“Half the time, I design one of these, and it keeps breaking on me,” he tells Alex in it, in character as billionaire inventor Tony Stark, the alter ego of Iron Man. “What I do is I keep on working on it, like you’re working on it with Albert.”
“He keeps working and working on it until he gets it right,” Alex replies, smiling shyly.
Downey thanked Manero and Limbitless “for their work making artificial limbs like this more affordable for families with kids who want to show the playground how badass they are”.
Last week, Downey announced the ultimate fan opportunity for those who donate to Julia’s House, a children’s hospice center: live a day in the life of Tony Stark ending in a trip to the premiere of Avenger: Age of Ultron.During a newly-taped appearance on Travis Scott and Chase B's Beats 1 show.wav radio, Birdman gave a surprisingly confident answer when asked about the status of Lil Wayne's long-delayed Tha Carter V project.
The interview, which airs January 6 at 3 pm EST and again twelve hours later, has the Cash Money co-founder talking about the early days of Cash Money ("[We were] trying to get out of the streets and find a different way to make a living, and we chose music," he reveals.)
He also discusses the upcoming Cash Money documentary, which be out on Apple Music in February.
Baby shared thoughts on Drake and lots more. Young Thug even shows up at one point to tease Scott about releasing his new album Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight on the same day as Thug's project Jeffery.
But the most fascinating segment comes when Birdman is asked directly about Tha Carter V. The album has been teased since 2012, and its budget has played a major part in the $51 million lawsuit between Wayne and Cash Money. Birdman seems untroubled by all of this, though, and confidently proclaims that the album is coming soon.
"It's definitely coming out," he said. "The situation with me and my son, I'm going to put it all behind us and just let it move forward. Wayne is one of the best artists ever to do the game, and I want to see him continue to do what he been doing, and I'm going to support whatever he's doing." You can hear the excerpt below.
POST CONTINUES BELOW
Given that Wayne himself seemed to hint earlier this week that Tha Carter V was indeed coming soon, perhaps fans will get to hear the long-awaited album in the not-too-distant future.CLEVELAND -- It's fair to say LeBron James has no regrets about putting one of the dunks of the year on Boston Celtics guard and personal rival Jason Terry on Monday night.
James created one of the season's best highlights when he surprised Terry on a fast break and dunked over him, sending Terry to the court.
Speaking before the Miami Heat took on the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday, James said he felt the play enacted some revenge on Terry for smack talk he has directed at James and the Heat over the last several seasons.
"I've had a chance to [review] it, and it was one of my better ones," James said. "The fact that it happened to J.T. made it that much sweeter. Because we all know J.T. and he talks too much sometimes. And I'm glad it happened to him."
The James-Terry rivalry started in 2011 when Terry said James wouldn't be able to guard him effectively for the entire NBA Finals when the Heat took on Terry's Dallas Mavericks. Terry finished the series strong offensively, and the Mavericks won the title 4-2.
"I'm welcoming the challenge," Terry said then. "We're going to see if he can do it for seven games."
Last week, Terry said he wasn't impressed with the Heat's then-21-game winning streak, which has now reached 23 games.
"[I'm] not really impressed with it or anything that they do," Terry said.Last May, an exhibit sponsored by the government of the Mexican state of Sinaloa compelled civic leaders in Culiacán, the capital, to denounce the artist Rosa María Robles and demand that the show be closed down. Comments left in the visitors’ book weren’t as harsh. After wandering aghast through installations that featured bloodied toilets and suspended children’s outfits pierced by dried cow tongues or long, knobby rubber penises, viewers wrote things like “It gave me nausea, but it made me think” and “This was very hard; it made me want to cry.” A few even thanked Robles for the exhibit. Sometimes a black boot was displayed in the act of shattering an ostrich egg. Not every viewer may have understood that this was the artist’s way of critiquing the macho narcotraficante culture of her native state, which has brought with it uncounted acts of violence, including hundreds of murders each year. But many did understand: people in Sinaloa know that los narcos actually wear those absurd boots—most fashionably made of ostrich leather—and in these hard times every day brings news of more lives they have shattered. And even a clueless outsider could grasp the meaning of the exhibit’s most controversial and memorable installation, referred to in the catalogue as “Red Carpet.” It was pieced together from the heavy woollen blankets typical of the Sinaloa mountain region, which, in the exhibit, were stiff with dried blood. Everyone in Sinaloa knows by now that in the wave of drug-related murders some of the most notorious victims have been the levantados, or pickups: cops or police chiefs or traffickers who are kidnapped, and whose mutilated corpses, wrapped in blankets, appear later. Rosa María Robles had somehow managed to obtain some of the blood-soaked blankets that had been used in such murders, but after the show opened state investigative police confiscated the blankets, on the ground that they are legal evidence. Robles, a tiny, wiry, loquacious woman who wears tight jeans and clingy tops, has spent most of her life in Culiacán. In the mid-nineties, she earned a respectable reputation crafting enormous, menhir-like monuments from tree trunks that fetched up on the banks of a river that runs through the city. Her artistic concerns at the time, she told me, were mainly ecological. In 2006, her work took a different turn when, in a sort of trance, she began assembling the exhibit she called “Navajas” (“Razors”). The various installation pieces came together quickly “and without stumbling,” she said one afternoon in her home, a sparsely furnished rented house in a dusty neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. “They ask me why I want to give this negative image of Sinaloa,” she said. “But I don’t. The image is already there. ‘Razors’ is about violence, but it calls for a reflection about the signs of decadence that surround us.” “Razors” is both raw and stagy, and overwhelming in a way that does not really play fair with the viewer. Indeed, Robles could be accused of trafficking in the same kind of bloody one-upmanship that the drug trade is currently engaged in. (When the authorities confiscated the bloody blankets, she cut one of her veins, collected the blood in a chamber pot, and painted a new set of blankets with it.) But, in her messy response to the mayhem around her, Robles, like many Mexicans who watched indifferently as the drug terror developed over the decades, is only just learning how to react to it. Sinaloa lies on the Pacific Ocean, six hundred and fifty miles south of the United States border. There is a significant fishing industry, some tourism along the coast, a fertile valley around Culiacán (in which a good portion of all the tomatoes, eggplants, and melons consumed in the United States is grown), and, east of this, a scraggly, steep, and serrated mountain range. This is the Sierra Madre Occidental; few paved roads wind along these mountains. Cannabis grows widely in the region. During the dry season, the sierra is parched; when the rains come, it bursts into life long enough for a poppy crop to bloom, leaving behind fields of round green pods heavy with narcotic milk. Spraying crops that grow at such a steep incline is difficult; persuading smallholders to eradicate a crop that offers prosperity and has been a way of life for decades is almost always impossible. Given the conditions, there is nothing surprising about the persistence of a clandestine drug trade in the region. What is unusual, perhaps, is how wrong things had to go before anyone paid attention.
In Sinaloa, Javier Valdez Cárdenas, a reporter, columnist, and editor for the scrappy local newspaper Río Doce, is an exception to the general indifference. Having for years made it his business to know a great deal about drug issues, he is a mandatory stop for Mexican and foreign journalists trying to figure out the Culiacán drug scene. Valdez is about forty, stocky, swarthy, and graying, but there is something of the cocky teen-ager in his manner. We had lunch on a scorching Culiacán afternoon, and he recited with studied weariness the stages of his home state’s emergence as the crucible of Mexico’s drug crisis. It was in the late nineteenth century, he said, that the opium harvest first became visible, encouraged by the arrival of Chinese immigrants who had come to build a railroad. There was, he added, the long-standing local use of marijuana, particularly by Mexican soldiers, who got through the useless hours of patrol and guard duty with the help of a spliff or two. There was the almost certainly apocryphal—but nevertheless widely believed—story that during the Second World War the United States urged Sinaloa to boost its (illegal) production of opium in order to meet the medical needs of G.I.s wounded in combat. There was, for real, the gigantic marijuana boom in the nineteen-sixties, fuelled by demand in the United States. And, Valdez noted, there was the notable decline in illegal crop harvests in the late seventies, as the result of a series of violent and ambitious assaults on growers carried out by the Mexican federal police with the support of the Mexican Army, and with the energetic encouragement of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. “That was when the drug trade really began to expand,” Valdez said. “Because the few traffickers who remained here were killed, but all the rest of them emigrated. Now they’re all over the country.” Forty years after Operación Intercepción—which was followed by Operación Cooperación, Operación Cóndor, and other drug-war initiatives—as much as thirty per cent of Mexico’s arable land is suspected of being under cultivation for clandestine crops, drug violence in Sinaloa has taken a quantitatively different turn, and the Sinaloa traffickers have generated entire dynasties of criminals who are at war in nearly every one of Mexico’s thirty-one states, as well as Mexico City. The exiles who left Sinaloa for Tijuana, Guadalajara, and Ciudad Juárez in the nineteen-seventies included members of the Arellano Félix family; a bold operator called Joaquín Guzmán; and a schemer with a talent for international relations, Amado Carrillo. They and their elders spent the next two decades collaborating with Colombia’s drug kings on clandestine routes for delivering cocaine and marijuana to the United States. Beginning in the mid-nineties, after Pablo Escobar was killed and his main rivals were arrested, the Mexican associates assumed their rightful position in the global drug economy. The main access points to what is by far the largest market for drugs in the world are, after all, in Mexico. By the turn of the millennium, Mexico was exporting heroin and marijuana, transporting the majority of Colombian cocaine, and collaborating with Chinese traders in the production and export of methamphetamines. The Sinaloa traffickers, who had not necessarily remained friends, controlled access to all the major border points, with the exception of the ones in the Gulf Coast state of Tamaulipas. Those, the government believes, were the domain of Osiel Cárdenas, a particularly violent local trafficker. With its key border cities of Nuevo Laredo (on the other side of the Rio Grande from Laredo) and Matamoros (across from Brownsville), the state of Tamaulipas is a coveted prize that Osiel Cárdenas’s former associates now control. They are, for the most part, ex-members of an élite Army anti-narcotics unit, operating under the code name los Zetas, and they have drastically upped the ante on all forms of violence; the practice of beheading their victims is one of their signal contributions to the drug trade. Drug careers tend not to last very long: Osiel Cárdenas has been awaiting trial in the United States for nearly two years, since pleading innocent in February, 2007. Three of the Arellano Félix brothers, who operated out of Tijuana, are dead or in jail, and one was arrested last week. The most skillful trafficker of them all, Amado Carrillo, who once had a fleet of jets to ferry his goods from his base in Ciudad Juárez, and who liked to be called the Lord of the Skies, is also gone. In 1997, having decided to move his business to South America and set up housekeeping in Buenos Aires, he went to Mexico City for radical liposuction and facial renovation. He died in the recovery room, from a fatal mix of anesthetics and sleeping potion, according to newspapers at the time. (His attending physicians died as well, discovered months later encased in cement.) The most visible member of the exile generation of drug traffickers still at large is Joaquín Guzmán, commonly known as El Chapo (a Sinaloan term for men who are short and built like refrigerators). It is said by people in Sinaloa that, seven years after El Chapo escaped from prison in a laundry cart and rose to the top of law enforcers’ most-wanted lists (and an unspecified amount of time since he acquired a jet plane that, according to some reports, was once used by the C.I.A. for rendition flights), he still throws parties at his ranch in the Sinaloa hill country. It is said that he recently closed down a restaurant in Culiacán, confiscating the other diners’ cell phones until he and his friends had finished their meal (and paid handsomely for the meals of his hostages as well), and that, at a wake in Culiacán in May, some of El Chapo’s men showed up to ask if the bereaved family would move, at no further cost, to a more elegant parlor at another location. When the family complied, the body of Joaquín Guzmán’s hulking son, Edgar, who had been shot down outside a shopping mall, was brought in. And it is said that the street was then closed off so that El Chapo could weep over his murdered child in privacy. Those are the stories. What is certain is that the campaign that has filled Mexican life with daily news of vicious crime—torture, kidnappings, beheadings—is being fought by Chapo Guzmán against his former allies. These include, first of all, the Beltrán Leyva family, which allegedly ordered the murder of Edgar and which, it was reported last week, may have infiltrated the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. But Guzmán is also locked in combat with the remaining members of the Arellano Félix drug clan, in Tijuana; with the brother of the plastic-surgery victim Amado Carrillo; and, above all, with the heirs of the Gulf Coast empire created by the extradited Osiel Cárdenas. The fight is over drug routes, particularly those that end in Tamaulipas and serve as access points to the United States, and over profitable illicit local businesses like prostitution and the smuggling of illegal immigrants. Included in the territorial bounty is the right to control an unknown number of the police and the military—cops and commanders both—who moonlight as the traffickers’ henchmen. Since Edgar’s murder, there has been a surge in drug-related killings throughout the country. Nearly four thousand people have died so far this year. Sometimes the corpses are wrapped in the kinds of woollen blankets that Robles used for her “Red Carpet.” Sometimes the victims are beheaded. The bodies often show signs of torture. Javier Valdez, the journalist who monitors these matters, notes that the murder of Guzmán’s son signalled the beginning of a new type of war. “Before that death, they hadn’t messed with each other’s families,” and killings were highly targeted, he said. “Ahora va a estar más cabrón” (“Now the shit is going to hit the fan”). He suggested that I visit one of Culiacán’s newest cemeteries. “I’m sure they won’t be eating all the dog food.” The cemetery has grown at a staid pace during the past forty years, but it seemed to me that now it could hardly keep up with demand. By eight o’clock that morning, earthmovers were digging up new sections. Some workers were laying in a honeycomb of new graves; others labored over an enormous new mausoleum. A man who has known the cemetery over a long period of time, and proved to be gregarious and helpful in the local way, provided a statistic: thirty per cent of the graveyard’s permanent residents had met a violent end. By and large, he said, they were up-country farmers, who got rich very quickly and died suddenly. The new mausoleums reflected the tension between the relatives’ need to mourn and their Sinaloan impulse to show off. No excess was too excessive, no preconceived notion of what a burying ground might contain stood in the way of creativity. Next to a massive black marble monument, with carved-stone columns and a chapel large enough to accommodate several rows of plastic chairs, one might turn to face an orange two-story affair with a cupola, a bell tower, balconies, and aluminum-frame windows that handsomely achieved a Fiesta Inn effect. Banners with portraits of the jowly, shirtsleeved deceased hung from the crenellated wall of another. A child’s shrine was covered with a mural of SpongeBob SquarePants. A modernist structure was crowned with a Pei-like crystal pyramid, encasing for all eternity a silver heart-shaped helium balloon. “What the families want,” the man said, “is for their mausoleum to demonstrate the power they have over things.” Photographs of the departed showed bullish, thick-necked men in their mid-twenties or thirties, looking bored and dangerous, wearing bluejeans and extravagantly pointy ostrich-skin boots. In this boastful arena, the pictures had also been carefully chosen to show the dead man at his best. He frequently appeared on a chapel’s altar, unsmiling and surrounded by many bottles of whiskey, or perhaps even more bottles of beer; the implicit epitaph of the deceased was this: he could drink anybody under the table.
Felipe Calderón, a member by family tradition of the conservative Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), took over as his party’s second President of the current era in December of 2006, following seventy years of uncontested rule by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI. Calderón’s election was contested, and he was perceived by much of the electorate as a weak leader. The need to overcome this impression may have been a factor in his decision, almost immediately upon taking office, to involve the military in renewed combat against the drug trade—a fight that his predecessor, Vicente Fox, had less visibly pursued. The sight of troops patrolling the major arteries of cities like Ciudad Juárez and Morelia in armored cars has generated enormous local resentment, and offers vast opportunities for corruption in a military that, compared with the security forces, is not loathed, and remains—if only in the most relative terms—uncorrupt. (Among the many exceptions is an Army general who was removed as drug czar some years ago, when it was discovered that he was actually working for the Juárez drug trade.) Regardless, troops are now deployed across the country, resulting in mounting tension between the local security forces and the federal troops. Quite a few high-level arrests have been made, but drug crimes have increased wherever the troops patrol, a consequence of what several people I talked to described as “stirring up the chicken coop.” A certain nostalgia for the days when the PRI was in charge and the drug traffickers knew their place would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago, but it has encouraged old PRIistas to believe that the party can return to power in the 2012 elections. In large part, though, it was the PRI’s defeat—or, rather, the long-withheld recognition of its defeat—and the dawn of real electoral politics that led to what appears to be the drug trade’s thorough infiltration of the political parties. This last according to a PRIista whom I shall call Héctor, who enjoyed a long and successful national career before retiring to his home state. In the old days, much of the money for what was essentially a ceremonial presentation of the candidate to his subjects came from the vast coffers of the one-party state. Modern media campaigns put an end to all that. “Thanks to the television stations, our campaign needs multiplied,” Héctor explained. “A congressman’s electoral campaign can now run to sixteen, seventeen million dollars.” Where is such money to come from? Informed opinion has it that each of the major drug groups now has ties to significant numbers of politicians in its party of choice, if not to the party itself. As for the current military offensive, Héctor gave a little snort of disgust. “When you see what amounts to a military parade in these towns, in which the Army is trooping along on the main avenue while on the side streets people are killing each other... when I see how these people”—the traffickers—“are climbing up right into the very beard of the state, I think, Holy fuck! This country could really collapse!”
There are limits on the way the government can wage its war on drugs. A government spokesman, Miguel Monterrubio, pointed out recently that when President Calderón came to office there were ten thousand federal law-enforcement agents in the entire country. Today, the total has increased to nearly thirty thousand—still a small number in a country that has a hundred and ten million people and a raging crime problem. “That’s why the government decided to involve the Army,” Monterrubio told me over coffee one morning. “If not them, who?” There remains the problem of corruption. Several new vetting agencies, Monterrubio said, will conduct ongoing polygraph tests and background checks on all law-enforcement personnel. In the old days, there was a de-facto agreement between the government and the traffickers that the traffickers would kill each other among themselves. “But now,” Monterrubio said, “the traffickers have realized that they can use the murders to send a message through the media. It’s narco-terror.” Calderón’s policy, which the Bush Administration is supporting with a $1.4-billion aid package, to be delivered beginning this year, is heavily weighted on the side of hardware and training for joint U.S.-Mexican operations along the border. Some critics would prefer a program that placed more emphasis on treatment for drug addiction and less on shootouts, but the question of whether a battle against drug use can be won by deploying military force is not one that government officials are willing to ask at this juncture. From the public’s point of view, the government’s crackdown has simply produced more violence. “In the end, it’s all absurd,” Froylán Enciso, a friend of mine who is a historian specializing in the drug trade, remarked the other day. “The class solidarity between the troops and the growers is far greater than the soldiers’ need to obey orders. They bargain: ‘I need a statistic and you need to survive in this environment, so let’s deal.’ And the government gets its statistic, because every year they have to have a record-breaking figure for the press conference—more kilos of marijuana confiscated, more arrests made than ever before. And the cost that doesn’t get factored into the figures”—how much a kilo of cocaine paste sells for at the point of manufacture versus its street value—“is the cost of the narcocultura. Because the logistics and the infrastructure and the narco-helicopters and narco-submarines are only a part of it. The real value of the drugs is the cost incurred by traffickers, small and large, in steeling themselves against the risks involved in delivering the drugs to the final consumer. The narcocultura—the mausoleums and the music and the baseball caps embroidered with marijuana leaves in Swarovski crystals—is the array of symbols they surround themselves with in order to ward off that fear.”0
About a month ago Guillermo del Toro told Haleigh that he’s going in a very different direction with Pacific Rim 2. Some favorite characters from the first film will return, but others won’t because del Toro is hoping to use them at the end of Pacific Rim 2 in an effort to ramp things up for a third film.
Who are the lucky ones to make it into Pac Rim 2? We’ve got two names for you – Charlie Day and Burn Gorman. While talking to del Toro about the upcoming DVD and Blu-ray release of The Strain season 1, he told me that Day’s Geiszler and Gorman’s Gottlieb will return for the second film which picks up a few years after the events of the first. Hit the jump for more.
First off, here’s what del Toro had to say about the Pacific Rim 2 timeline:
“It’s a few years after the first one. It’s not an immediate follow-up. It is the world having been freed of Kaiju, what happens to the world after – what happens to the Jaeger technology once the Kaiju are not a threat. It’s quite a jump.”
Here’s what del Toro said when asked about Day and Gorman and if we’ll get more science in the second film:
“Yes. It’s quite a different movie from the first one in that, but I think that two of our main characters like in the first one are Burn and Charlie. They are really, really – I mean, honestly, they are probably the guys I have the most fun writing along with Hannibal Chau so just from a purely selfish drive, I like writing them. I love writing for Charlie and Burn. I mean, [Burn’s] in Crimson Peak for that reason, because I love working with him. You’re gonna get a lot of that, but the Kaijus are very different and you’re gonna see a very different type of the robots I think. It’s gonna be quite a different adventure.”
Beginning the movie in a Kaiju-free world seems like a very promising starting point, especially as far as the main characters are concerned. If Kaiju are no longer a threat, will that change the nature of Geiszler and Gottlieb’s work? And what happens to Jaeger pilots like Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) and Mako (Rinko Kikuchi)? Are they out of work entirely?
Del Toro has mentioned that there will be a lot of new Kaiju in Pacific Rim 2, so clearly the world will need Jaegers again at some point, but the idea of seeing the population transition from a period of post-Kaiju peacefulness to another ambush has loads of potential.An SNP MP has been linked to an allegation that tens of thousands of pounds in donations may be missing from the prominent pro-independence campaign group she helped to set up.
Questions have been raised about the role played by Natalie McGarry, the Scottish National party MP for Glasgow East, after Women for Independence (WFI) contacted the police on Sunday night because they believed substantial amounts were missing from the group’s donation income.
The Guardian understands it has been alleged that McGarry was the only person with access to the PayPal account used by WFI to collect the donations and from which it is believed the alleged discrepancies have arisen.
Police Scotland confirmed the matter was under investigation but said that it could give no further information. McGarry has not responded to detailed questions posed by the Guardian.
However, in a statement released on her behalf on Monday evening, her lawyer, Aamer Anwar, said: “Natalie McGarry MP is aware that suggestions of reported discrepancies in the accounts of Women for Independence have been passed to Police Scotland. This morning I contacted Police Scotland at Natalie’s request to advise them that she is ready to meet with them should they wish to.
“Accordingly I have advised Natalie that it would be inappropriate to make any further comment until the conclusion of that inquiry, other than to state that she is certain that there has been no wrongdoing on her part.”
An SNP spokesperson said: “The SNP are aware of reported discrepancies in the accounts of Women for Independence. However, we have yet to see the detail behind these claims.”
WFI was founded in 2012 by a group of activists including McGarry with the intention of promoting women’s voices across the referendum debate. The group’s national committee, on which McGarry sits, was informed of the alleged discrepancies at a meeting on Sunday afternoon. She was not present.
In an email sent to members on Sunday evening, the organisation spoke of its disappointment that “we now have reason to believe that trust may have been abused”.
It continued: “Following concerns being raised, and painstaking efforts to ensure we have gathered extensive and accurate information, we have been placed in the position of having no choice but to ask the police to help us.
“We have passed the information we have been able to gather to the police and as a result there is now a live investigation. We know you will understand that, in the interest of due process and justice, that limits what we can say.
“But what we can say is that following our first AGM in March and the adoption of our constitution and robust and appropriate systems, concerns emerged in late summer regarding financial probity. For several weeks now we have been examining the finances of the organisation for the last financial year, 2014-15.
“We have identified an apparent discrepancy between our donation income and the expenditure which we currently have evidence of. We have exhausted all opportunities of obtaining adequate evidence or explanation to account for this discrepancy.”
McGarry, who has described SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon as a role model and campaigned for her in Glasgow’s south side, first rose to prominence in the party when she fought and lost a bruising by-election in Cowdenbeath at the start of 2014. During the referendum campaign she was a regular critic of sexist abuse online and became a well-regarded advocate for women’s concerns. Her selection to contest the key Labour/SNP battleground of Glasgow East marked her out as one the party’s most promising new candidates.
McGarry, who previously worked in the public sector, was elected MP for Glasgow East in May, overturning the then shadow Scottish secretary Margaret Curran’s 11,840 majority and becoming one of 56 SNP MPs returned to Westminster in a landslide victory for the party. She was later appointed shadow spokesperson on disabilities.
That number has since been reduced to 55, after Michelle Thomson stood down as SNP business spokeswoman and withdrew from the party whip at Westminster when it emerged that Police Scotland was investigating 13 property deals to which she was linked. Thomson has denied any wrongdoing.
Since the referendum, WFI has carved out a permanent position in Scottish civic society, campaigning on a range of issues, including successfully opposing the building of a women’s super-prison earlier this year. It now has 51 affiliated groups across Scotland, many of which are working on refugee rights and food poverty.1850 words
It has been over a year since I wrote the article Black Women and Testosterone, and I really regret it. Yes, I did believe that black women had higher levels of testosterone than white women due to one flimsy study and another article on pregnant black women. I then wised up to the truth about testosterone and aggression/crime/race/sex and revised the articles (like I have done with r/K selection theory). However, after I revised my views on the supposed differences in testosterone between black men/white men and black women/white women, people still cite the article, disregarding the disclaimer at the top of the article. I quoted Mazur |
and women's rights, it's not that you have to take your scarves off. I never say that. My mum wears a scarf and I respect that."
The gallery at the top of this page shows the contrast between Afghanistan, past and present: during the 1950s to 1970s, women could walk the streets in skirts and high heels -- a far cry from the usual burqa-clad images which circulate today.
"My mum was somebody who had chosen to wear a scarf, whereas my auntie would wear short skirts," recalls Sayeed. "They were free to do whatever they wanted... My aunt is now having to cover up. She even has to cover up the new generation, her children, even more than her. It's unbelievable."
Sayeed is reminded of a story another aunt told her, about how she was walking down the street wearing a burqa and white slippers. Members of the Taliban, in power from 1994 to 2001, saw her and beat her -- for wearing the color of their flag on her feet. "This was a 60-year-old woman who had the freedom, when she was young, to go to school, work, have a normal life. And now, even though she was wearing a burqa, they picked on her because of her shoes."
Sayeed says she regularly receives a barrage of abusive messages on her Facebook page, criticizing her for dressing liberally. But she is driven by those who value her work, especially girls and women who write appreciative letters and embrace her after concerts.
However, there are some fans she is particularly concerned about: after holding a ladies-only concert a couple of months ago, she received messages pleading for help. She says mullahs had seen clips of a group of females attending the show -- and labelled them as whores.
"They were so scared; they only came out [to the concert] because of me," Sayeed says. Despite the singer's efforts to reply and offer help, she has not heard back from them. "It's something that's stuck in my mind." She pauses, her voice slightly breaking. "I'm thinking about it all the time."
But Afghanistan has seen some advances. Women appearing on TV were forbidden under Taliban rule: times have changed with shows like "The Voice." Women also have a say in the current presidential elections. Their right to vote was reinstated after U.S. and allied military toppled the Taliban in 2001.
"To other people it's just an election, but it's such an emotional time for me," says Sayeed, "looking at these women voting with ink on their fingers and so much passion and hope. They have a choice to choose a leader now, before it was never the case."
Personal reasons may stop her from participating as a judge on season two of "The Voice," set to run soon, she explains. But she asserts that the threats have not disheartened her. Her next single, "Champion," will be released this year and bears another powerful message on women's rights. "Champion is about, no matter what you say to me, no matter what you do to me, I'm not going to give up."
Fact is, there isn't much that can stop Sayeed from carrying out her advocacy, which she feels is her duty to her fellow Afghan women.
"For me, since I've been travelling to Afghanistan, seen the women, heard the stories, seen the country from close, it has affected me so much. It has become my number one priority, more than anything else, even my music. And I'm going to carry on doing it."
READ: Afghan election heads for June runoff
READ: Women could make the difference as Afghanistan turns out to voteHigher savings would normally be good for the economy. But not now, when capital is needed to invest in growth and jobs. The One Percenters put 56 percent of their available cash into savings accounts and money markets in 2012 – that’s up from 24 percent in 2007.
They’re investing just 44 percent in financial markets – down from 76 percent in 2007. More One Percenters say the stock market is “a real risk” rather than a “real opportunity.” That’s a big switch from just last year, when 62 percent said the market was an opportunity.
In other words, One Percenters used to save less, and invest more. Now they’re “basically stuffing money under the mattress,” said Jim Taylor, vice chairman of Harrison Group.
That also means they’re spending less – on everything from traditional luxury to second homes. Fully 82 percent said they would spend more if they had more confidence in the future.
“This has resulted in people managing their risk to a ‘no loss’ position rather a ‘real gains’ position,” Taylor said. “That’s not the great tradition of American investing.”
One respondent in the study said “My savings rate has gone up and I’m not spending, which I realize is bad for the economy... but I like having a wide moat around me so that nothing can bother me.”
The wealthy aren’t just building financial moats, they’re also building psychological moats. The Occupy movement, media coverage of inequality and the Obama campaign’s “you didn’t build it” attacks have all made the wealthy fearful of any outward signs of success.
The survey showed that only 31 percent of today’s One Percenters “like it when others recognize me as wealthy.” That’s a huge drop from 2010, when 53 percent liked the recognition. This jibes with another recent poll that showed One Percenters don’t see themselves (and don’t want to be seen) as One Percenters.
The wealthy, in other words, are embarrassed to be wealthy.
“We can’t have a rise of an aristocracy without the aristocracy believing in it,” Taylor said.
As a result, today’s wealthy are further isolating themselves from broader society. Only 46 percent of One Percenters say “it is important for me to join social events in my community.” That’s a huge drop from 2010, when 64 percent said community is important. Fully 90 percent of the ultra-wealthy say they prefer to spend time with their closest friends and family.Printing food seems more like an idea based in Star Trek rather than in the average home. But recent advances in 3D printing (known formally as additive manufacturing) are driving the concept closer to reality. With everything from printed metal airplane wings to replacement organs on the horizon, could printed food be next? And how will we feel when it’s served at the table?
From sundaes to space food
In some ways we have “printed” food for decades. Think of making a sundae using a self-dispensing ice-cream machine. Building by extruding material through a nozzle is quite similar to how certain 3D printers, called fused deposition modellers (FDM) work today. While FDM is primarily used for prototyping plastics, the technology has been applied in culinary arts for years.
Researchers at Cornell pioneered some of this work, adapting an open source extrusion printer, called the Fab@Home Lab, to work with food in 2007. They’ve gone so far as partnering with the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan to print personalised chocolate and cheese, cookies, cubes of pureed turkey and celery paste, and even tiny spaceships made of deep fried scallops.
Novelty food suppliers have become early adopters of similar technology. Various chocolate printers are on the market, and for Valentine’s Day in Japan this year you could order chocolate made from a 3D scan of your face. Further examples include a Burritobot on Kickstarter last year and Google serving 3D printed pasta.
Other 3D printing technologies have been investigated for use with food. In 2007, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories introduced the CandyFab 4000, a DIY printer based on a modified selective laser sintering technique. The method utilised a focused heat source moving over a bed of sugar to fuse large 3D sugar sculptures. And just a few months ago, a team of students from the University of Waterloo was able to sinter chocolate using a custom built machine.
The Sugar Lab
Established market players in Additive Manufacturing have taken notice as well. In September, 3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) acquired The Sugar Lab, a startup producing edible 3D sugar confections. The Sugar Lab had adapted 3D Systems’ Color Jet Printing (CJP) technology to print flavoured edible binders on a sugar bed to fabricate solid structures.
Beyond novelty, printed food could provide serious medical benefits. The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) announced they’ll build printers to reassemble pureed food to look like the original - think 3D printed broccoli florets from pureed broccoli. TNO has targeted printers for nursing homes in order to help elderly people who have chewing and swallowing problems. Beyond medical conditions, TNO has proposed printing customised meals with varied levels of the basic food components like carbs, protein, and fat, for everyone from seniors, to athletes, to expectant mothers.
And NASA sees 3D-printed food as a revolutionary way to make personalised meals for astronauts. They are funding development of a 3D printer that premixes basic food components before spraying the mix on baking tray. Their ultimate goal would be to print a pizza. Beyond providing cosmic delivery, food would also be tailored for astronauts’ daily activities.
The ethics of printed meat
Will printed food go beyond novelty value? Should it replace other foods or supplement the nutritional value of existing foods? In this area, one of the most interesting and perhaps controversial areas is the debate about printing meat.
Some suggest 3D printed meat could provide high quality protein for a growing global population without increasing stress on arable land or continually depleting the oceans. It could also answer the problem of methane emissions from agriculture.
In 2011 Modern Meadow took up the challenge, setting out to make ecological and economical leather and meat from bioprinters. They cultured biopsied bovine cells to produce sheets of tissue, eventually forming either meat or hide. They predict cultured leather will be on the market in five years.
Modern Meadow’s CEO Andras Forgacs is a pioneer in the bioprinting field cofounding the tissue printing company Organovo (NYSE:ONVO) with his father Gabor Forgacs. In 2011, Gabor - the Chief Scientific Officer at Modern Meadow, cooked and ate cultured pork live at a TEDMED conference.
Currently, it is very expensive to produce tiny volumes of printed meat, with estimates of thousands of dollars to make a pound of meat in the lab. But could the process be scaled up, and cell cultures made cheaper?
Biopsies aren’t the only sources for culture. The process could potentially use stem cells. Industrial scale printing of meat could additionally use cells grown in an algae-based cell culture and powered by novel processes such as photosynthesis-mimicking solar energy systems.
For vegetarians, printed meat somewhat circumvents concerns about harmful or destructive use of animals for food. Live animals are used only to provide cells from which cell lines can be grown (though the blood of unborn cows is needed to culture most cells).
Ethical vegans may still object at the use of non-human animals for human purposes; while non-destructive, it is still exploitative.
It isn’t clear whether 3D printed meat is halal or kosher. There may not be an issue if there is no animal slaughter involved.
Will we stomach it?
While we typically “eat with our eyes”, and printed meat could be made in familiar shapes and textures, our palate will be the dominating factor. That is, if printed meat could be proven safe.
Printed meat may result in a debate akin to that on GMO foods. Certainly the public will want to know whether printed foods are safe for human consumption.
Consumers will most likely demand adequate protections to ensure the development of printed foods does not limit their access to or contaminate organic foods. It is reasonable to assume most will want to decide whether they eat “real” meat or try printed meats, so labelling regulation will be important.
Farming communities and those in agricultural food production will also want a voice about if, when and how their industry will be transformed by industrialised printed meat.
Early identification or those affected, and extensive engagement with the range of community concerns about printed foods, is warranted. While no specific printed food exploration exists yet, similar forms of community engagement have been developed in Australia through the Science and Technology Engagement Pathways framework (STEP). They work with communities on a wide range of issues, including synthetic biology and bionic implants.
STEP has supported researchers in the ethics program at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science, who are identifying effective public engagement and deliberative democratic processes for uncovering and articulating community concerns about emerging technologies. Other entities like RiAus, an Australian non-profit, has been active in stimulating community debate specifically about synthetic meat.
The proof is in the print
With no slow-down in 3D printing developments, there will certainly be new advances in printed food. Whether the technology can truly move from the novelty sector will most likely depend on the ability to process a wider range of foods requiring influence from both the kitchen and from printer developers.
It is also debatable whether 3D printed food can integrate in the global supply chain, particularly if printed meat can be made economically viable and if consumers will accept it. However, the benefits of 3D printed food could be monumental. Time will tell if the next fad will be the 3D printed diet. Until then, the community should be involved in the discussion of printed food.My finances don't compare to some of these listed but it still stings.
I built a computer repair business after 10 years Aged 21 to 31 I managed to build it to 3 sites and 10 staff and I amassed my goal ($1 Million in Assets) obviously I had bigger plans but things turned. I lived pretty large but I worked for it, I had 20 days of leave over 10 years my body was bust. The GFC came and smashed me again and then a franchise I had joined shut the doors on us.
So we decided it was time to get out, We sold it for half what we advertised it for and would get just enough money to break even.
I was ripped off by the purchaser and lost everything. I was forced through bankruptcy and to remain in town (a small country town where we wanted to raise our children) I had to take up work at a local mill aswell as 4 other part time jobs.
Physically i'm broken, my back and other ligaments are shot, I cant sleep because of the pain and It's now been two years and I'm just about to finish at the mill and start fitting tyres.
I would like to say that everything's rose'y but I worked my arse off till I broke and now I've lost everything, my house, Car's, other assets. Now I cant even get a loan.
One day i'll find that juice again and maybe things will improve but all I do now is work to pay the bills.
I still have my great kids and wife but I work everyday to keep them.Control Software for the Bochum Radio Telescope
by
James Miller G3RUH
Introduction
Sadly, with the retirement of its champion, declining resources and changing interests the telescope fell into disuse and finally neglect in the '90s. In 1999 the radome blew down in a storm.
Figure 1. Two kinds of antenna. A general view of the (pressurised, ~0.6 bar) dome at Bochum. It's about 40m in diameter. The solar panels are a technology demonstration, and pump a few kilowatts into the electricity grid.
A concerned public rallied around immediately; the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen was approached, agreed to adopt the telescope as an Industrial Monument and provided sufficient funding for its restoration to a safe condition.
The dome was replaced, as well as the pressurisation, space heating and diesel-electric back-up power generation. Public 'outreach' activities were to be provided in return by the curators.
The antenna control arrangements however were long obsolete and beyond practical use. Punched paper-tape based; several racks of electronic modules which, predating integrated circuits, had one logic gate/card; enormous DC motors powered by AC-DC motor-generator sets; enough power switchgear for a small town; that stuff was never going to be revived.
This state of affairs coincided with Amsat-DL needing a substantial ground station for the Phase 5A mission to Mars. Amsat-DL agreed to get the telescope control systems up and running in return for priority use of the dish. Many, many people pitched in to make this happen.
Thus it was that in 2003 the author was invited to write the software to control the telescope. Every ham secretly wants to play with a really big antenna... I got my chance!
The Telescope
Figure 2. Wide angle view from the floor. The parabola is 20m in diameter, and has an f/d = 0.35. The sub-reflector is 3m in diameter, and the overall focus is at the centre (vertex) of the parabola. Access to the focus room is via a circular stairway inside the azimuth column.
Figure 3. A 140 ton roof over your head. The column is 2m in diameter and rotates on a substantial bearing about 1m in diameter. The LH rack holds 4 servo motor drive amplifiers. The RH rack has the RiscPC (RPC), UPS, GPS and some odds and ends. My personal RPC is on the left being used as a server, holding master copies of the software which was under development at the time. The telescope RPC ran its software fetched across the Ethernet. Finally it was permanently loaded onto the telescope computer for normal use. The electronics in view here essentially replace as much old stuff as would fill a small apartment.
The computer's job is to calculate a desired azimuth/elevation, measure the present azimuth/elevation, determine a suitable current for each motor (which will create the torque) and deliver this current request to the four motor drive amplifiers.
The telescope beamwidth at 10.4 GHz is 0.1°. Thus the objective was set to be able to track with pointing accuracy better than 0.01°. This is achieved at about an order of magnitude better.
The telescope, as seen by the computer, consists of four 19200 baud RS-232 serial lines and a handful of status bits. A pre-existing brand new unused, though 6-year-old 233 MHz StrongARM (DEC/Intel SA-110) RiscPC [10], was augmented with two dual serial port cards and a 16 bit parallel I/O expansion card, and the computer hardware was complete. Precise time information comes from a Jupiter-T GPS timing receiver [3] attached to the standard serial port.
The control computer, called Bocc is also connected by Ethernet to a site management computer called Bomex which is permanently connected to the external Internet. So Bocc telescope control software can be updated remotely, and indeed the telescope also can be operated remotely, with just a couple of clicks, from home.
The site management computer runs Unix (FreeBSD 4.10) and services two cameras, the control computer as above and eventually radio receivers, test equipment and other functions t.b.d., and is maintained by Rainer Rutz DF7DD.
Commissioning, Round I
Serial port systems never work as advertised, and we had the expected number of gotchas, but at the end of a typically frustrating day one, all the hardware parts were interfacing correctly. Day 2 was then spent getting to grips with the arcane protocols of the motor drive electronics and machinery attached to the serial ports. Fortunately the resident electronic engineer (Hartmut Päsler DL1YDD) had already jumped through these hoops during prior commissioning tests, so borrowing from his Turbo Pascal routines was painless and quick.
Figure 4. Danger! Non-PC PC at work. Two dual Serial Port cards interface to 4 servo-amplifiers in the LH rack. Top slot has a 32-bit parallel I/O card with ribbon cable to a box above full of opto-isolators and relays. Small box on top is GPS receiver for precise UTC via standard serial port. BNC socket is ethernet connector. To the right is a UPS (uninterrutible power supply).
Midnight Oil
Many more tests followed. By the end of the day we had a basic working control system which would move the machine with a repeatable accuracy of about 10 arc-seconds. That's the angle subtended by the thickness of a matchstick at 50 metres and about an order of magnitude finer than our goal.
Advanced Software Development
The software is written in BBCBASIC, and runs standalone. This is a machine control system, and the computer is not required to do anything else other than its dedicated task. It cycles around a loop 20x per second calculating the desired azimuth and elevation angles, reading the position sensors and computing the required motor drive currents to keep the telescope on track. Next an almanac of the positions all the objects it knows about is updated, one object per loop. The almanac is visible to the operator who can choose the target from it. Finally, servicing the GPS receiver, scanning the keyboard, and displaying engineering data on the screen take but an instant. Doing all this, the computer is about 50% loaded. There is no hardware floating point (f.p.) unit.
Commissioning, Round II
After aligning the telescope's azimuth axis to the calibrated datum plate on a wall, the instrument was told to track the Moon. I pressed the button. The machine rumbled into life, and slewed towards the Moon. The radio engineer (Freddy de Guchteneire ON6UG) watched his noise power meter; bang on cue, up came the radio noise level as the Moon swung into the beam.
Some fine calibration of the position sensors was performed, and the telescope was set to point at the very noisy radio star Cassiopeia A. After a few moments the radio noise level increased slightly as the famous super-nova- remnant, which exploded in 1667, came into the beam.
A final test was to track the ESA spacecraft Mars Express then en route to the planet, and 'only' 100 million km distant. The command was given, the telescope slewed to the spot just East of Mars, and when it had settled the receiver was slowly tuned (8.4 GHz) to locate the spaceprobe's telemetry beacon. From the radio came a squeal as the probe's telemetry beacon was tuned in. It had the correct frequency, correct doppler shift profile, and disappeared when the telescope was off-pointed slightly. It was indeed Mars Express. We were in business.
Since then (2003-2005) all the NASA/ESA spacecraft have been regularly tracked, and provide perfect spaceborne beacons for azimuth and elevation calibration, sanity checks, as well as excellent demonstration tools in fulfilment of the observatory's 'outreach' mandate. A feed is also fitted for 1.7 GHz weather satellite reception, with the results available for visitors to watch.
Figure 5. Karl uses a radio. Two of the four Eurotherm motor drive amplifiers can be seen behind Karl Meinzer DJ4ZC; HTs are used for communicating from control room to focus to control racks, and generally around the site.
Evolution of System Software
There are several identifiable elements; plant simulation, servo-controller, and the demand manager. Software implements these and makes the telescope machinery perform as desired.
Plant Simulation
By applying impulse, step and sinusoidal excitations to the plant simulation, most things of concern can be modelled and discussed. Quite a lot of time was spent exercising this, well before the main telescope package was written. Often a simulation is discarded after use, but in fact this one is very usefully retained, as will be explained.
Servo-Controller
There is a servo controller routine for each axis. They are similar, differing by constants due to the differing inertias and gear ratios of the machinery. The controller takes the demanded azimuth & elevation, compares them with the measured azimuth & elevation (which is available from the motor drive amplifier units) and computes the required motor current to move the telescope in the optimum way.
Presently the calculations are done at 50 ms intervals (20x per second); this rate is considerably faster than the natural frequencies of the machinery and is set by the speed of calculation of demands.
Testing of the servo-controller was done initially using the previously described Plant Simulation as a substitute for real machinery. In the final software this feature is retained; by the setting of a flag the software can control the real telescope or the simulated telescope; numerically it cannot tell the difference. This allows software development to be continued away from the real instrument.
Demand Manager
Sun, Moon and Planets
Interplanetary probes
Stars
Earth orbiting satellites
Goto fixed points
Step changes in position ] for test
Fixed rate of movement (pan) ] purposes
Stop!
Astro Package Revision
However, we also had a requirement to compute range-rate of bodies, and I decided at this point to 6-space vectorialise everything, and change the astronomic package over to use the JPL Planetary and Lunar Ephemeris DE405/LE405 [8]. In this the solar system bodies 3-dimensional coordinates are represented by coefficients over a basis set of Chebyshev polynomials. The original JPL Solar System numerical integration, which has formed the basis of professional solar system positional astronomy for many years and of the Astronomical Almanac since 1984, can be recreated to metre-level accuracy with remarkably little calculation.
This required a rationalisation of everything to do with astro-tracking, and the package is even more accurate and certainly more flexible than it was. It is able to calculate objects' coordinates properly, accounting for the whole litany of small corrections without regarding each as a special case and with various degrees of approximation. These are:
Light-time correction (excepting stars) Gravitational deflection of light by the Sun Aberration due to velocity of Earth around Sun Diurnal Aberration due to velocity of observer on the Earth Parallax due to observer's position not at Earth's centre Annual parallax due to Earth's position change around Sun Precession Earth's spin axis 25,000 yr circular motion in space Nutation Earth's spin axis wobbly motion in space Polar motion Earth's pole not fixed to ground
That is, "everything". All computations are vectorial, and for the most part in 6-space (3x position + 3x velocity). The detail is documented in [1,2].
After conversion to the observer's horizontal plane, Elevation (including refraction), Azimuth, Range and Range-Rate are output to the user.
This re-organisation took place in 2004 January, and worked perfectly (without even a visit to the telescope).
Figure 6. Software screenshot. This is engineering checkout software, so it single tasks and the user interface is straightforward. Later may come multitasking, although for an embedded system there seems little point. Lower half of the screen is diagnostic data from the servo-controller algorithms.
Accuracy
The astronomic algorithms are essentially exact at the 0.05" level. The greatest source of error is incorrect refraction correction (elevation) and timing uncertainties (azimuth). These errors are unlikely to exceed 5".
The following table gives an indication of typical error source magnitude and type:
Typical Error Item Source Magnitude Type ---------------------------------------------------------- 1. 5-byte floating point 0.005" rms 2. Ephemeris calculation 0.05" rms 3. Antenna location 0.05" bias 4. Computer clock 0.2" az bias max 5. Refraction 5" el bias max ----------------------------------------------------------
* Motor control system is mechanically repeatable in azimuth at the ~10" level.
* Diameter of Mars at closest approach is ~18"
* At X-band (10.4 GHz), the Bochum antenna 0.25 dB beamwidth is 100"
Some notes about the above table:
1. 5-byte floating point: Comparisons with 8-byte floating point arithmetic indicates that provided care is taken with the representation of time, angles are calculated to about 0.000001°. This is negligible uncertainty.
2. Ephemeris calculation: The JPL ephemerides are extremely accurate. The subsequent reduction has some very small simplifications in respect of timescales and axes which introduce the indicated uncertainty. These are orders of magnitude less than more practical matters, and are insignificant. Ephemeris of Earth satellites (via NORAD 2-line elements) are much less accurate than for astronomical bodies, but remain substantially within beamwidth at the 1-2 GHz region typically used.
3. Antenna location: This has been determined using GPS, and is presently well within 1m and improving over time. However dish focus location changes with azimuth and elevation by 1-2m, and this leads to location errors of order 0.05". This error is systematic, and could easily be removed algorithmically.
4. Computer clock: The Bochum telescope software takes UTC from a GPS receiver at regular intervals. The maximum service latency is typically 10 ms, equivalent to an error of typically 0.2", mainly to azimuth. The latency could be reduced to zero by using an interrupt rather than a polling process.
UT1 (for Earth rotation calculation) is taken from IERS Bulletin-A [9] and may be considered exact at our level of interest.
5. Refraction: This is corrected using a model designed for optical observations. The optical formula is accurate to about 5" when more than a few degrees above the horizon, provided temperature and pressure are set correctly. At radio wavelengths humidity enters as a factor and adds between 0 and 10% to the refraction correction over the range 0 to 100% RH, but this is ignored.
Summary: for practical purposes, azimuth and elevation calculations are unlikely to exceed 0.001° at low elevations (below 5°), 0.0001° at high elevations and may be considered 'exact' compared with the required accuracy of 0.01°.
The astronomical routines are kept in a software library, and so are in constant use by support utilities such as forward planning, backward analysis, mission studies, almanac generation and doppler calculation to 1 Hz at X-band. The apparently surplus precision is no disadvantage.
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
* Dr Peter Duffett-Smith of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRAO) in the University of Cambridge for positional astronomy advice, and sharing algorithms for pre-JPL ephemeris versions (up to v2.3) of the software.
* Dr Karl Meinzer DJ4ZC (University of Marburg) specified the servo controller and the simulator model used in this program, and tuned them to match the telescope dynamics. He is instrumental in pushing along the Amsat programme.
* Hartmut Päsler DL1YDD reverse engineered the Eurotherm motor controller interfaces, and contributed the know-how to make the serial protocols work straight off. He was/is responsible for the electrical refurbishment of the antenna motor systems.
* AMSAT-DL has been the driving force behind the modernisation of the telescope tracking and control system; hardware, software and management.
References
1. Seidelmann, P.K. (ed), "Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac", 1992, University Science Books ISBN 0-935702-68-7
2. The Astronomical Almanac 2004. Published annually by USGPO and TSO.
The hard sell:
3. GPS timing receiver designed by the author.
Further useful references are:
4. Kraus J.D. "Radio Astronomy", 2nd ed., Cygnus Quasar Books 1986. ISBN 1-882484-00-2.
5. Green R.M. "Spherical Astronomy", Cambridge University Press 1985. ISBN 0-521-31779-7
6. Meeus, Jean, "Astronomical Algorithms", 2nd edition 1998, Willmann-Bell Inc. ISBN 0943-3966-61-1
7. Heafner, P.J., "Fundamental Ephemeris Computations", Willmann-Bell Inc. 1999. ISBN 0-943396-63-8
Astronomic data:
8. The JPL Horizons on-line ephemeris generator provides high precision data with which to check the astronomic algorithms.
9. IERS Bulletin A contains dAT and dUT offsets, as well as polar motion.
Even harder sell:
10. The RiscPC is no longer produced, but its prized successor continues the marque.
Feedback on these pages to Webmaster. Feedback on the article should be sent to James Miller
Page created: 2005 Dec 02 -- Last modified: 2007 Dec 30A minor trend of this year is big publishers giving their biggest franchises a break to combat fatigue, both in the fans and developers. This year already saw Ubisoft announce that it was giving the Assassin's Creed games a year off, ending the yearly release cycle, to renew interest in the series. Now EA is saying it is doing the same with Battlefield.
EA's chief financial officer, Blake Jorgensen, said that EA "won't have another Battlefield back for a couple of years. Next year we'll have Battlefront, the Star Wars game."
Jorgensen was speaking at the Nasdaq Investor Program, which VideoGamer then transcribed.
Last year's Star Wars Battlefront was criticised for being light on content, particularly as it lacked a single player campaign. Joregensen says the team has taken that criticism to heart for the sequel, saying "We were very excited about how Star Wars came out last year," he said. "It's a beautiful game, people loved it. I think if there was criticism they just wanted more. And so we're taking that criticism to heart as we build the next game and trying to address any of the issues that they had."
Jorgensen points out that something binding them with the last game was how much EA and DICE could lean on the new films. "We were really working with the old canvas of Star Wars, the old trilogy, we weren't using any of the new materials that came out of [Episode 8] because our game actually came out slightly before the movie," Jorgensen said. "Next year we'll have the opportunity to leverage more of that content from the new movies and we think that'll make the opportunity much larger."
It's interesting to see publishers putting their big series on ice, especially as this year saw so many big sequels sell poorly on release. Of course, we need to see how good the games are after the franchises are thawed out to see if it did anything to refresh the games we've played over and over.A gathering of death related links that I have encountered in the past month or so. From somber to hilarious, from informative to creepy, here’s a snippet of things that have been reported on or journaled about related to matters of death & dying & mortality.
💀 Obituaries my mother wrote for me while I was still living
💀 From fears to fascinations, what exactly is a death salon?
💀 Death Talk Is Cool At This Festival
💀 The Little Book of Burial
💀 Remains of the Day: Here Are the New Ways to Dispose of Your Body
💀 Undertakers Deadly Serious About Gravedigging Championship
💀 When is it appropriate to laugh again after grief?
💀 Visiting my dead dad on Google Street View
💀 EXPIRED–A Death-Positive game for mortals
💀 How to Build a Nursery for a Dying Baby
💀 Planning For Your Death — Why It’s Crucial For The Living
💀 We Live On the Internet. We Die Alone.
💀 A Different Kind Of Grief: Mourning The Loss Of A Twitter Friend
Previous installments:
Links of the Dead for May 2016
Links of the Dead for April 2016
Links of the Dead for March 2016
Links of the dead for February 2016
Links of the dead for January 2016
Links of the dead for December 2015
Links of the dead for November 2015
Links of the dead for September 2015
Links of the dead for August 2015From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of NOS4A2 and Heart-Shaped Box comes a chilling novel about a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization to ashes and a band of improbable heroes who battle to save it, led by one powerful and enigmatic man known as the Fireman.
The fireman is coming. Stay cool.
No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.
Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too... if she can live long enough to deliver the child.
Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted... and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.
In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes |
exercises, and you feel like an overachieving superman blasting through workouts. Excellent, you just unlocked another prize. By the end of the recovery phase, you have to start a new rotation, which again means more DVDs! Fantastic, you just unlocked your 3rd achievement. The virtuous circle begins again: curiosity, exploration, improvements and, finally, mastery.
Many factors are now working in parallel to reinforce your new habits. Your body has begun to change for the better; you feel more energetic than you’ve ever been in your life. What used to be fat increasingly starts to become muscle. Since you already spent weeks figuring out how to include workouts in every day of your life, now your schedule is semi-adjusted for that activity; you know what tradeoffs you need to make to keep doing your daily fitness routine.
At each workout, Tony drives home the need to write down your reps and weights. What initially looks like columns of confusing numbers after a few weeks become an eye-opening testimony of how far you can progress in so little time. 3 pull-ups become 10, then 20, and then you start thinking about 30-40 as the new normal. And that is when Tony resets the board again with hard new routines, like one-hand push-ups in yet another DVD. Looking at the scorecard becomes a big point of pride and a powerful motivator: can I beat last week’s numbers today? How about an extra challenge, can I beat them by 3-4 rather than just one?
What a social design expert will instantly recognize is that many years before social gaming, P90X had all the elements of an addictive health game, with its own scoreboard, achievements and unlocks leading to new game content. These well known behavioral hooks are working hand in hand to cement the new reality of your life: you are working out every day doing intensive training and really enjoying it.
Bonus: Tony Horton Factor
Good products rarely fit neatly into easy top down or bottom up model. It’s always a lattice of overlapping and interconnected factors, all supporting each other. So far we have reviewed social design techniques used in P90X. What is impossible to reduce to a design component is Tony Horton himself, a critical and perhaps even the dominant factor in P90X’s success.
His on-screen persona is superb. He is your buddy; he is here to help your exercise and find the routine that works for you. Somehow he always guesses exactly the right moment you are ready to give up, your muscles are burning, and tells you from the screen the thing you need to hear: “hey, don’t be a hero, take a mid-set break and then finish it”, “do it like this, that will make it easier on yourself”. The level of joyous hilarity he brings into the workout is impossible to overstate.
His whole team is clearly is having a blast recording the workout. Tony is like a busy conductor orchestrating things: his own moves, his teammates, the forms they are showing, the invisible viewer presumed (correctly) to be in some stage of his muscle-induced agony. Tony manages to pull it all off effortlessly without a hint of the show being staged or scripted. The truth becomes obvious as you watch: there’s no staging – it’s just a great group workout with your new buddies.
Tony manages to pull off one of the hardest tricks: he is not pushing you to watch the health fitness program. Instead, he makes you an avid viewer of a funny new TV series “The Tony Horton Show” that airs every day at the time of your choosing. You just have to watch the next episode. The level of personal charm and attraction it generates is impossible to overstate. If smart social techniques & great workout content are the hard steel framework of the P90X building, Tony Horton’s personality is what makes it so warm and welcoming inside.
P90X: The Next Generation
Given P90X’s brilliant application of the best modern social techniques, it is easy to forget how old the product actually is. It’s been over a decade since its inception in 2002. Its age is almost unnoticeable today, aside from the few rare moments when the helpful voice reminds you to insert an “Internet Support Disk” bringing back memories of a forgotten era.
P90X remains widely popular. The sequel, P90X2, was launched in 2011. A few weeks ago the brand new P90X3 became available. I haven’t played with it yet; however, I’m sure Tony gives another amazing performance in these new sets.
Yet all current P90X versions share one common weakness – the dependence on most common denominator technology of the past decade: the DVD disc. What would be possible for P90X if we re-design it from the ground up to leverage all the power of modern web, social and mobile platforms? There are innumerable ways how P90X can benefit from all these technological advances.
Weather Forecast: Cloudy
DVDs have been on the way out for a long while. With all videos already moving to the cloud storage in a few years we probably won’t even have devices to accept physical media. In fact, the first thing I did with my P90X disks was to run them trough HandBrake to easily stream the videos to various networked Apple TVs around the house. Today such a house wiring might be typical only for Silicon Valley geeks, but in a few years it will be prevalent for all households.
P90X will migrate to cloud hosting and stream content directly to any device owned by the subscriber. P90X will cease to be a physical product; it will become a destination portal that will merge all aspects of the program: delivering workouts, tracking progress, and sharing your achievements with a like-minded community. Every morning you will be able to login into your P90X dashboard that will know what day of the rotation you are on, what track sheet you need to use today, what videos are sequenced for today’s session.
One of the startups experimenting in that direction is FitStar: it requires only an iPad as the single piece of equipment for your home workouts.
Plugins and Modules
P90X is pretty modular to begin with. “Abs Ripper X” is a plugin that is attached to the end of main workouts. Some segments include “bonus” parts if you feel particularly energetic or have extra time that day. The extra long “Yoga X” is effectively 3 yoga workouts combined into one.
After monolithic DVD disks are split into small online modules, each with very specific workout profile, we can create products with fine-grained control of intensity and scheduling. As a simple solution, we can just give that control to the user via an online dashboard. An even more intriguing option would be to engineer a “fitness AI” that would understand user progress and then create a specific sequence of workouts for each day to get best results and maximize the variety.
Invigorating Tony-c
The P90X habit forming is profound, yet physical media puts a hard limit on its diversity. No matter how many clever rotations, DVD switches and variations Tony packs in that DVD box, by the 3rd month of the program there is just not enough content left to keep the same sense of curiosity you had in the beginning. Streaming P90X via modular segments can nicely solve that problem.
What we all want later in the program is additional variety. We want more Tony, more “pterodactyl sounds” and more content. The same workouts recorded in different sessions with different groups would be a welcome change after the first segment’s routine sets in. Add to that a number of bonus segments to be unlocked based on your progress and seasonal specials (think Halloween or Xmas themed workouts), and the program variety would explode in a combinatorial manner. Just a few hours of extra footage would create a very welcome prize for the champions many months into the program.
Speaking of which, lets talk more about the prizes.
For England and For The Prize
Game design is not hard to master: there are only a few well-known basic mechanics powering most online games. Every year, the gaming industry generates a huge amount of new content by packaging and re-packaging these time-tested constructs.
P90X already has all the required ingredients of a successful online game. It’s easy to start and hard to master. It has a clear roadmap from easy early achievements (chair pullup) to hard “end game” challenges (corncob). There is a scoreboard tracking your progress. In the social environment of an online community, your personal reps score can become a big motivator. Huge amounts of video content are dedicated to the key component of any game: feedback on how to improve and reach a higher score next time. After earning enough achievements you unlock more content to play with.
The only thing left to do is to tie in all these components into one digital product. Let people publish their personal P90X profile to share their achievements or to challenge each other in joint workout sessions. Offer bonus segments to unlock as users progress through the program. Give achievement badges for every small and significant milestone: first 10 pull-ups, first 5 one-hand pushups, 4 weeks with not a single day of exercise missed, etc. There are endless possibilities to create engaged online community by opening the system to peer pressure, awarding achievements, unlocking prizes and hidden content.
Social Motivation
Social motivation is a very powerful force yet it is largely absent from P90X today. For social motivation to work we must expose user workout activities to each other, which leads to explore “user generated content”, or UGC for short.
P90X has been motivating users to create their own content for years in the form of “before & after photos” that have proven to many how well P90X works (hat tip to Sandi MacPherson for reminding me)
The well-known rule of UGC is that the majority of UGC is very bad and would not hold a candle to professionally produced content – like P90X itself. What usually makes it work is a dynamic system that constantly surfaces to the broader public the top 0.1% content that is entertaining to watch. That in turn requires a huge audience to create a sufficient mass of raw content so that crowd rankings can put the best material on the top.
P90X certainly has an audience and the numbers to make such an approach work. Enabling members to share webcam streams of their workouts to join fitness groups would ferment social ties and build new friendships. Ratings of user streams should help to surface the best UGC and can become an additional source of content to add variety to users’ daily routines. A user-created library of workout videos can become a very powerful complementary source of content for P90X’s online portal. Real time streaming coupled with a dynamic organization of workout groups would be an engaging center of activity on top of P90X’s static segments.
One company that is taking the social motivation factor to the extreme is FitMob (disclaimer: I’m one of the advisors). The company is very young yet it’s already making big waves in San Francisco’s fitness scene. FitMob delivers unique workouts with top trainers in your local neighborhood: the city itself becomes your social gym when you join this fun fitness community.
Live Long and Prosper
Completing P90X is certainly a transformational experience. P90X’s brilliant design solves the biggest problem of how to permanently change people’s habits to live healthier lifestyles on a massive scale. Needless to say, if you haven’t found the fitness system that works for you go ahead and try P90X to see if it changes your habits for the better.
For product designers, it offers another powerful lesson: you do not need the greatest & latest technology platform to transform the lives of millions. All you need is a brilliant concept, lots of hard work to fine-tune the details, and a pack of old school DVDs.
Credits
Many thanks to Raj Kapoor, Kevin Gao, Sami Inkinen, Elliott Wolf, Sizhao Yang for reading the draft of this essay and valuable feedback. And of course very special thanks to Tony Horton for coming up with the whole shebang.Color Uncovered. Produced by the Exploratorium. Ipad. Free
Reviwed by Carl Zimmer
Late in his life, Claude Monet developed cataracts. As his lenses degraded, they blocked parts of the visible spectrum, and the colors he perceived grew muddy. Monet's cataracts left him struggling to paint; he complained to friends that he felt as if he saw everything in a fog. After years of failed treatments, he agreed at age 82 to have the lens of his left eye completely removed. Light could now stream through the opening unimpeded. Monet could now see familiar colors again. And he could also see colors he had never seen before. Monet began to see--and to paint--in ultraviolet.
We can turn light into vision thanks to the pigments in our eyes, which snatch photons and trigger electric signals that travel to our brains. We have three types of pigments tuned to violet, green, and red light. Birds, bees, and many other animals have additional pigments tuned to ultraviolet light. Ultraviolet vision has led to the evolution of ultraviolet color patterns. In some butterfly species, for example, the males and females look identical to the ordinary human eye. In UV light, however, the males sport bright patterns on their wings to attract the females. Many flowers have ultraviolet colors, often using them to get the attention of pollinating bees.
While each kind of pigment responds most strongly to a particular color, it can also respond more weakly to neighboring parts of the spectrum. The violet-tuned pigment, for example,can respond wealy to ultraviolet light, which has a higher frequency. Most of us don't get to experience that response, because our lenses filter out UV rays.
But Monet did. With his lens removed, Monet continued to paint. Flowers remained one of his favorite subjects. Only now the flowers were different. When most people look at water lily flowers, they appear white. After his cataract surgery, Monet's blue-tuned pigments could grab some of the UV light bouncing off of the petals. He started to paint the flowers a whitish-blue.
I just learned about Monet's super-vision while reading the lovely Color Uncovered, produced recently for the iPad by the Exploratorium of San Francisco, one of the best science museums on Earth. I don't quite know what to call Color Uncovered. Its iTunes page describes it as "an interactive book that features fascinating illusions, articles, and videos." Yet it feels like an elegantly designed museum exhibit poured into an iPad. Making matters more confusing, you have to go to the education category of the app store in iTunes to find it. When it comes to describing what it is we review here at Download the Universe, words often fail us. Sometimes that's a bad thing, because we're reviewing muddled products of muddled minds. In other cases--like this one--it just means that someone is making good use of several different genres, and melding them into something for which there's no good label.Image: CNET/CBS Interactive
Edward Snowden said cloud storage service Dropbox is "hostile to privacy," and called for more companies to offer services that prevent government snooping.
In an interview with The Guardian, the newspaper which the former government contractor went to publish classified materials detailing the U.S.' surveillance systems, Snowden said "zero knowledge" systems help protect user privacy by preventing government access.
"By depriving themselves of the ability to read the information, of the ability to sort of analyse and manipulate the information without the customers' consent or authorisation, that's the only way they can prove to the customers that they can be trusted with their information," he said.
He also criticized the company's decision to appoint former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to its board, calling her "the most anti-privacy official you can imagine."
Rice was appointed to the company's board earlier this year, sparking anger from privacy advocates and users. During her time in the Bush administration, she oversaw the STELLARWIND program, which was the cornerstone of Bush's domestic surveillance program, he said.
"What last year's revelations showed us was irrefutable evidence that unencrypted communications on the internet are no longer safe." — Edward Snowden
But the cloud storage firm, worth an estimated $10 billion as of January, defended the appointment, calling her experience with international markets and the dynamics that define them as crucial to the company's growth.
The whistleblower, who fled the U.S. to Russia where he remains on grounds of asylum, also called Dropbox a "wannabe PRISM partner."
Dropbox was reportedly the next company to be targeted by the controversial surveillance program, which is slated to have been authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was amended in 2008 following the Bush administration's domestic spying scandal.
Snowden said companies like Spideroak offer greater protections to users because its employees do not have access to encrypted user data. While this does not prevent the government from asking for user data, the company cannot hand over any meaningful or decrypted content.
Only the subscribing user has the decryption key, forcing the government to submit data requests to the individual instead.
In a separate interview with the newspaper, Spideroak's founder and chief executive Ethan Oberman said as a result of the newfound awareness of privacy and security, the company has seen "sustained and continued growth."
"Privacy is a right, not a privilege," Oberman said.Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
ROME - Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said on Friday that Lebanon had been "hijacked" by Hezbollah and could only flourish if the Iranian-backed group disarmed.
The Shi'ite Muslim militia was set up by the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) in the 1980s and has grown steadily in influence, sharing power in the Beirut government and giving crucial support to President Bashar Assad in Syria's civil war.
Its growing strength has alarmed Saudi Arabia, a Sunni Muslim monarchy that is Shi'ite Iran's arch-rival for regional influence."Lebanon will only survive or prosper if you disarm Hezbollah," Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told a conference in Italy. "As long as you have an armed militia, you will not have peace in Lebanon."Jubeir said the situation in Lebanon was "tragic" and accused Iran of fomenting unrest across the Middle East."Since 1979, the Iranians have literally got away with murder in our region, and this has to stop," he said.A month ago, Saad Hariri resigned as Lebanese prime minister while he was in Saudi Arabia, triggering a political crisis in Beirut and thrusting Lebanon onto the front line of the regional rivalry.Saudi Arabia denied coercing its long-time ally to quit, and Hariri has now returned to Beirut and indicated that he might withdraw his resignation.Elsewhere in the region, Saudi Arabia fears that Hezbollah and Iran are trying to take control of its neighbor Yemen, by supporting Houthi forces against a Riyadh-led military coalition.Hezbollah denies fighting in Yemen, sending weapons to the Houthis, or firing rockets at Saudi Arabia from Yemeni territory. Jubeir rejected this and said his country would not back down in the conflict."The Houthis cannot be allowed to take over a country," he said.Jubeir said his country only had bad relations with two nations -- Iran and North Korea. He said Riyadh did not have relations with Israel, which shares Saudi worries over Iran, because it was waiting for a Palestinian peace deal.He said everyone knew what a solution would look like to the decades-old conflict. "It is not rocket science," he said, adding that he was waiting for the United States to put forward a new proposal.One of the most intractable problems facing negotiators is the spread of Jewish settlements across territory that the Palestinians want for a future state.Jubeir said he expected an eventual deal would set the borders of a Palestinian state on the lines prevailing before the 1967 war, when Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip.However, he said adjustments could be made for settlers: "Seventy percent of the settlers who are on the (1967) Green Line remain in Israel, and the other 30 percent - you offer them compensation and work out housing, and they can move to Israel."
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>Recently, iconographer Aidan Hart published the thought-provoking essay “Hand and machine: Making liturgical furnishings”. Mr. Hart’s piece is part of an ongoing exploration by liturgical artists of the question of how technology has changed, and is continuing to change, our relationship to crafts that have up until recently been done by hand. Liturgical designer Andrew Gould has also contributed to this conversation, as has woodcarver Jonathan Pageau. Each artist acknowledges the concern that mechanization and industrialization will in some way diminish the physical quality, the craftsmanship, and the spiritual value of liturgical art, and also force our liturgical aesthetic from an ideal of heavenly worship that is unique and personal into the realm of kitsch, of the cheap and prefabricated, of cookie-cutter monotony. Is everything doomed to follow the trajectory of the icon, where inexpensive laser printer renderings are mounted on wood, and the handpainted image is so rare as to have near-unicorn status?
The consensus appears to be that as long as technology is used as a tool to enable, rather than replace, the human craftsmanship, and does not overwhelm the creativity and specificity of the art in question, then there are ways of using technology that are practical and cost-effective without bringing down the quality. Sometimes it may even work well to adapt design to modern technology rather than continue to ape forms that have become disconnected from the function — that is, new technology may offer a way to rethink a given function, rather than resorting to skeuomorphism, where we maintain the outer appearance of a design element while removing its structural or functional significance, such as retaining the shape of a film camera, designed to accommodate the space considerations for a roll of film, with a digital camera that has different space considerations. (Skeuomorphism, I will note, is a somewhat ironic word to disparage, given that τὸ σκεῦος is the Greek word given to the holy vessels of the altar, which are stored in the σκευοφυλάκιον, lit. “where the vessels are guarded”.) Mr. Hart gives the example of a choros chandelier he designed, in which ultimately employing electric candles to preserve a visual design element made less sense than using concealed LED strip lighting at the base of the piece. The objective with employing technology ought to be, according to Mr. Hart, to preserve the sense that liturgical craftsmanship is “an act of communion as an act of creation”, and “to discern the logos or divine word of each created thing… We are called to bring out all the material’s potential[.]”
Music is a liturgical art that also has to examine these issues. Singers are old hands at having to adapt to technological developments; we’ve had to deal with the transition from the scroll to the codex, from rote memorization and improvisation to the development of music notation, from the manuscript to the printed book. In the last century, we have dealt with the impacts of the invention of the microphone, the rise of audio recordings, the ubiquity of computers, the permeation of all spaces and objects by the Internet, digital typesetting, digital synthesizers, and now the near-universality of the tablet computer and the PDF (portable document format). We interact with the architecture, the furnishings, the vestments, and the books, and we do so performatively. It is our job to make the words heard in a particular way; anything that enhances or decreases our ability to perform this task, or somehow accompanies us in doing so, changes our job to some degree.
Take the microphone, for example. Prior to its invention, singers and speakers had to rely on the natural acoustics of the building enhancing a cultivated skill of projection in the voice. That works well in Orthodox churches built with high vaulted ceilings and marble floors and curved apses serving as resonating chambers; Hagia Sophia’s decay time, according to the Stanford University Icons of Sound project, was approximately eleven seconds when it was full. Once there’s a microphone, though, that kind of natural acoustic, while still ideal, is no longer a need-to-have; neither is vocal training for that matter, for either speaker or singer. It is no coincidence that both of those factors are expensive — certainly far more expensive than a microphone, even a halfway-decent sound system, and any level of musical education. It is also no coincidence that in the twentieth century, architects started building churches that were intentionally dry acoustically, so as to favor the spoken voice as rendered by a microphone (such as St. Thomas Episcopal Church in New York; eventually they changed their mind and retrofitted the ceiling for a more forgiving acoustic). Not only that, but recordings, a technology enabled by the microphone, by definition preserve only those performances somebody thought worth preserving. As those performances get propagated as models to follow, it both has a homogenizing effect and rather elides the inevitable politics of performance practice. As recordings maintain the idea of a particular standard while the realities of electroacoustic technology mean the singer no longer has to produce the voice in a particular way to be heard in a big church, over time an ever-bigger wedge gets driven between normative performance practice and the ideal. To say nothing of the problem of technological “mission creep” as the money spent on it justifies an expanded use; the parish that spends thousands of dollars on a sound system for its temporary space will have a financial incentive to maintain its use in a permanent space rather than spend more money on a design that offers proper acoustics.
And then, for the small parish community wanting a more present sound for festal occasions, perhaps there is the temptation to use a recording to augment, or even replace, the human being at the analogion. A parish I once chanted for floated exactly this proposal for Holy Friday one year, expressing the concern that one person leading the Lamentations wasn’t going to yield the robust singing from everybody that would have been nice – maybe I knew of a CD that everybody could sing along to? (I declined. It went fine.)
On the other hand, the computer, the internet, and the PDF have made some kinds of musical instruction possible across geographic barriers that would have been insurmountable before. Need a score from a Greek book that’s been out of print for over a century? Somebody’s probably posted a scan of the book in an online forum someplace. (Too hard to read? It’ll take maybe 15 minutes to retypeset it digitally.) Want to learn how to conduct a choir and you live in, say, Wyoming? You can take lessons over Skype from a master teacher in Russia. Having trouble getting Byzantine intervals in your ear? There’s an app for that. The freewheeling nature of PDF distribution via backchannels perhaps somewhat elides copyright issues for present-day translations and newer compositions, but since nobody in North America is exactly getting rich off of Orthodox music publishing, nobody is terribly concerned about that quite yet.
To be sure, the pedagogical advantages of this technology have their limits, and must be employed responsibly. The easy dissemination of information does not void the necessity of human guidance; if anything, it makes a teacher even more necessary. You cannot teach yourself to be Orthodox, and you cannot be a church musician who is 100% autodidact (any more than you could be a priest who is completely self-taught). The web may make a great deal of information easily-available at the touch of a button, but a person is still going to have to help you navigate it.
Another example of technology empowering but also requiring discernment and responsibility is the tablet. Over the last five years or so, the tablet has been an amazing resource for every kind of musician, and it has changed the way we interact with and think about scores. As pianist Wu Han told the New York Times’ Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim (over Skype, no less) for a 2016 article, “It’s not like the old days where you only have information passed down by a teacher. Now everyone is a detective.” For Orthodox church musicians this means we can carry an entire library of liturgical books, sheet music, and even manuscripts in one portable, lightweight device. It puts much at one’s fingertips that might have been difficult to access otherwise, and where one Matins service may have required six or seven fairly bulky books, it can now be done all from one book-sized tablet. A library of public domain PDFs can be had for next to zero upfront costs (save for the tablet) and requires no storage space to speak of; this can be a real boon for a singer at a small parish with no budget for music and no room to store books.
On the other hand, while this may be a wonderfully empowering tool from a practical perspective, there are certainly concerns that the use of such devices has raised. Fr. Maximos Constans, a faculty member at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology as well as an Athonite monk and accomplished scholar and translator, has taken a strong stance against tablets, saying that “A liturgical book is a sacred object, an iPad is not.” The issue is one of the tablet being a temptation to distraction, or worse, at least as much as it may be a practical tool, and generally being a multi-use object rather than being a dedicated sacred vessel. Other concerns have to do with it facilitating too much choice — that is, it being too easy for the individual musician to “roll their own” in terms of texts and music, as opposed to having a prescribed book with the preferred translation or settings of a given parish or jurisdiction. Some might raise the objection that the ability to navigate the physical liturgical books — Menaion, Oktoechos, and so on — is part of the discipline. At a price point of up to several hundred dollars, tablets could be seen as exclusionary in terms of cost, and an overreliance on an electronic device as introducing an unnecessary potential complication.
Nonetheless, various jurisdictions and para-ecclesiastical organizations have begun to embrace this kind of technology, perhaps starting the process of adapting the form to the function enabled by these devices. The Antiochian Archdiocese has rolled out an updated liturgical guide with embedded hyperlinks to sheet music PDFs; this is explicitly intended to streamline the process of using tablets and other smart devices for cantors and members of the choir, as well as to simplify issues of musical access for those who may not be certain where to find what they need.
AGES Initiatives, an extra-ecclesial nonprofit founded with the blessing of Metropolitan Alexios of Atlanta has the objective of using technology “to store, organize, and deliver Orthodox Christian liturgical texts and music to support the education of church singers, and to facilitate the smooth performance of church services”. (Statement of disclosure: this author is an employee of AGES Initiatives.) While commonly associated with the translations and compositions of its founder, former Athonite Fr. Seraphim Dedes, the AGES platform is first and foremost a database and distribution system that is library-neutral. In cooperation with the rightsholders for given translations, the database now includes the work of Fr. Ephrem Lash (including John Michael Boyer’s metrical adaptations), Fr. Peter Virgil Andronache, Fr. Juvenaly Repass, and also the St. Athanasius Academy Septuagint and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese’s new official Divine Liturgy translation.
The publicly-available version of the AGES platform employs an algorithm that automates the process of applying the Violakis typikon to the liturgical library, generating the Digital Chant Stand — electronic bilingual service booklets with hyperlinked scores for all hymns in both languages, producing several months’ worth in only a couple of minutes. The platform is customizable for any typikon, any given library of texts, any library of music, and the booklet format is also customizable.
The AGES platform can be accessed through either the web or a tablet app that makes everything for any given service immediately accessible, but the system finds its fullest expression in something much more intentionally disruptive: the fully-implemented Digital Chant Stand, as currently found at Fr. Seraphim’s home parish of St. Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. All skeuomorphisms are done away with: the analogia have been removed, and there are no books. A/V carts loaded with computer and audio hardware occupy the very traditional spots of left and right choirs in front of the solea, and antiphonal choirs of men and women gather around large computer screens, on which a mouse click pulls up a PDF for every piece of music in the service. This is, to be sure, a tool with considerable application in the mission field beyond North America; for example, the Archdiocese of Kenya has officially adopted AGES for its liturgical texts and rubrics.
Of course, there are concerns. As a character in the classic 1982 science fiction film TRON warns about artificial intelligence, “Won’t that be grand! The computers and programs will start thinking, and the people will stop!” An understanding of rubrics and how to perform a service according to the typikon from the books themselves is part of the church musician’s job, it might be argued, and fairly. On the other hand, none of the jurisdictions have made it a priority to translate the typikon; there have been personal efforts that have been published through various channels (including both draft copies made available digitally and actual physical books), but nothing formal. There are reasons the North American jurisdictions have not made this a priority; allocation of resources, and presumably concern over pastoral application of such a document were it to be universally available, just to suggest a couple of possibilities. Be that as it may, the truth of the matter is, for the Anglophone world — and more broadly speaking, the mission field — there is no direct access to the typikon, and services still need to be offered in the meantime. As for working from the liturgical books themselves, the practical consideration is again one of cost and space for the smaller and/or newer parish (or even jurisdiction, as seen with the example of Kenya).
There are practical concerns of a skeuomorphic nature. With no physical books, customary practices involving them — such as the placing of the Triodion before the icon of Christ right before Vespers of the Publican and Pharisee — become problematic. As noted, having antiphonal A/V carts that look like nothing so much as portable recording studios right in front of the solea is a visual disruption in the midst of iconography and woodwork. Here, I would return to the matter of Aidan Hart’s choros chandelier that embraced concealed LED lighting as an adaptation of form to a new manner of function. In the same way, these issues represent challenges that are properly the domain of a designer; how might an artist such as Mr. Hart or Andrew Gould design an analogion intended for the function of the Digital Chant Stand that would preserve, perhaps even expand, a traditional aesthetic?
There are a couple of elephants in the room that have been only briefly alluded to, and those are the closely related issues of economics and convenience. Design elements that favor natural acoustics, to give but one example, are expensive; marble — or even wooden — floors, high ceilings, plaster construction, and the like all make for a wonderfully resonant church, if you can afford them. And, because those elements arguably make the physical experience of being in church more austere (particularly the floors), some communities may be reluctant to justify the expense. I’ve been there when parents of small children have said it’s unrealistic to expect them to have their kids crawling around on such a floor. “Why do I want to stand on a rock hard surface like that for three hours or more at a time?” somebody once told me. Acoustics were one issue, I suggested; “Yeah, well, in this day and age it’s called a microphone,” was the response. For better or for worse, the relative economy of amplification thus allows the nonstandard space to become standard.
On a smaller scale, books, music, and standard liturgical furnishings associated with cantors and choirs also run into barriers of cost and convenience. There is one English-language Menaion available, it alone is a $1,200 investment, previously-alluded to issues of typikon mean that even if a church has them there is no guarantee that anybody will know how to use them, and as I know from my own experience, if there is not a standard analogion, the individual volumes are extremely cumbersome to have open on a common Manhasset black music stand. If you want to buy the Greek books, the volumes perhaps cost half as much, but as they have to be imported from Greece, shipping brings the price back up. And yes, a standard analogion and set of stalls will themselves run into the thousands of dollars, if you can even find somebody who knows how to build them for you. A few hundred dollars for a tablet that then has all of the necessary liturgical texts and music loaded on it for free, or even for a nominal subscription fee, starts to look like better bang for the buck for parish communities with limited resources, as well as a more practical adaptation to the pastoral realities of a mission field that does not have the backing of an imperial treasury.
This piece has only allowed for a surface analysis of the various issues I’ve raised; much more can be said, and it is my hope that these observations might generate fruitful discussion. The way technology interacts with liturgical music has changed dramatically just in the last ten years. The best way to adapt remains an open question. Still, to return to the consensus of Messrs. Hart, Gould, and Pageau, we need to be vigilant that technology is used as a tool to enable, rather than replace, the human element inherent in our practice of singing praises to God, and that it does not overwhelm the creativity and specificity of how we do it. Perhaps, in adapting form to the function of new technology, much as had to happen when the scroll became the codex, this adaptation will give way to something that is beautiful and in keeping with our tradition in its own right. It will be up to designers and musicians to collaborate in faith and find the point of intersection between technology, practical reality, pastoral application, and tradition where we may bring out all the material’s potential.STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford has secured the 2014-15 Division I Learfield Sports Directors' Cup, extending its streak to 21 consecutive seasons of capturing the award presented to the most successful intercollegiate athletic department in the nation.
Jaquish & Kenninger |
curtailment thereof has been one of the main reasons for revolts in the country throughout Philippine history.”
Perhaps that’s why the case has generated so much interest. The strange charge has helped turn Celdran into something of a cause célèbre in the Southeast Asian nation, inspiring Facebook support pages and the Twitter hashtag #FreeCarlosCeldran. The 40-year-old performance artist is already a local celebrity, best known for Walk This Way, a walking tour of Manila that TIME described as “filled with the kind of insight that only a native raconteur can provide.” A statement of support has even come from President Aquino, who was instrumental in the RH law’s passage. The President said, somewhat carefully, that he “may sympathize with Mr. Celdran’s position.”
(MORE: More Catholic than the Pope? Manila Suburb Cracks Down on Condoms)
The church is also treading delicately around Celdran’s case. The Archdiocese of Manila issued a statement clarifying that it had no part in the prosecution of Celdran, even though it was “deeply disturbed” by his act. The powerful Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines has also distanced itself from the case, saying it has already forgiven Celdran. It was in fact a Catholic layperson, attorney Ronaldo Reyes, who pursued the case on behalf of the state. Harry Roque, a law professor at the University of Philippines, said Article 133 is a form of lèse-majesté and called it “an archaic provision which no longer has a place when the current constitution and human-rights laws now recognize freedom of expression.” Roque is currently in the midst of a different high-profile legal case, a challenge to the so-called cybercrime law, which contains sweeping and vague libel provisions that have sparked an enormous public outcry. (The libel laws are also a holdover from the Spanish penal code.)
What’s happening in the Philippines is not a full-fledged revolt but a re-examination of some of the country’s long-held orthodoxies. The biggest question is what role the church should play in national affairs. Hard-line supporters are already gearing up for challenges to the church’s authority. Jo Imbong, legal counsel for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said the RH law’s passage has “increased the resolve of Catholics to stand their ground.” There is also a moderate strain of clergy and Catholic laypeople that supported the RH law and has been outspoken regarding the Celdran case. “The Catholic Church is pervasive through the Philippine psyche in an absolute manner,” said Celdran, who himself identifies as Catholic.
For now, Celdran continues to lead his Walk This Way tour several times a week. On a recent outing, he did not mention his legal troubles to his audience of about 50, a mix of foreign tourists and Filipinos. But after the tour was over, several people approached him to offer words of support and pose for photos — one even brought a miniature “Damaso” sign for Celdran to hold up. Despite the threat of imminent jail time, Celdran maintains an optimistic take on not only his legal troubles but also on the future of the Philippines. “I’m kind of lucky that I’m in a society that I truly believe in my heart is secular, progressive and logical,” he said. “And I feel like it is very fortunate for me to be in a position that can prove that about our nation.”
MORE: Manila: Walk the Talk
MORE: The Manila Floods: Why Wasn’t the City Prepared?
MORE: City Guide: The Bold and the BeautifulBy Constantinos Psillides
Former interior minister Dinos Michaelides and his son Michalis were found guilty on all charges on Wednesday by an Athens court and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.
Dinos and Michalis Michaelides were facing charges of bribery and money laundering in relation to the purchase of TOR-M1 anti-aircraft missiles by Greece during Akis Tsohatzopoulos’ term as Greek defence minister.
Defence lawyers for Michaelides filed a motion for leniency with the court, citing Michaelides’ “clean record and good behaviour”. The court rejected the motion.
Syrian arms dealer Fouad Al Zayat was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia. Also sentenced were former legal adviser to the Greek defence ministry Anastasios Sofos and his wife Maria. The length of their sentence has yet to be made known.
The charges related to the purchase by Greece of the Russian TOR-M1 surface-to-air missile system and the alleged kickbacks given.
The former minister and his son were suspected of money laundering, involving kickbacks of €7.7 million believed to have eventually ended up in the hands of Tsohatzopoulos who signed the agreement for the supply of the missile system.
Greek investigators found that the millions in kickbacks were sent from one offshore company to Michalis Michaelides’ account, to which his father Dinos also had access.
Tsohatzopoulos, was arrested in April 2012 on money laundering charges in the biggest scandal in Greece involving a politician. On October 2013 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
His cousin, businessman Nicos Zigras, testified to Greek authorities last year that Michaelides transferred cash linked to the acquisition of the missile systems.
Dinos Michaelides was forced to step down as interior minister in 1999 during Glafcos Clerides’ administration after ombudswoman Eliana Nicolaou questioned planning changes to land which Michaelides later bought and built a luxury home on.
Michaelides said at the time he was being “defamed”. He also served as interior minister between 1985 and 1988 for the Spyros Kyprianou government and between 1993 and 1997, again for Clerides.The NBA Needs Cavs-Heat First Round Matchup
The Heat and Cavs facing off in the playoffs would be very entertaining and help the postseason become interesting again
Michael DePrisco Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 8, 2017
Cleveland.com
The Miami Heat defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers for the second time this season on Monday. The Heat have a good chance at making the playoffs, and a first round matchup between these two teams would be wondrous for the NBA.
The Heat lead the season series 2–1. Even though the first victory against Cleveland did not include LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, it’s hard to admit that Miami isn’t on the minds of the Cavs after their recent loss to them.
The Cavs would almost certainly win the series, but the games would be incredibly entertaining, and weakening Cleveland would help make the playoffs interesting again.
All U Can Heat
The Heat started the season pretty terribly, with an 11–30 record in mid-January. Miami then proceeded to win 14 games in a row, vaulting them from the bottom of the league into the eastern conference playoff picture. The emergence of Dion Waiters has been the catalyst to this unexpected run. He averaged 17.5 points per game in January and February, with a plus/minus of +17.6.
Goran Dragic has posted great offensive numbers since January as well. As you can see, he has been incredibly efficient.
Offensive rating/Plus Minus:
January: 116/+3.1
February: 122/+9.0
March: 114/+13.9
The play of Miami’s back court has helped them become a legitimate threat to make the playoffs. They’re currently 1.5 games behind the Bulls and Pistons for the final two playoff spots out east, and there is no reason why the Heat can’t catch them.
Sporting News
Cleveland, the top dog in the eastern conference, has done everything in its power to build a roster that pleases their demanding franchise player LeBron James. Andrew Bogut is out indefinitely after breaking his leg one minute into his Cavs debut, and Kevin Love is out for at least another month with a knee injury.
The Cavs had a relatively easy road to the Finals last season, sweeping its first two match ups, and then handling the Raptors in six games. This year is shaping out to be a much tougher path to James’ seventh straight NBA Finals appearance. Toronto, Boston, and Washington are much better teams than last year, and it doesn’t help that James has played the most minutes in the league right now.
Enter the Heat. A scrappy bunch of players with plenty to prove that will give the Cavs everything they can handle. This will make Cleveland more vulnerable against the rest of the eastern conference’s elite, and make the playoffs really fun.
Waiters decided to trash talk some fans after hitting a huge shot to all but seal Miami’s victory over Cleveland. In the playoffs, tension is much higher, and I’d imagine Waiters would pull out an even more magnificent celebration if he had the opportunity on a bigger stage.
This kind of drama is what would make a series between these two teams very entertaining to watch. The Cavs traded Waiters back in 2015, so there must be a monster sized chip on his shoulder regarding that move. Also, I’m sure whatever is left of Miami’s fan base after James left would love to shower him with boo’s in a playoff series.
I can’t imagine that the NBA wants to see a third straight Finals showdown between Golden State and Cleveland. Kevin Durant’s injury will make the Warriors very vulnerable against a slew of deadly western conference contenders. If both teams go down before the Finals, wouldn’t that be great?
YES!
A Finals match that’s different!MEDINA, Ohio -- The father of a 1-year-old baby whose decomposed body was discovered in a Medina apartment Wednesday morning is in custody.
Eric Warfel faces a charge of abuse of a corpse, Medina Police Chief Patrick J. Berarducci said. Warfel could face additional charges in the ongoing investigation.
Investigators believe the remains are that of his daughter Ember Warfel.
Police were called to the Forest Meadows Apartment Homes about 10:30 a.m., Berarducci said. A cable man updating equipment in the home found the "badly decomposed" baby's body in a crib.
The body was sent to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's office for an autopsy to determine the girl's cause of death, the statement says. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification processed the apartment and gathered evidence.
Police tracked her father to Crocker Park in Westlake Wednesday afternoon where he was taken into custody without incident by Westlake police.
Warfel was with his 7-year-old daughter at the shopping center.
Warfel is currently being held in the Medina County Jail before his first appearance in Medina Municipal Court, the statement says. The date of his appearance is currently unknown.
Police questioned Warfel's daughter before she was released to the custody of her grandparents, Berarducci said.
Warfel lost his 5-month-old daughter Erin on March 31, 2013. It's not clear Wednesday how the child died, and police are not indicating whether foul play was involved.Tremending
Por Christian González y Yeray Calvo
En días como hoy, con la lluvia y tal, a uno le entra un ataque de pesimismo
“No os quiero asustar, pero vamos camino de la 3ª Guerra Mundial”. Mi padre. — La Madre de Brian (@LaMadredeBrian) 19 de octubre de 2016
Y si enciende la radio más aún: 39 internos han protestado durante toda la noche en la azotea del CIE de Aluche para pedir “libertad” y”dignidad”. Por lo que sea, no están muy contentos con la acogida que les damos
¿Por qué han protestado en concreto? Vete tu a saber…
Hay un motín en una cárcel de personas que no han cometido ningún delito. — gerardo tecé (@gerardotc) 18 de octubre de 2016
Seamos prudentes al hablar. Lo primero es informarse bien y luego valorar
Estoy escuchando a Losantos y por lo visto los subsaharianos son gente con navajas que debería vivir en casa de Carmena. #Información — gerardo tecé (@gerardotc) 19 de octubre de 2016
Hay quien critica los Centros de Internamiento de Extranjeros y la condiciones en las que allí se vive. Nada más lejos de la realidad, lo cierto es que el CIE de Aluche es que es un bonito patio de recreo donde recibimos con cariño a las personas que llegan a nuestro país después de jugarse la vida por huir de la guerra y el hambre. Por eso se le conoce con un bonito sobrenombre:
Un “centro de acogida”, como dicen en Televisión Española. Del tipo de acogida a la que no puedes negarte. Esa clase de acogida
Una vergüenza que la televisión pública retuerza la realidad de esta manera: los CIE no acogen, violan los DDHH https://t.co/vZCcrO3sqd pic.twitter.com/vUG7YAV2oT — Rita Maestre (@Rita_Maestre) 19 de octubre de 2016
Dicen las autoridades q los CÍE son estupendos.Q siempre hace sol dentro y que suenan a música celestial.Dan ganas de ir de vacaciones allí — Fernando Berlín (@radiocable) 19 de octubre de 2016
Los llamaron CIE’s porque cárceles ilegales quedaba poco comercial. — laquintacolumna (@laquintacolumna) 19 de octubre de 2016
Bendita desmemoria que nos hace vivir sin remordimientos
Pero bueno, lo más importante, es actuar. Ya hay gente sensata dispuesta a arreglar la situación:
Ha ido ya Albert Rivera a abrazar a abrazar a los inmigrantes del CIE de Aluche? — Anita Botwin (@AnitaBotwin) 19 de octubre de 2016
No pasa nada, Rajoy se está informando del problema y ya se pone con él:
Mariano preguntándose qué problema hay con las islas Cíes… #CIEsNO — Olalá de fua (@olaladefua) 19 de octubre de 2016
No, en serio. El Gobierno, con todos sus recursos, ya está en trámite de resolver el problema en los CIES
Que dice Fernández Díaz que mantas y comida no, pero que si quieren los negratas les mandan un cura. #CIEsNO pic.twitter.com/t5ZAdgvIaw — protestona (@protestona1) 19 de octubre de 2016
Aunque todo esto tiene una explicación
Si no encerramos a la gente que no ha hecho nada, habría que encerrar a quienes han hecho algo y nos quedaríamos sin Gobierno. #CIEsNO — Anacleto Panceto (@Xuxipc) 18 de octubre de 2016
Hablando de encerrar: nuevas noticias con más corrupción desde Valencia
Carrusel de casos aislados. pi pi pi pi pi. Corrupciooooón en Sagunto. Pepe, otro purito! pic.twitter.com/vqMdB6hVSN — gerardo tecé (@gerardotc) 19 de octubre de 2016
Bienvenidos. Empieza… ¡CARRUSEL DELICTIVO! ¡Dale Manolo!
Mi ser mitológico favorito es el dirigente del PP de Valencia sin imputar. — gerardo tecé (@gerardotc) 19 de octubre de 2016
“Hay dos cosas infinitas: la estupidez humana y la corrupción en el PP de Valencia.” (Albert Einstein). — Luisao Moratalla (@LuisaoMoratalla) 19 de octubre de 2016
¡El caso aislado del día!
Comienzan los actos de celebración por nuevo caso aislado de corrupción del PP de Valencia #MayoríaAbsotutaDoble pic.twitter.com/FD3KAsbFDs — robotronk (@robotronk1) 19 de octubre de 2016
La Policía investiga por corrupción a un diputado autonómico y once concejales del PP de Sagunto, una vez más en Valencia. ¡Que no pare la fiesta en el PP!
La paella, no se, pero si hay algo que siempre lleva chorizos es el PP Valenciano. — Anacleto Panceto (@Xuxipc) 19 de octubre de 2016
Hoy en las redes se habla también de Felipe González. El expresidente ha tenido que suspender su participación en una charla en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Esto ya no es lo que era
A Felipe González hoy le ha tocado la de arena. — Arezno (@Arezno) 19 de octubre de 2016
Felipe González subido al tejado de la Universidad gritando libertad. — gerardo tecé (@gerardotc) 19 de octubre de 2016
Una protesta contra su presencia en el acto le impidió entrar
UAM, de entrada, no. — Apróstata (@haprostata) 19 de octubre de 2016
Felipe González intentando entrar en la Universidad de Madrid https://t.co/d9QUv65vbm — El Tio Bartolo (@tio_bartolo) 19 de octubre de 2016
“¿Dónde está la puerta giratoria?” – ha gritado Felipe Gónzalez en su huida de la Autónoma de Madrid. — Bob Estropajo (@BobEstropajo) 19 de octubre de 2016
Emoticono de carita triste
Pobre Felipe González, a ver si va Albert Rivera a darle un abrazo para animarle. — laquintacolumna (@laquintacolumna) 19 de octubre de 2016
Juan Luis Cebrián también iba. Los amigos, juntos a todas partes
El País al ver lo de Cebrián y Felipe González pic.twitter.com/dymwrDkgEU — Memes políticos (@PoliReac) 19 de octubre de 2016
Cebrián sufriendo en sus propias carnes lo que hace en su periódico y Felipe lo que hizo como presidente. — Javier Gallego Crudo (@carnecrudaradio) 19 de octubre de 2016
Quizá se equivocaron de foro…
Si Cebrian y González no quieren que les abucheen deberían de dar las charlas en la CEOE, la reunión del IBEX o en la asociación de banca! — Fer Novato (@fer_novato) 19 de octubre de 2016
A Felipe González le aplaudirán cuando dé la charla en la FAES. — Moe de Triana (@moedetriana) 19 de octubre de 2016
Si Felipe González quiere aplausos, en lugar de abucheos, que se vaya al consejo de Gas Natural — Eterno Primavera (@SiPeroNo1) 19 de octubre de 2016
Una vergüenza todo
¿Así agradecéis a Felipe González y Cebrián que inventasen la Democracia? — Numeritos inc. (@08181) 19 de octubre de 2016
Hay opiniones para todos los gustos: interrumpir una charla sí…
Que Felipe González sea recibido de esa forma en la universidad es un síntoma de calidad democrática. No lo es recibirle con pleitesía. — Antonio Maestre (@AntonioMaestre) 19 de octubre de 2016
Estos del PSOE indignados por la protesta pacífica contra Felipe González son los que reivindicaban el mayo 68 ¿no? pic.twitter.com/b0HmM6VoDV — Eterno Primavera (@SiPeroNo1) 19 de octubre de 2016
Muchas no lo recordareis, pero años ha, en las universidades era donde primero se protestaba por todo, y se consideraba algo normal. — Anacleto Panceto (@Xuxipc) 19 de octubre de 2016
Los estudiantes no pueden decirle a Felipe González que se vaya, eso solo lo puede decir Jose María Aznar. — Dios (@Sr_Dios) 19 de octubre de 2016
Interrumpir una charla no…
Es tan sencillo tumbar los argumentos de Felipe González que vaya torpeza no dejarlo hablar. #tuitserio — gerardo tecé (@gerardotc) 19 de octubre de 2016
Vamos a reventar la conferencia de Felipe González pronto que luego hay que lanzar un hashatg en Twitter contra la Ley Mordaza. — Philmore A. Mellows (@PhilAMellows) 19 de octubre de 2016
Me parece mal que no dejen contar sus milongas a Felipe González, imagínate que tuviera pensado confesar lo de la cal. — laquintacolumna (@laquintacolumna) 19 de octubre de 2016
Es lo que tiene Twitter
Puto Tuiter. — Arturo Pérez-Reverte (@perezreverte) 28 de agosto de 2011
Y lo grave de todo esto es que ahora el mundo entero no podrá saber qué querían decir estos dos ciudadanos…
Los estudiantes han coartado la libertad de expresión de Felipe González y Cebrián. Ahora no tendrán ningún foro donde expresar sus ideas. — Antonio Maestre (@AntonioMaestre) 19 de octubre de 2016
No han dejado hablar a Felipe González, seguro que tenía muchas cosas que contar sobre su yate o Gas Natural en una uni pública. — Anita Botwin (@AnitaBotwin) 19 de octubre de 2016
No enserio, hay que dejar opinar a todos. Albert Rivera ha tenido que recordárnoslo a todos hoy
El País ha informado del asunto, siempre con independencia, claro
Uuy! ELPAIS con el tema “Felipe González” haciendo un COMBO al estilo OKDIARIO, ABC, LARAZÓN… pic.twitter.com/WAksfNWuKj — Bob Estropajo (@BobEstropajo) 19 de octubre de 2016
Se ha impedido a González dar una charla “con violencia”
El escalofriante numero de heridos a esta hora asciende a 0 — Anacleto Panceto (@Xuxipc) 19 de octubre de 2016
Primeras identificaciones de los RADICALES que han atacado a Felipe González en la Autónoma de Madrid. pic.twitter.com/bxStscOqY2 — Bob Estropajo (@BobEstropajo) 19 de octubre de 2016
Aunque puestos a poner titulares…
Un grupo de radicales organizado por Felípe Gonzalez y Cebrián impide que Pedro Sánchez ocupe el cargo que obtuvo en primarias — Armando el pollo (@Arma_pollo) 19 de octubre de 2016
Por cierto, no queremos hacen spam por aquí, pero resulta que hay unos premios que…
No seremos nosotros quien os digamos que nos votéis como mejor blog de humor en los premios Bitácoras.com pero resulta que la vida de un murciano está en juego… Vosotros mismos
Votad a @Tremending o le vuelo la puta cabeza al murciano. https://t.co/U1Ep74gAMx — Facu Díaz (@FacuDiazT) 16 de octubre de 2016
LO ESTÁS VIENDO LO ESTÁS RIENDO (LOS TUITS ABSURDOS DEL DÍA)
-Buenos días. ¿Me pone un café? -¿Cortado? -Un poco. Es la primera vez que vengo sólo a un bar. — Mascarpone (@Mascarporno) 19 de octubre de 2016
Científicos españoles identifican el gen que empuja a nuestros políticos a la corrupción: El Gen Tuza. — Sr. Rodríguez (@amaliorodriguez) 28 de julio de 2012
Pérez Reverte y Francisco Rico quieren ser los nuevos Quevedo y Góngora pero se quedan en Pimpinela. — Dios (@diostuitero) 18 de octubre de 2016
-De cada 30 alcohólicos, 10 hemos conseguido dejarlo.
-¿Un tercio?
-¡Venga! — Hannibal Lecter (@Doc_Hannibal) 16 de octubre de 2016
El PP promete crear 400.000 puestos de ” esclavos ” en 2017 pic.twitter.com/DKNa1IbWY6 — Javier Claramunt (@ClaramunJavier) 19 de octubre de 2016
El felpudo de Bob Dylan. pic.twitter.com/TUgen5EV1W — ЄГіҠѦ LѺթѦҬЄԌԱі (@ErikaLopategui) 19 de octubre de 2016
Me han hecho un tratamiento con células madre y ahora lo encuentro todo. — ResidenteVil (@ResiVil) 12 de enero de 2016
-Dígame? -Hola,Felipe II? -Si,soy yo.Con quien hablo? -Soy Guillermo de Orange -No me interesa cambiar de compañía telefónica.(Click!) — ๒๏гןค๓คгยtє๓ (@jamarutem) 1 de septiembre de 2016
Mientras tanto, en el Fondo de Reserva de las pensiones… pic.twitter.com/wLkhiRFbYs — Proscojoncio (@Proscojoncio) 2 de diciembre de 2015
Tomates huyendo de una cena de veganos pic.twitter.com/rkp4cv3IUO — Bitterkasontherocks (@bitterconhielo) 19 de octubre de 2016
Bob Dylan ha huido con nuestra hucha de las pensiones. — Gambazo (@gambazo) 19 de octubre de 2016
-Bienvenido a McDonalds. No se apoye en el mostrador, por favor, que está roto. ¿Qué desea?
-Mmm… ¿McPollo?
-¡QUE NO, QUE ESTÁ ROTO JODER! — S_Coche (@Aquel_Coche) 11 de marzo de 2016
-Cariño, te he roto el iPhone, te he sido infiel, te he quemado las tostadas y he visto un capítulo de Narcos sin ti.
-¡¿QUE HAS VISTO QUÉ?! — arcitecta (@arcitecta) 18 de octubre de 2016
-Venía a recoger mi premio Nobel.
+El de Literatura?
-El que me haigan dado. — Sr Pepeleches (@Sr_Pepeleches) 13 de octubre de 2016Among the top executives of California’s biggest companies, the highest paid, Mark Hurd, works for a tech company in the San Francisco Bay Area.
So does the second best. And the fourth. And the fifth. Among the top five, Disney’s Robert Iger stands alone as the only CEO from outside of Silicon Valley’s burgeoning technology industry.
To judge by this list, which ranks the total compensation awarded last year to the chief executives of California’s 100 largest public companies, it pays to work in Silicon Valley.
Of the executives on the list, 61 run companies in Northern California, nearly all of them based in the 50-mile stretch between San Jose and San Francisco. And 47 are in the technology business, running firms that do such things as create software, make computer chips and operate data centers.
Best-paid Northern California executives Four of the five top-paid CEOs in Northern California run Silicon Valley tech firms. Search the full list >> Executive Company Compensation List rank Industry City Mark Hurd Oracle $53,245,128 1 Tech Redwood City Safra Catz Oracle $53,243,670 2 Tech Redwood City Marissa Mayer Yahoo $35,981,107 4 Tech Sunnyvale Marc Benioff Salesforce.com $33,362,903 5 Tech San Francisco John Hammergren McKesson $24,844,555 6 Biotech and Pharmaceuticals San Francisco Source: Equilar
The Silicon Valley-heavy list is a testament to the continued growth of the tech business, with more technology firms climbing into the ranks of the state’s largest companies and more of them able to afford the lavish pay packages that put their CEOs atop the list.
Hurd and Safra Catz, the co-CEOs of Redwood City software giant Oracle Corp., each received more than $53 million in total compensation last year. Marissa Mayer, the chief executive of struggling Web pioneer Yahoo Inc., took home just shy of $36 million. The CEOs of Salesforce.com Inc., LinkedIn Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. all made the top 10.
The list was compiled by Equilar Inc., an executive compensation solutions firm, drawing on 2015 fiscal year proxy statements filed by June 8. It ranks the executives by total compensation, which includes base salary, bonuses, stock and option awards, as well as other compensation, such as company-paid benefits.
But the list paints an incomplete picture of executive pay in California, and of the state’s economy as a whole. Though most of the largest firms and highest-paid bosses are in the Bay Area, Southern California has a much larger and more diverse economy, said Chris Thornberg, an economist at West L.A. consulting firm Beacon Economics.
Best-paid Southern California executives The top CEOs in Southern California make less than their northern peers but come from a wider range of industries. Search the full list >> Executive Company Compensation List rank Industry City Robert Iger Walt Disney $44,913,614 3 Entertainment Burbank Michael Burke Aecom $18,613,191 12 Engineering and Construction Los Angeles Debra Reed Sempra Energy $16,135,772 18 Energy San Diego Robert Bradway Amgen $16,097,714 19 Biotech and Pharmaceuticals Thousand Oaks Jay Gellert Health Net $14,308,889 27 Healthcare Woodland Hills Source: Equilar
The list captures only the top executives of companies that are public and that are based in the state, metrics that leave out many of the companies and industries that are big players in the southern half of the state.
Entertainment is a huge industry in Southern California, but entertainment and media companies are nearly unrepresented on the list because of the quirks of their corporate parentage. Warner Bros. and NBC Universal have big operations here but they are subsidiaries of Time Warner Inc. and Comcast Corp., respectively, both based on the East Coast.
The same goes for aerospace and defense firms, including Northrop Grumman Corp., which moved its headquarters from Century City to northern Virginia five years ago but retains a large workforce in Southern California.
“They’re based close to D.C., where the Pentagon is, because it’s good for their CEOs to be able to hobnob with generals,” Thornberg said.
By contrast, the largest tech companies were born and to this day remain in the Bay Area, and they are not likely to leave.
Along with overweighting the influence of Silicon Valley, the list has one other notable limitation: It is not strictly a ranking of the highest-paid executives in California. The state is home to a handful of executives who made much more than the best-paid public company CEOs on the list but who, for various reasons, are not ranked.
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For instance, Los Angeles billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong last year made $148 million – one of the largest CEO pay packages in the country – as head of NantKwest Inc.
The Culver City company, which is developing cancer treatments and went public not quite a year ago in July 2015, brought in revenue of just $236,000 last year – consistent with a start-up but not nearly enough to rank among California’s largest companies by revenue.
(Soon-Shiong is a major shareholder and vice chairman of Tronc Inc., which owns The Times.)
There’s also Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google, who made $101 million last year.
Google is big enough to make the list, but it’s not a public company. Rather, it’s a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. So although Alphabet CEO Larry Page makes the list – at the bottom, with total compensation of just $1 – Pichai doesn’t make it all.
Oracle is a public company, and definitely big enough to make the list – its co-CEOs are the highest- and second-highest-paid execs on the list. But there’s another Oracle executive you won’t find, even though he made more than either of them.
Oracle founder Larry Ellison took home a pay package worth $63.6 million last year but holds the titles of chairman and chief technology officer, not chief executive.
Les Moonves, chief executive of CBS Corp., made $56.8 million last year, according to filings, but he, too, isn’t on the list. Though Moonves splits his time between New York and Los Angeles, CBS, like other big media firms, is based in the Big Apple.
Pay disparity
Huge pay packages awarded to CEOs have long raised eyebrows, but over the last few years the conversation has largely shifted to the growing disparity between their lavish pay and the smaller, slower-growing compensation of rank-and-file workers.
Biggest pay disparities Last year, these CEOs made hundreds of times the average pay of workers in their industries. Search the full list >> Executive Company Ratio of CEO's pay to average industry worker Compensation Average industry pay Barbara Rentler Ross Stores 554 $10,157,789 $18,343 Robert Iger Walt Disney 477 $44,913,614 $94,192 Mark Hurd Oracle 362 $53,245,128 $147,045 Safra Catz Oracle 362 $53,243,670 $147,045 Victor Herrero Guess 360 $14,090,085 $39,121 Marissa Mayer Yahoo 342 $35,981,107 $105,167 Sources: Equilar; FactSet Research Systems; Bureau of Labor Statistics
The Economic Policy Institute, a think tank focused on low- and middle-income workers, estimates that, on average, CEOs in 2013 made nearly 300 times more than the typical worker – up from about 20 times more in 1960.
Beginning in 2018, under a new rule required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, public companies will have to report how much executives make compared with the pay of the median employee.
Until the law kicks in, figuring out a company’s pay disparity takes a bit of guesswork. The Times used pay figures from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics to compare CEOs’ compensation with the average pay of workers in their industries.
That analysis shows that although CEOs of firms in low-paying industries – such as retailer Ross Stores Inc. and apparel maker Guess Inc. – can make several hundred times the average worker’s pay, so too can tech executives, even when compared with their better-paid employees.
The $53.2 million earned by Oracle’s co-CEOs last year was about 362 times the $147,000 earned by the average U.S. software worker, according to federal data. That puts the duo among the executives with the biggest pay disparities.
Another issue: More than half of the executives on the list make at least 100 times the average worker pay in their industries, but those figures can change dramatically from year to year, making it difficult to determine who’s really getting an outsize deal.
Jon Feltheimer, chief executive of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., is a perfect example. This year, he’s in the lower third of the list, with a pay package worth $6.8 million – about 46 times the average worker’s pay in the film and TV industry.
Last year, though, Feltheimer’s pay package was much larger, valued at $66.3 million – about 500 times the average worker’s pay that year.
So which is the more accurate number – 46 or 500? Probably somewhere in between.
Like many CEOs, much of Feltheimer’s compensation comes in the form of stock and options. In 2014, Lions Gate gave Feltheimer nearly $56 million stock and options, which inflated his pay package. But most of those grants will vest over several years, though they’re only counted toward total compensation in the year they are first given.
Other CEOs have similar arrangements, creating big changes in pay from one year to the next. Nearly one-third of the CEOs who were on the list last year saw their 2015 pay rise or fall by 25% or more.
“That is a perceived weakness of the [pay] disclosures,” said Brian Holmen, a compensation consultant with Korn Ferry Hay Group. “If you happen to be in a year when you get one of those grants, it’s eye-catching.”
Leaning in
There’s still a glass ceiling in corporate America, with women representing a tiny fraction of the nation’s top executives. But if this year’s CEO compensation list is any measure, the cracks in that ceiling are widening, at least in California.
Among the leaders of the state’s 100 largest companies, there were eight female CEOs in 2015. Though still a small number, that’s up from four in 2011.
The latest addition is Catz, who assume her co-CEO position at Oracle in 2014. She’s also the highest-paid woman, earning $53.2 million.
Thanks in part to that |
ate bombs—and do much more—by using the stylus. Unlock special features by collecting medals in each stage and completing in-game tasks!”
Animal Crossing: Wild World
“Get ready to start a new life! Whether you want to decorate your home, catch bugs or fish, join in on special events, or just chat with the locals, there’s always plenty to do! Accessorize your life with over 600 new items. Design constellations, clothes, and flags. Take part in events as the seasons come and go!”
Nintendo’s website doesn’t list prices yet, but both should cost $9.99 each.
Source 1, Source 2
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PocketImage caption Mike Evans had been taking photographs of a boat
Bosses at Liverpool's Echo Arena are reviewing their security policy after a disabled amateur photographer was told he posed a terror threat.
Mike Evans said he was left "dumbfounded" when he was told by staff if he did not stop taking photographs they would call the anti-terror police.
The 41-year-old, who has osteoporosis of the spine, had been taking snaps of the Mersey estuary by the docks.
Echo Arena managers have also apologised for any distress caused.
Mr Evans and his brother were adamant with the two security guards that they were only taking photographs of the estuary - their cameras were not even pointed towards the concert venue, they said.
'Total dampener'
Despite showing the guards the regulations under sections 43 and 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 - which state there is "no restriction on people taking photographs in public places or of any building other than in very exceptional circumstances", the guards dismissed their protests.
"It put a total dampener on the day to be honest," Mr Evans, a father of two said, "We showed them the photos we had taken but they still did not leave us alone.
"In fact, they even said that CCTV was recording us and they would be able to tell if we got some snaps of the arena."
Echo Arena's Tim Banfield added: "We apologise for any distress caused.
"We have no desire to restrict amateur and professional photographers with a genuine interest.
"But with the best interests of visitor and guest safety we must show due diligence and we are currently in the process of reviewing our security policy."Destruction battalions,[nb 1] colloquially istrebitels (истребители, "destroyers", "exterminators") abbreviated: istrebki (Russian), strybki (Ukrainian)[1][2] were paramilitary units under the control of NKVD in the western Soviet Union, which performed tasks of internal security on the Eastern Front and after it. After the Fall of the Soviet Union the battalions were deemed to be a criminal organisation by Estonian government.
Background [ edit ]
As Germany attacked the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, a state of war was declared in the western regions of the country and in the annexed Baltic states.[3] Vladimir Tributs the Commander-in-Chief of the Baltic Fleet of the Soviet Union issued an order on 24 June 1941 warning of the paralysing actions of enemy paratrooper squads aided by the "capitalist-kulak" portions of the populations, which allegedly had a large number of weapons that had not been turned in. The officers ordered the strengthening of defences of headquarters, army units and communications.[3][4] Attacking "bandits" were to be shot on the spot. The struggle against saboteurs was the responsibility of the border guard units subordinate to the NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union).[3]
Authority [ edit ]
The battalions were created in the territories near the front line during Operation Barbarossa, with the missions of securing the Red Army rear, assuring the operation of strategically important enterprises and destroying the valuable property that could not be evacuated.[3][5] The units received authority to summarily execute any suspicious person. Their tasks accounted for the implementation of a scorched earth policy.[3]
The destruction battalion have no mercy for our enemies – bandits and other fascist cankers. They shall be not just destroyed, but sent directly under the ground, where is their right place. In every village and settlement, the destruction battalion has a number of tasks more besides of straight breaking the enemy. With the bolshevist grimness, everybody who imparts provocational rumours or generates panic, must be expiscated. Everybody, who directly or indirectly helps enemy, must be found out and exterminated. What is the Destruction battalion and what are its tasks.[6]
Formation [ edit ]
The destruction battalions were formally voluntary while actually a number of troops were forcibly recruited. They were augmented by personnel considered ideologically solid, like members of Komsomol and kolkhoz managers.[7] There were no other requirements, so the ranks were socially varied, including a significant proportion of felons.[3] The battalions were commanded by head managers of the regional committee level.[7] The Chief-of-Staff of Moscow was Dmitrii Kramarchuk.[8]
During July 1941, a total of 1,755 destruction battalions were created, across all territories near the frontline, comprising about 328,000 personnel.[9][10]
During July–August 1941 in the Belorussian SSR, chiefly in Vitebsk, Homel, Polesia, Mohylew oblasts, 78 such battalions were created, comprising more than 13,000 personnel. Part of these were later transformed into Belarusian partisans.[11][12]
The battalions were also formed in the newly annexed territories of Karelo-Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, East Poland, Galicia, and Bessarabia. Immediately after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, combat squads were formed.[13][14] Following the orders of the NKVD, night watch squads were created in areas with large concentrations of the Forest Brothers. As firearms were not provided the nightwatchmen equipped themselves with sticks. On June 25, 1941 the first squads received fire arms from the reserves of the former paramilitary organisations and through self-armament.[15][16][17][18]
Actions [ edit ]
The fight against Anti-Soviet partisans and the implementation of the scorched earth tactics were accompanied by terror against the civilian population, which was treated as supporters or shelterers of Forest Brothers. The destruction battalions burnt down farms and some small boroughs.[3] In turn, the members of the extermination battalions were at risk of repressions by the anti-Soviet partisans.[19][20]
Estonia [ edit ]
Thousands of people including a large proportion of women and children were killed, while dozens of villages, schools and public buildings were burned to the ground. A school boy, Tullio Lindsaa, had all bones in his hands broken then was bayoneted for hoisting the flag of Estonia. Mauricius Parts, son of the Estonian War of Independence veteran Karl Parts, was doused in acid. In August 1941, all residents of the village of Viru-Kabala were killed including a two-year-old child and a six-day-old infant. A partisan war broke out in response to the atrocities of the destruction battalions, with tens of thousands of men forming the Forest Brothers to protect the local population from these battalions. Occasionally, the battalions burned people alive.[21] The destruction battalions murdered 1,850 people in Estonia. Almost all of them were partisans or unarmed civilians.[22]
Another example of the destruction battalions' actions is the Kautla massacre, where twenty civilians were murdered and tens of farms destroyed. Many of the people were killed after torture. The low toll of human deaths in comparison with the number of burned farms is due to the Erna long-range reconnaissance group breaking the Red Army blockade on the area, allowing many civilians to escape.[23][24]
Western Ukraine [ edit ]
In 1944-1945, in Western Ukraine, participation in the destruction of villages, were often sole of local Polish and Ukrainian population.
The destruction battalions were restored after the retreat of German forces in the newly annexed areas to the Soviet Union. In 1945–46 they were renamed to narodnaya zaschita (people's defence), because of the notoriety their old name had gained in 1941. They were formed from local volunteers, from the most variable layers of the rural communities. They were tasked to guard, secure and support with arms all activities, directives and orders of the Soviet power, which the population could have sabotaged, intentionally avoided or directly resisted.[25]
The primary task of the destruction battalions was the fight against the armed resistance movement. This included terrorising the actual or potential supporters of Forest Brothers among the civilian population, participation in active combat, organisation of ambush and secret guard posts, reconnaissance and search patrols. The passive operations included guard and watch-keeping duties, convoy of detainees and arrested individuals as well as guarding cargo.[25]
The destroyers guarded systematically institutions of power and economic objects in the rural areas. In a post-war situation where the factual state power in a rural municipality lay with the Soviet police, the Militsiya, the destroyers constituted a force which guaranteed the implementation of the Soviet policies. A typical task was to force the farmers to fulfil public forestry, peat extraction and road construction obligations. No measures of coercion policy were implemented in the rural communities, which were not carried out or supervised by armed destroyers. They also fought against crime, both independently and as an additional force to the Militsiya.[25]
The destruction battalions were great in size, but they never became the efficient and active armed force which they were expected to become in order to rapidly eradicate the Forest Brothers. Despite the primarily passive role of the destroyers in the fight against the resistance movement, they provided invaluable assistance to the active participants in this fight, state security institutions and internal troops. As local people the destroyers spoke the language, knew the people, landscape and circumstances, knowledge which was inadequate among the NKVD and internal troops. The destruction battalions were also very useful as an auxiliary force. The organisation was eventually dismissed in 1954.[25]
Legal appraisal [ edit ]
In 2002 the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) declared that the destruction battalions in the annexed Baltic states were a collaborators' organisation, which assisted the implementation of the criminal policy of the Soviet regime, and was thus a criminal organisation.[25][26] At the same time, the destroyers cannot be accused of crimes against humanity in corpore, because of the legal principles of the individual character of guilt and responsibility.[25]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Гісторыя Беларусі: У 6 т. Т. 5. Беларусь у 1917–1945. — Мн. : Экаперспектыва, 2006. — 613 с.; іл. ISBN 985-469-149-7. p. 482.
Мірановіч Яўген. Найноўшая гісторыя Беларусі. — СПб. : Неўскі прасцяг, 2003. — 243 с. ; іл. ISBN 5-94716-032-3. pp. 126–30.
ISBN 5-94716-032-3. pp. 126–30. Вялікая Айчынная вайна савецкага народа (у кантэксце Другой сусветнай вайны). — Мн. : Экаперспектыва, 2005. — 279 с. ISBN 985-469-150-0. p. 100.
See also [ edit ]
Footnotes
^ Russian: Истребительные батальоны, Ukrainian: Винищувальні батальйони, Belarusian: Zniszczalnyja batalëny, Знішчальныя батальёны, Estonian: hävituspataljonid, Lithuanian: Naikintojų batalionaiAnti-abortion and abortion activists stand side by side in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, in Washington, Monday, during a rally against Roe v. Wade on the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
Nancy Northup is president and chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
On the first day of its new term, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared its docket of one hot-button social issue by declining to hear seven cases involving same-sex marriage — only to find another highly controversial matter hurtling its way.
That same day, the court received an emergency appeal from the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of women’s health-care providers, asking the justices to reinstate an injunction blocking a Texas law that has left no more than eight abortion clinics in the state — down from more than 40 before the law was passed last summer.
It won’t be the last time this case — or one like it — reaches the justices.
Since 2011, state politicians have enacted more than 200 restrictions that make it harder for women to obtain safe, legal abortion care. That’s more restrictions in the past three years than were enacted in the previous decade.
Passed under the pretense of regulating safety standards, the true purpose of these laws is to hollow out Roe v. Wade’s recognition of women’s constitutional right to decide for themselves whether to end a pregnancy, as well as the legal protections afforded by that historic ruling.
This new tactic seeks legitimate cover for the illegitimate goal of denying significant numbers of American women access to safe, legal, essential reproductive health care. The question is: Will courts, especially the Supreme Court, let them get away with it?
On Oct. 2, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit did just that by lifting an injunction blocking the most extreme provisions of Texas’s sweeping anti-abortion law. Now, not a single abortion clinic remains open in the state west or south of San Antonio.
Women facing an unintended or severely complicated pregnancy who don’t live in one of the state’s four major metropolitan areas are left with round trips of hundreds of miles to the nearest abortion clinic. Some would face a round trip of 1,000 miles to get an abortion in their home state. Too many of these women will face a choice between carrying to term or seeking potentially dangerous abortion options outside the law. Not since before Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision resulted in the denial of abortion care on such a sweeping scale.
But that’s not to say other states haven’t been trying to keep up. In Virginia, a spate of strict building regulations targeting abortion providers was rammed through — over the vocal protests of concerned citizens and members of the state’s own medical advisory panel. Fortunately, a new state health commissioner is working to amend the regulations and lessen their harmful impact.
Oklahoma, Alabama, Louisiana and Wisconsin have passed similarly underhanded laws designed to shutter most, if not all, clinics by requiring any physician who provides an abortion to obtain admitting privileges at a local hospital — a measure opposed by the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists because it has nothing to do with its ostensible purpose of improving patient safety. In Mississippi, the state’s sole remaining clinic hangs on through a court order blocking a similar restriction.
The 5th Circuit’s decision notwithstanding, courts that have considered these laws have overwhelmingly blocked them. A federal district judge in Alabama struck down that state’s admitting-privileges requirement, deeming unconstitutional the obstacles it created for women seeking abortion care — and noting that, far from protecting women’s health, the law would “create a significant risk that some women would pursue dangerous, illegal abortions.”
In a 7th Circuit ruling upholding a preliminary injunction against Wisconsin’s admitting-privileges law, Judge Richard Posner — an appointee of President Ronald Reagan — wrote that the medical grounds for the law were “feeble” and that allowing the law to take effect would have “wreaked havoc” on abortion access across the state.
These decisions — and many others like them — stand in stark contrast to the one issued last week by the 5th Circuit, which blatantly ignores reams of scientific and medical evidence and fails to recognize the significant harm these restrictions will inflict.
The resulting sharp disparities in women’s ability to obtain abortion care are becoming troublingly reminiscent of the time before Roe, when access depended entirely on where a woman lived or her ability to travel to one of the few states where abortion was safe and legal.
As the Supreme Court opens its session, justices will soon have to resolve additional sharp disparities — between the many courts that have sought to shore up the protections of Roe against politicians’ underhanded attempts to render them meaningless, and those that have facilitated the denial of essential women’s health care to millions.A fighter from the People's Defense Units (YPG) kisses the hand of a close relative during a funeral in the Kurdish city of Afrin, August 2013. Photo: AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The militant Democratic Union Party (PYD) is strangling all political and intellectual life in Syria’s Kurdish regions, Adulhakim Bashar, the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party in Syria (Al-Parti), said in unusually candid comments.
“Even the Baath regime isn’t doing what the PYD is doing. The Baath regime has given more freedom to politicians and intellectuals than the PYD does,” Bashar told Rudaw in an interview.
“During the Baath regime there was only one prison in each city,” said Bashar.“ But now, under the PYD, there are several prisons in each city and all the prisoners are Kurds,” he claimed.
Over the past two-and-a-half years, the PYD has been the dominant Kurdish force in Syria. Some believe its strength lies in its close relations with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and clandestine connections with the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.
In July last year, the Syrian regime withdrew most of its security and armed forces from the Kurdish areas to fight rebel groups in other parts of the country. In turn, the PYD filled the vacuum with its own armed People’s Defense Units (YPG).
“Al-Parti is much stronger than the PYD,” said Bashar. “It is true that the PYD has more armed forces, but we have stronger social organizations and more supporters.”
Bashar said that the PYD does not even allow his party’s Kurdish newspaper to be distributed in Syrian Kurdistan, or Rojava.
At the outset of the Syrian revolution in 2011, Bashar was appointed the first president of the Kurdish National Council (KNC), an umbrella organization of more than 10 Kurdish groups.
Bashar, who is now based in Erbil, said that he cannot return to Rojava, “Because there is the risk that I will be killed.”
Last year, all Syrian Kurdish parties, including the PYD, signed an agreement in Erbil to form a united fighting force to control and protect all Kurdish areas against any attack. But according to Bashar, the PYD has violated the terms of the deal.
“The PYD refused to accept a united force and insisted that our fighters join their forces as mere fighters and that all decisions to start or stop a war would lie with the PYD,” said Bashar. “I believe that in Rojava a civilian revolution will begin against the PYD,” he added.
PYD leaders have in the past accused other Kurdish and Arab opposition groups of maintaining ties with neighboring countries and of trying to implement a foreign agenda in Syria.
Meanwhile, the YPG fighters are still locked in daily clashes with jihadist fighters of al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusrah.
“In 25 days we had six rounds of talks with the PYD and we only had two points of disagreement with them,” said the Al-Parti leader. “But after each round the PYD came back with a new set of conditions. From this we deduced that the PYD doesn’t really want to talk.”
Bashar said that the Kurds want federalism in Syria, and that the KNC is willing to debate such a possibility should the Assad regime decide to grant the Kurds this right.
“But the PYD is asking for democratic self-rule, which is a strange thing in political terminology,” he said. “In politics, there is such a thing as autonomy.”Share. Super Mario 64 and Yoshi’s Island DS available now, with more on the way. Super Mario 64 and Yoshi’s Island DS available now, with more on the way.
Nintendo updated its Wii U Virtual Console service today with a pair of classic titles from its Nintendo 64 and DS game libraries.
Exit Theatre Mode
Nintendo 64 games will cost between $9.99 and $12.99 USD. If you already purchased a specific N64 game on Wii Virtual Console, you can upgrade to the Wii U version of that game for $2 USD. Nintendo DS games will cost between $6.99 and $9.99 USD. Both will offer support for custom control configurations, but DS games, specifically, will offer multiple dual screen setup options between the GamePad and TV. N64 games that support the Rumble Pak will receive similar functionality on the GamePad.
Super Mario 64 and Yoshi’s Island DS will launch today at $9.99 USD. Nintendo revealed its N64 and DS Virtual Console release schedule for the next few weeks. Check it out below.
April 1
Super Mario 64 (N64)
Yoshi’s Island DS (DS)
April 9
Yoshi’s Touch & Go (DS)
WarioWare Touched (DS)
April 16
Donkey Kong 64 (N64)
April 23
Mario Kart DS (DS)
April 30
Paper Mario (N64)
Nintendo also announced Splatoon will receive amiibo when it launches on May 29, that Mario Maker is coming in September, and that Lucas would rejoin the Smash Bros. roster.
Jose Otero is an Associate Editor at IGN and host of Nintendo Voice Chat. You can follow him on Twitter.An Italian surgeon claims full-body transplants ready to save people’s lives will be a reality in two years.
Dr. Sergio Canavero, of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group in Italy, has stirred controversy when he announced plans to sew someone’s head onto a donor’s body.
Introducing the technique, Canavero believes it would save the lives of those facing terminal diseases, reported the Guardian.
“I think we are now at the point when the technical aspects are all feasible,” he said.
“If society doesn't want it, I won't do it. But if people don't want it in the US or Europe, that doesn't mean it won't be done somewhere else. I'm trying to go about this the right way, but before going to the moon, you want to make sure people will follow you.”
Other surgeons beg to differ.
"This is such an overwhelming project, the possibility of it happening is very unlikely. I don't believe it will ever work, there are too many problems with the procedure,” said Harry Goldsmith, a professor of neurological surgery at the University of California, Davis.
© AP Photo / Ron Zack First Ever Mind-Controlled Bionic Hands Debut in Austria
Patricia Scripko, a neurologist at the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System in California was not too fond of Canavero’s ideas either.
“If a head transplant were ever to take place, it would be very rare. It's not going to happen because someone says 'I'm getting older, I'm arthritic, maybe I should get a body that works better and looks better.’”
The controversial doctor’s idea originated from a somewhat failed operation carried out on a monkey in 1970. The surgeons did not join the spinal cord, crippling the animal, which ended up living for only nine days when the head was rejected by the body’s immune system.
Canavero plans to meet with neurological surgeons in Maryland this June in hopes of assembling a team to carry out the body transplant.The Murphy Report overall assessment of Garda involvement in the McCabe case, detailed in Chapter 20, is unequivocal.
“The connivance by the Gardaí in effectively stifling one complaint and failing to investigate another, and in allowing Fr McCabe to leave the country is shocking. It is noteworthy that the Commission would not have been aware of the Garda activity in question were it not for the information contained in the Church files.”
Most of the criticism centred on Garda handling of an August 1986 abuse incident involving McCabe and a 9-year-old altar boy. They boy told his parents who reported it to gardai, who took a statement from the boy.
McCabe was called into the Garda station and was accompanied by “a friend who was a retired garda sergeant who had served in the district.”
The Murphy report found it “extraordinary that no notes were taken during the course of this interview”,while the Garda file was “missing”.
Most bizarrely, it continued, “that evening Fr McCabe went to the home of Garda Chief Superintendent Joe McGovern. Fr McCabe, then on a trip home from the US, had been staying at a house belonging to the chief superintendent since July.” It said “he [MCCABE)]made certain limited admissions to the chief superintendent who did not convey them to the investigating garda, but who did convey them and the fact of the Garda investigation to his local parish priest, Fr Curley.”
Chief superintendent McGovern told the Commission “he considered Fr McCabe’s behaviour to be a matter for the Church to deal with. This was despite his knowledge that an investigation had just commenced into an allegation of indecent assault,” as the report puts it. He said “the question of disciplining the priest was a matter for Archbishop’s House who were in the main responsible for the priest.”
A copy of the abused boy’s statement given to gardai was forwarded to Church authorities. The Murphy report said that “even though the gardaí knew that Fr McCabe intended to return to the USA, no warrant was sought for his arrest.”
Murphy noted that “between 1988 and 2003 not a single inquiry had been made by the gardaí in relation to this matter”and that “the Archdiocese’s handling of events was facilitated in significant ways by the gardaí”.
“This particular Garda investigation was marred by Church interference which was facilitated by the gardaí and which was material in allowing Fr McCabe to evade justice.”For as bad as things went for the Florida Gators at times in 2014 (see the Not Top 14 for 2014), there were more than a fair share of bright spots. From breathtaking moments and game-winning plays to winning championships and setting records, the Gators had plenty to be proud of in 2014. Check out OnlyGators.com‘s Top 14 for 2014.
14 » RARE WOMEN’S BASKETBALL UPSET
Gators women’s basketball has struggled to find relevancy but there was no question Florida had its engines running on Jan. 5 when it pulled off one of the biggest victories in program history, an 83-73 upset win over No. 6 Kentucky. The win broke a six-game losing streak for UF against UK and was head coach Amanda Butler’s first win over a top-10 ranked opponent after going 0-17 previously in such games. Florida had lost 19-straight regular-season games against top 10-ranked opponents, earning its last victory to such a team in Feb. 2006.
13 » TEBOW TIME ALL THE TIME
Former Gators quarterback Tim Tebow had a life-changing 2014 after agreeing to sign a long-term broadcasting deal with ESPN. Tebow was featured on the network’s national title broadcast that season and was later assigned to the SEC Network where he served as one of three analysts for the channel’s Saturday pre-game show, SEC Nation. Tebow has drawn rave reviews throughout 2014 for his passionate opinions and consistent on-air knowledge. He also proved to be unbiased, lambasting the leadership on Florida’s offense when the team struggled during the middle of the season. One Tebow moment – a spot-on impersonation of former Gators head coach Steve Spurrier – was OnlyGators.com’s most-watched Vine with 1.3 million loops as of press time.
Tebow also closed 2014 with a brilliant on-air prediction, which you can check out below.
12 » SUPER MERCY
There is no question that wide receiver Percy Harvin’s had a rough go of it in the NFL as injuries and behavioral issues have found him on the sidelines and with three different franchises already in his career. Despite barely seeing the field in 2013, Harvin was active for the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLVIII and came through for his team, scoring an 87-yard kickoff return touchdown to open the second half and also taking two carries for 45 yards. Harvin’s effort helped lead Seattle to a 43-8 win over Denver as he, former Florida defensive coordinator Dan Quinn and former UF defensive back Marquand Manuel all won rings with the Seahawks.
11 » BIG MONEY, NO WAMMIES
The Gators have sent a number of big-time players to successful professional careers over the last few years, and 2014 was the year that their successes paid off in a major way. Philadelphia Eagles WR Riley Cooper signed a five-year, $25 million deal in February. The Cleveland Browns and cornerback Joe Haden came to terms on a five-year, $68 million extension in May. Both center Maurkice Pouncey (five years, $44 million) and right tackle Marcus Gilbert (five years, $30 million) got extended by the Pittsburgh Steelers with Pouncey’s deal making him the highest-paid center in the NFL. On the NBA side of things, the Dallas Mavericks inked restricted free agent forward Chandler Parsons to a three-year, $46 million offer sheet, with his signature on those papers first reported by OnlyGators.com. The Houston Rockets chose not to match the deal, sending Parsons to his preferred destination of Dallas.
There was one other big deal signed in 2014 as Florida head basketball coach Billy Donovan agreed to a three-year contract extension in Feb. that ensures he will remain with the program at least through the conclusion of the 2018-19 season. He will earn $3.7 million per season with plenty of bonuses available.
10 » DRAMATIC WINS
Sports are exciting by nature, but the Gators in 2014 sometimes made them a bit more exciting than they needed to be. Athletic program-wide, Florida was involved in numerous contests that either went down to the wire or moved into overtime. The first truly dramatic game of the year featured the men’s basketball team setting a program record with 18-straight wins; it came against Auburn as the Tigers decided to inexplicably foul the Gators with the game tied at 66 … and then throw the ball away on the ensuing possession.
Two months later, Florida baseball upset South Carolina in dramatic fashion, rallying to tie the game at 3-3 despite being down 3-0 with six outs to go. The Gators eventually won the contest in extra innings due to some fantastic pitching. Florida lacrosse used a second-half comeback to win the ALC Championship, outscoring Northwestern 7-1 over the latter stage of the game and scoring a game-winning goal with 32 seconds left to capture the title. The Gators football team also had a flare for the dramatic this season, needing the first three-overtime game in program history to beat Kentucky with a dominant effort from junior running back Matt Jones leading to the winning score. Less than a month later, Florida barely edged Tennessee 10-9 with the Gators rallying to score 10 unanswered points after freshman quarterback Treon Harris replaced struggling redshirt junior QB Jeff Driskel in the fourth quarter.
There was one more down-to-the-wire finish this year, but we’ll get to that later.
9 » THREES RECORDS
Parsons broke all kinds of records on Jan. 24 when he hit 10 three-pointers and scored a career-high 34 points in a one-point Houston home loss to Memphis. His 10 triples set a Rockets record for most in a single game; seeing as all came in the second half, the 10 threes also set an NBA record for most treys made in one half of a game.
Besting Parsons by one, then-sophomore guard Michael Frazier II drained 11 threes in a single game on March 4 as Florida routed South Carolina 72-46. His 11 triples broke a 17-year school record for most in a single game (Joe Lawrence, nine, 1986), were the third-most made in a single game by an SEC player and the most ever in an SEC League game. Frazier also scored 37 points in the contest, setting a career-high and matching Joakim Noah (March 1, 2006) for most in a single game under Donovan.
8 » PLENTY OF CHAMPIONSHIPS AND AWARDS
Florida men’s swimming, women’s track and field, men’s basketball and volleyball all won SEC titles in 2014 with some of those honors playing a large part in the Gators once again sweeping the SEC All-Sports Awards. UF won the overall, men’s and women’s titles, continuing its reign as the only school to sweep all three awards in a single season. Florida accomplished that feat for the 14th time, seventh in the last eight years and sixth-in-a-row. UF has won 24 overall SEC All-Sports Awards (including eight-straight), 21 women’s titles and 18 men’s titles.
The Gators’ women’s program was especially successful this year, capturing the first Capital One Cup in program history. Florida has now won three total Capital One Cups with the men winning the honor in consecutive years from 2011-12. In the short four-year history of the award, the Gators are the only athletic program to win both the men’s and women’s cups. Florida’s women (152 points) dominated their competition, winning by a 42-point margin over UCLA (110) and finishing 63 points above the next SEC team, Texas A&M (89).
7 » WELCOME, JIM MCELWAIN
Just like 2013, 2014 was a rough year for Gators football fans. And the result of a slightly-above-.500 season was Florida firing Will Muschamp during the campaign and eventually hiring Colorado State head coach Jim McElwain. The process started with athletic director Jeremy Foley outlining his plan for hiring Muschamp’s replacement. But it was not as simple as making a phone call and hiring a coach.
OnlyGators.com uncovered the Gators’ plans to fly to Fort Collins, Colorado, and attempt to sign McElwain, setting off a chain of events that day that included reporters hanging out at the Fort Collins airport and others setting up shop outside McElwain’s private residence. However, a $7.5 million snag – as in McElwain’s absurd buyout – saw Florida leave Colorado without its desired coach. The Gators and Rams eventually ended the posturing and reached a deal on the buyout, allowing McElwain to agree to terms with Florida.
There was plenty to learn about McElwain and more than enough odds and ends of the hiring process to keep Gators fans interested until the school actually announced McElwain as its head coach on Dec. 6. Following McElwain’s hire, Florida brought on defensive coordinator Geoff Collins from Mississippi State and offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier, formerly of Michigan. The year ended with reports of Randy Shannon joining the Gators as linebackers coach, proving that McElwain is truly prepared to revamp the Florida football program.
6 » ONE OF THE BEST IN THE GAME
Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah had himself a year in 2014. An unlikely candidate for Most Valuable Player who was the heart and soul of the Bulls all season, Noah won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award. He became the first former Florida player to capture the honor and second ever to win an NBA year-end award. Noah dominated the vote, finishing with 555 total points (Roy Hibbert was second with 166). Averaging 12.6 points, 11.3 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 1.5 blocks and 1.2 steals per game, Noah put up crazy numbers that also earned him a spot on the All-NBA First Team. He registered four triple-doubles and 47 double-doubles over 80 regular-season games, becoming the fourth center in NBA history with four triple-doubles consisting of points, rebounds and assists in a single season. The names he shares that distinction with? Just three Hall of Famers in Wilt Chamberlain, David Robinson and Bill Russell. Noah was also the first Chicago players since Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen (1992-93) to record four triple-doubles in a single season.
But you cannot have a full year without Noah also being awesome in some way. And in addition to his multitude of charitable efforts and fun quotes given to the media, Noah cursed out multiple referees in a Half Baked-inspired rant that will always be remembered for just how crazy and funny it was to watch.
5 » 11 MILLION AND A BABY
There are certain things in life more important than winning titles and millions of dollars, like having your first child. As it turns out, former Gators golfer Billy Horschel was lucky enough to have that child this year – the same week he won a couple titles and brought home $11.44 million for his newly-expanded family!
Horschel on Sept. 14 won the Tour Championship and FedExCup, raking in $11.44 million while capping off the best three weeks of his young career. He had previously won $2.03 million by finishing first in the BMW Championship and second in the Deutsche Bank Championship in consecutive weeks. Horschel ended the 2014 season with $14.8 million in his pocket and the distinction as one of the best young golfers in the country. He also represented Florida throughout the season, playing with orange-and-blue clubs and even Gator Chomping to celebrate his FedExCup win.
OnlyGators.com sat down for an exclusive interview with Horschel at the conclusion of the season. It is a must-read for any golf fan, Gators fan, or anyone who loves feel-good stories that include babies, money and championships.
4 » BACK-TO-BACK … BUT SHARED
Looking to repeat after winning the program’s first-ever national title in 2013, Florida gymnastics rallied in the NCAA Super Six on April 19 to force a late tie and split the 2014 NCAA Championship with Oklahoma. Trailing for most of the meet |
bodies it watches over.
Kevin Andrews is planning to scrap the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission. Credit:Andrew Meares
The ACNC was set up in December with one Susan Pascoe (no relation) as its inaugural commission. Among those who take these things seriously, the ACNC is considered a healthy improvement for the sector - the result of five major inquiries over more than a decade recommending such a thing. It’s something the Labor government seemed to get right.
Kevin Andrews, as the shadow minister for families, housing and human services, ran a particularly ill-informed, ideologically-driven and hugely ignored campaign against it, including a waste-of-space filibuster over the legislation. Despite the ACNC’s subsequent success, Andrews remains unrepentant and promises an Abbott government will scrap it.It’s impossible to get tired of viewing vintage color postcards of Times Square (still Longacre Square in this image, though it must have been produced later than 1904, when the official new name came along).
There’s The New York Times tower in the center, with the word “victory” underneath the Times signage, plus what looks like a flag or bunting…could it be for World War I?
The gorgeous Hotel Astor is on the right. Streetcars and automobiles intersect at what looks like an kiosk-style subway entrance. On the extreme right is Wilson’s Dancing Academy, where author Henry Miller met his second wife, June.
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Tags: Hotel Astor Times Square, Hotel Knickerbocker Times Square, Times Building Times Square, Times Square in the 1910s, vintage color postcards, vintage view of Times Square, When Times Square Was Longacre Square, Wilson's Dancing AcademyLast week, I revealed the shocking age divide in where Americans want their tax dollars spent. This week, I’d like to focus on where Democrats and Republicans agree and disagree on how American tax dollars should be spent.
To recap: I’ve been working with the UT Energy Poll on their latest poll for the past month, and I’ve had the chance to preview the issues that Americans think are important when voting for their representatives. This nationally representative poll asks Americans the question, “Where is it most important for the U.S. government to spend your tax dollars?,” and they’re given 8 options:
Education
Energy
Environment
Health care
Infrastructure development/maintenance
Job creation
Military and defense
Social Security
We then break the answers down by various categories such as gender, political affiliation, level of education, etc. to see where Americans differ — and agree — in opinion. Here’s how the poll results look when broken down by political affiliation:
The options are ordered by overall preference — with “Job creation” sitting at #1 and “Infrastructure” dead last — to show where Americans want to see their tax dollars spent the most overall. The common contentions between Democrats and Republicans immediately reveal themselves in the middle of our national priority list: Democrats favor spending on health care, whereas Republicans would rather see those tax dollars spent on the military.
Republicans are also heavily against spending on the environment, which is an unfortunate political development within the past 20 years. Perhaps the most unfortunate trend revealed in this chart, though, is that no political party seems to think that energy, the environment, nor infrastructure are particularly important to spend tax dollars on. Meanwhile, Social Security sits in second place with both Republicans and Democrats agreeing that it’s important to pour tax dollars into.
With a climate crisis on the horizon and America’s failing infrastructure, we can only hope it’s just a matter of time until can Americans get their priorities straight.
Here’s a version with a more color blind friendly color scheme:Illegal levels of toxins including arsenic, lead, hexavalent chromium and mercury have been detected in soil samples taken under the asphalt foundation of the Tsukiji fish market, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said Thursday.
The results of the first full-fledged soil survey at the location could influence Gov. Yuriko Koike’s decision on whether the metropolitan government will move the famous but aging market to the new pollution-tainted site or renovate the existing one.
Soil samples showed lead and arsenic at levels of up to 4.3 times and 2.8 times the legal limit. They also contained 1.8 times the allowable level of mercury, 1.5 times the allowed level of fluorine and 1.4 times the limit for hexavalent chromium.
The metropolitan government noted, however, that the site is covered with asphalt, which means the contaminants shouldn’t affect food safety there.
The ground underneath the fish market is believed to have been contaminated by chemicals from a now-defunct dry-cleaning plant.
Koike, who became governor last August, suspended the relocation of the market to the adjacent Toyosu waterfront district due to soil and air pollution concerns and safety shortcuts taken at the site, which was previously occupied by a Tokyo Gas plant, and mounting costs linked to the project.
The metro government conducted the soil inspection earlier this month, taking samples from about 110 locations in the market at depths of around 50 cm.
At the Toyosu site, which was scheduled to open in November 2016, extremely high levels of toxins including benzene have been detected.
Koike said it is necessary to reduce the levels of toxins at Toyosu to below government standards to ensure safety. The market also deals in fruit and vegetables.
A government project team studying the relocation estimated renovating the Tsukiji market would cost about ¥85.2 billion ($763 million), cheaper than the price tag for cleaning up the Toyosu debacle.Swimming with the World’s Smallest Dolphins in Akaroa
New Zealand is a land of extremes. If it isn’t celebrating its really BIG things, like giant paua shells and gumboots, then it’s being the home to some of the world’s smallest (and largest) creatures. Today, we are going to not only be spotting the world’s smallest species of dolphin, we’re going to be swimming with them! We don’t know about you, but we think this an awesome way to end the year!
Joining Ecoseaker for a dolphin swimming cruise
We rock up to Akaroa in our pimpin’ Jucy rental car, find somewhere to park on this busy New Year’s Eve, and head down to Daly’s Wharf, the launch for EcoSEAker. Adam, dolphin know-it-all extraordinaire, greets us, reminds us what we need to bring on the dolphin swimming tour, as well as giving us the all-important waiver to sign – you know the drill. Once our whole dolphin swimming team arrive, we are not-so-elegantly squeezing into our thick, dry and rather new-looking wetsuits. We are looking fit and ready to join the dolphins!
Small groups and small dolphins
The maximum amount of passengers on this protector boat is 12, allowing Adam to talk to all of us quite easily as we gather around the front of the boat. As well as telling us about the life and behaviour of the Hector’s dolphin, the world’s smallest species of dolphin, he also talks about the best ways to swim with them. Because they are only about 1-1.4 metres long, they can be pretty intimidated by big clumsy humans like us. The key is to attract them to you. You have to look interesting them! Adam’s tip is to sing in the water with them, don’t swim towards them, and don’t try to touch them. We imagine this is going to look pretty hilarious later…
Playing hard to get with the dolphins
The boat cruises slowly away from Akaroa and through the Akaroa Harbour. It’s only about 20 minutes into the trip when the first dolphins are spotted emerging at the surface of the water for air. Even the skipper and owner of the family business, Steve, commentates of the speakers saying it’s unusual to see dolphins this close into the harbour. Whatever the reason, it’s a sign for a good day of wildlife spotting.
Now that we have seen dolphins, the aim is to see if they are interested in the boat. Some will come for a swim under the bow gliding along with the currents for a minute, then leave, while others will stick around a bit longer providing some amazing photo ops! It’s impossible to miss them, as they don’t seem as quick as other species of dolphins. Steve stops the boat to see if they are still interested. When the dolphins look like they are not going anywhere, it’s time to put on the snorkel masks! We’re going swimming.
Time to swim!
One by one, we climb down a ladder at the back of the boat as to not scare the dolphins. Still, we want to do this as quick as possible to get over the shock of the chilly water. Soon enough, we are comfortable in our wetsuits and comfortable enough with our company to start some appalling song renditions to attract the dolphins. Kung Foo Fighting, The Final Countdown and I Want to Break Free seem to be a hit with the dolphins, as we spot a couple of curved dorsal fins coming our way. The next second, the dolphins are half a metre away from us just as curious of us as we are of them. We can’t describe the jolt of excitement we get when being so close to these magnificent creatures.
The dolphins are having a ‘hull’ of a time under the boat
Singing songs and dolphins making a mockery of us
It even feels that sometimes they are toying with us. Just when we think all the dolphins have gone and we start getting out of the water, the cheeky buggers come back making us quickly shuffle back down the ladder and sing like idiots again. Oh, those dolphins!
While 12 of us bob up and down in the water singing ’80s hits like mad people, the dolphins will come and go until we have two pods coming to join us. The best viewing is on the water’s surface, as the recent large swells in the harbour have stirred up the water making the visibility underneath a bit murky.
From smallest dolphins to smallest penguins
After about 45 minutes of dolphin swimming, we are moving on down the harbour when Steve spots a fishing boat completely surrounded by albatross. We make our way out for a closer look, spotting a little blue penguin, the world’s smallest penguin, along the way. Man, the variety of wildlife is crazy out here on the Akaroa Harbour!
And here come the world’s largest seabirds!
Wings reaching a three metre wingspan glide around and around the passing fishing boat, catching interest in our boat and giving us an amazing show of the world’s largest seabirds. (See, we weren’t kidding with all these world’s smallest/largest!) Albatross of a couple of different species group together on the water, only to lift back into the air one at a time on an invisible runway etched in the water. Our attention is split between the dolphins that have come to join us under the bow again and the surprising sighting of the albatross.
Rugged rocks and New Zealand fur seals
As we make our way back into the harbour, not only do we slow down for some awesome view of basalt columns at the top of towering cliffs formed by an ancient volcano, but we also see a small colony of New Zealand fur seals. Last year’s seal pups hop around on the rocks full of energy, while the adult seals lie in the sun, we can only assume, giving up on life.
Meanwhile, we are still pumped from seeing all this wildlife up-close. By EcoSEAker actually giving so much time, both in the water with the dolphins and out, we are getting wildlife sightings beyond what we expected from a dolphin swimming tour.
One last stop before we get back to Akaroa involves hot chocolate and biscuits under the shelter of Cathedral Cave and Elephant Rock, grand rock features carved out by the sea.
Another amazing experience in Akaroa!
We leave the EcoSEAker boat with our cameras full and satisfaction of this trip exceeding all expectations. Now, we just have to peel these wetsuits off…
It’s another night at the Pohatu Penguins base camp thanks to their kindness of letting us use their sleepout while our campervan is currently sick somewhere between Akaroa and Christchurch. What we are going to do without our campervan on this 365 days doing 365 activities, we are still trying to figure out… At least tomorrow, we have a wildlife cruise to procrastinate with… Join us then!COLCHESTER Council took a creative approach to advertising rules when it put up a banner for its new Creative Business Centre - without permission.
The eye-catching wrap, measuring 17 metres wide and 8 metres high, covers the front side of the site at the Old Police Station in Queen Street.
It was an unfurled with a fanfare at a press launch last month.
Two weeks later, plans have been submitted seeking advertisement consent.
Colchester Council's planning committee is likely to have the final say because the authority owns the building and for a single officer to decide could be seen as undemocratic.
Opposition councillor Darius Laws, whose ward includes the site, said: "Whilst I look forward to this building being used as a digital and creative business start up centre, in relation to the retrospective planning application, if people are to have confidence in the fairness of the planning system, Colchester Council should be exemplary with regards to its own buildings and planning applications."
A council spokesperson said: “The permission sought is advertising consent, not planning permission.
"The application was actually submitted by the building contractor, Phelan Construction Limited, after consultation with the Planning Department.
"It appears that advertising consent is required, and therefore an application has been submitted retrospectively.
"Retrospective planning and advertising consent applications are regularly made by members of the public.”
As well as helping to protect the building, the wrap is designed to raise awareness of the £2million project so includes an artist’s impressions and a website link.
Up to 43 units will be available for new businesses inside the centre, which is expected to open later this year.
Phelan Construction are working on clearing out the building but retaining historic and architecturally important features like staircases and fireplaces.
The wrap is likely to stay in place until consent is formally granted.A German tuner has transformed the simpering Mitsubishi Colt into an 978bhp, 195mph Ferrari 458-beater.
Yep, this Colt has a huge turbocharger strapped to its 2.0-litre 16V 4G63 engine, and after a lot of careful mapping work by Boba Motorsport, now produces nearly 1000 horsepowers.
You want numbers? Hold on tight: 0-62mph takes 3.0 seconds. 62-124mph takes 3.7 seconds, 124-186mph takes 9.8 seconds, and it’ll run onto a top speed of 195.7mph. Which, plainly, is ridiculous. And faster than a Ferrari 458.
Four-wheel drive gives the Colt at least a fighting change of staying on the road, but as you can see from the video, it still looks a trifle… squirrelly.
Now watch. And if you’re not a fan of suburban nightclub house music, click on to 1:53 for the speed runs and 4:03 for terminal velocity…Susan Glasser is POLITICO’s chief international affairs columnist and host of its new weekly podcast, The Global Politico.
Russia won in Syria thanks to President Barack Obama’s inaction. The Middle East unraveling of the past decade is due in no small part to America not listening to her allies in the region. Never mind President Donald Trump’s Muslim-bashing rhetoric, he may just be a better partner.
For months, leaders of America's Arab allies in the Mideast have telegraphed this view of the world, and it helps explain why the gilded palaces of the troubled, war-torn region are the few places on the planet — outside Russia — where Trump has been more popular than the president he succeeded.
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This is the case Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri laid out in an exclusive interview for The Global Politico at the end of a weeklong visit to Washington. The tone was measured, but taken together his comments amount to a striking and stark indictment of Obama and much recent U.S. policy in the Middle East. “The unfortunate consequence of not acting” there, Hariri argues, has been Russia’s restoration as a regional heavyweight, the resurrection of Bashar Assad’s bloody regime in Syria and the failure to produce an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
“Clarity,” the prime minister says, and the hope for a more decisive approach is the reason why he and other Arab leaders prefer Trump, despite the bombast and uncertainty the first six months of his presidency have unleashed. Unstated, but by all accounts just as significant, is the expectation that Trump will take a more hawkish approach toward Syria’s backers in Iran, and Hariri repeatedly brought up concessions Obama made toward Tehran to get his nuclear deal as an example of how the U.S. lost its way in the region.
Given the bloody six-year war in next-door Syria that has come close to overwhelming tiny Lebanon, sending a flood of 1.5 million refugees into a fragile nation of just 4.5 million people and putting the terrorist group ISIS right on their border, it’s a case worth listening to — even if you think it absolves the Arab world of accountability for its own actions.
Much of Hariri’s critique of Obama comes down to naivete — and the big gap between America’s inspirational rhetoric and its actions.
On Syria, for example, Hariri says that Obama was just taken in by Assad and the Russians when he made a deal with them in 2013 to remove chemical weapons — and that Obama should have bombed Assad when the Syrian dictator crossed his “red line” by gassing his own people.
“We know their actions. We know their lies. We know what they do to people. We know how they act with people. So, when Bashar al-Assad says that, you know, he’s going to get rid of the chemical weapons, he’s not,” Hariri says. “And if you believe him, it’s your mistake that you’re believing him. And that’s why when the red line was drawn, you could have come to the same deal after your actions. But that message would have, you know, gone down way better in the region and the regime would have understood that America meant business.”
Now, he argues Trump has no choice but to deal with Moscow. “The main power today in Syria is Russia, so if you want to solve the issue of Syria, you’ve got to talk to the Russians,” Hariri says. “That was the unfortunate consequence of not acting. And now, since they are there, somebody has to talk to them.”
Hariri also faults Obama for the big gap between the “inspirational” words in his 2009 Cairo speech suggesting a new American approach to the region — and the “nothing” that came of Obama’s efforts to forge peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And he points out that while Arab leaders opposed President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, they were also strongly against the 2011 American pullout of Iraq during Obama’s presidency, a withdrawal that many in the region believe left a dangerous vacuum eventually filled by the rise of the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria.
“When the war started in Iraq,” Hariri tells me, “all your allies in the region told you not to go there. And when you withdrew, all your allies in the region told you not to withdraw. And all your allies in the region told you to do something about Syria, but you didn’t. So, I believe that talking to your allies, listening to your allies, they’re there. They know better.”
***
It is, of course, far easier to criticize the United States for its blundering about the Middle East than it is to explain the fiendishly complicated politics of Lebanon today, a generation after a civil war so devastating it killed nearly a quarter-million people and came to define the bloody extremes of sectarian conflict.
Take Hariri’s own situation. At age 47, he is an accidental prime minister, a politician who never expected to be one as a direct result of the assassination of his father, Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, by a massive car bomb in Beirut 12 years ago. The case is still being investigated by an international tribunal, but the killers are widely believed to have been connected with the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah and its ally the Assad regime in Syria, as Hariri reminds me in the course of our conversation.
Which makes it all the more incredible that Hariri, a Sunni with strong ties to the Saudi royal family, is today prime minister of a government in Lebanon that includes Hezbollah — a ruling coalition that was put together in December 2016 after three years of gridlock, with the Hezbollah-linked Christian leader Michael Aoun as president and Hariri as prime minister. Hezbollah is easily the strongest armed force in Lebanon, and no deal was possible without it, but it means Hariri must perform an agonizingly complicated political dance every day — or risk his government falling apart.
When I asked a few smart Mideast political hands what I should ask Hariri before our interview, one responded, “Hezbollah, Hezbollah, Hezbollah,” although another pointed out that Hariri could hardly be frank on the subject. “He cannot say what he thinks about Hezbollah; otherwise there will be no government,” this expert said. “He is a hostage; the whole country is a hostage.”
The awkward dance was on full display during Hariri’s Rose Garden news conference with Trump on Tuesday. Though the headlines were about Trump’s scathing criticism of his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, Mideast hands were quick to pick up on an apparent Trump gaffe when the president bragged about Lebanon being “on the front lines” fighting Hezbollah — and seemed not to know that Hezbollah was in fact a part of the government of the man standing next to him.
It was a tough trap for Hariri: Acknowledge the screw-up and he’d offend Trump at a moment when the U.S. administration has threatened to cut desperately needed foreign aid or agree with the American president on the need to fight Hezbollah and risk blowing up his own government.
In the end, Hariri handled it deftly, brushing off Trump’s mistake and later telling reporters that he was sure from their private meeting that the president had understood the situation correctly. Hariri left Washington not only with his foreign aid intact but a State Department pledge for an additional $140 million to help with Syrian refugees.
In our interview, Hariri remained resolutely pragmatic whenever the subject of Hezbollah came up. He’s very clear that the choice was, in effect, to team up with the group tied to his father’s killing or risk another civil war. After three years of Lebanon having no president at all due to its internal gridlock, he argues, what real option did it have?
“We saw that if we continue this, we’re going to end up like Syria or we’re going to end up like Iraq,” as he puts it.
But every day is a challenge. While he was in Washington, in fact, Hezbollah attacked along Lebanon’s borders with Syria to take back territory held by the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front and ISIS in Syria, a decision Hariri acknowledges the Lebanese armed forces had nothing to do with. “Hezbollah decided unilaterally to … go into Syria without taking the advice of the government,” he tells me. (Hezbollah, of course, is already in Syria in a major way — fighting Sunni rebel groups on behalf of the Assad regime and Iran.)
As for Washington’s demands for more sanctions against Hezbollah and the growing impatience of Iran hawks in the Trump administration, Hariri makes the case that the United States would be better off focusing not on the Iranian proxy in his government — but on Iran itself.
Besides, he acknowledges, that’s a matter for someone other than fragile Lebanon to sort out.
“Our thought is, you know, Hezbollah is a regional issue. It’s not a Lebanese issue anymore. Hezbollah is in Syria and Iraq and Yemen, so people should not focus on Hezbollah that it’s a Lebanese entity only, but it’s something regional. In order to solve this issue, or to even work around it, it has to be a regional understanding. So, I am the prime minister of Lebanon. I’m not going to enter into that regional conflict. All I want is to … safeguard my country, because we’ve been through civil war. We’ve seen it. We’ve paid 200,000 people who got killed in the civil war.”
Lebanon, as Hariri reminds me throughout the interview, is a small country in a tough neighborhood. He’s not in Washington to preach, but to ask, and his mission is not to tell the great powers what to do about Syria or Hezbollah or Iran.
“Lebanon is a small country, and we have a saying: ‘As long as you know your size, you know, just try to protect what you have,’” he says. “And I think this is what we’re trying to do. And I believe this policy has saved Lebanon so far.”It sounded like a scene from a Cold War spy movie: Donald Trump Jr. was in a helicopter flying low on the outskirts of Russia’s capital city.
“Buzzing the treetops outside Moscow at 100 knots,” Trump Jr. tweeted, adding the aircraft was flying “below radar in closed airspace,” for reasons he did not explain.
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It was June 2011, and the future president’s son was on a business trip to Moscow, where Trump Jr. had recently become a regular — and admiring — visitor.
“I really prefer Moscow over all cities in the world,” he had told an audience a few years earlier.
The younger Trump, now the focus of charges of collusion with the Kremlin, was such a frequent presence in the city that he even had a favorite landmark: the colorful onion-domed St. Basil’s cathedral on Red Square.
“St. Basil’s Cathedral Moscow to me one of the cooler structures I know,” Trump had tweeted during his June 2011 visit. “Have 2C this each time here.”
While President Donald Trump’s handful of trips to Russia have been meticulously scrutinized, a review of his son’s public statements spanning several years, as well as social media posts and interviews with Russia experts, shows that Donald Jr. spent far more time in the country than his father did and developed personal ties there that continued beyond the November election.
That might help to explain why Trump Jr. was so receptive to an approach last summer by a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton which, as an intermediary told him in an email, was part of a Kremlin effort to assist his father’s campaign. “I love it,” Donald Jr. responded, agreeing to a meeting that may have put him in legal jeopardy.
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The connection was made through Emin Agalarov, the pop-singer son of a Moscow real estate mogul who had hosted the November 2013 Miss Universe pageant, a franchise then owned by Donald Trump. Trump Jr. had attended the event and befriended Emin Agalarov there. Agalarov’s agent, Rob Goldstone, connected Donald Jr. with the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya.
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters on Tuesday that the Russian approach to Trump Jr. was consistent with Kremlin tradecraft.
“They’ll look for relationships,” Schiff said. “Who had [the Trump family] done business with? They go to the son who knows the son of the now-president,” he said, referring to Emin Agalarov and Donald Jr.
In a Tuesday night interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump Jr. dismissed his meeting with Veselnitskaya as “a nothing,” while allowing that “[i]n restrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently.”
He also would not say that the meeting was his only encounter with Russians during the campaign.
"I've probably met with other people from Russia,” he added, though "not in the context of actual, a formalized meeting or anything like that."
Until this year, Trump Jr. had mostly positive associations with Russia, a country he had visited repeatedly dating to at least 2006. That was the year that Felix Sater, a Russian-born real estate developer and Trump business partner, took Trump Jr. and his sister Ivanka to meet potential business partners in Moscow. Trump Jr. would return frequently — at least six more times by fall 2008, he said at a September 2008 real estate conference, according to a trade media report from the event.
At the conference, he showed a deep familiarity with the Moscow real estate market and the Russian economy.
“We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” he said of Trump Organization properties. “There’s indeed a lot of money coming for new-builds and resale reflecting a trend in the Russian economy and, of course, the weak dollar versus the ruble.”
It is unclear how regularly Donald Jr. returned to the country since then. But he chronicled his June 2011 visit to Moscow, beginning with a tweet that said, “Heading [to] the airport to go to Moscow for business. I really have to stop traveling so much!!!"
A crucial visit came in November 2013, when Trump Jr. traveled to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant and met Emin Agalarov, whose father, Aras Agalarov, is a real estate and construction mogul allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Agalarovs had advanced talks with the elder Trump for the licensing rights to a tower project in Moscow. Trump designated Donald Jr. to oversee the project, according to a Yahoo News report on Tuesday.
The project was halted after Trump declared his candidacy for president in 2015. But Trump Jr. remained in touch with Emin Agalarov, who told Forbes in March that he had exchanged messages with Trump Jr. as recently as January.
Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with Veselnitskaya was not his only notable interaction with a figure with ties to Moscow during the presidential campaign.
In May 2016, he shared a table at a National Rifle Association dinner with Alexander Torshin, a Russian central bank official and former legislator, according to an account Torshin gave Bloomberg last year.
And three weeks before Election Day, Trump Jr. flew to Paris, where he attended a conference at the Ritz-Carlton hotel on ending the Syrian civil war. The event was hosted by an obscure French think tank whose founders have worked closely with Russia’s government, which plays a major role in the Syrian conflict. The think tank later nominated Putin for the Nobel Prize, calling him a “peacemaker.” The precise reasons for Trump Jr.’s trip to Paris remain unclear, and the Trump Organization has not responded to queries about whether he was paid for his appearance.
Some Russia experts say it would not be surprising if Kremlin officials had used a Trump family member as a means of trying to influence a potential U.S. president.
“In an environment where no one really trusts anyone else, there’s a huge incentive to work with your family members since you know them better. Against that backdrop, it makes perfect sense that elements of the Russian national security and business establishment wanted to put as many lines in as possible to the Trump family, either for purely mercenary purposes or more nefarious reasons,” said Andrew Weiss, a former Clinton White House official who now handles Russia issues at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
But there is evidence that Trump Jr. was not naive about the true nature of Russian society. Even as he touted the money the Trump Organization was making from wealthy Russians — “in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” he said at the 2008 real estate conference — he also acknowledged the dark side of the country he had come to love.
“As much as we want to take our business over there, Russia is just a different world,” he said, one where any investment is at risk “because it is a question of who knows who, whose brother is paying off who, etc.”
“It really is a scary place,” he added.POLÊMICA
CNA quer saber qual a base legal para a pasta divulgar informações que deveriam ser de uso exclusivo do governo
Além da nota de repúdio que será enviada a Casa Civil nesta segunda-feira, dia 5, a Confederação da Agricultura e Pecuária do Brasil vai cobrar do Ministério do Meio Ambiente respostas sobre a divulgação pública de dados do Cadastro Ambiental Rural (CNA). A CNA quer saber qual a base legal para a pasta divulgar informações que deveriam ser de uso exclusivo do governo.
Uma reunião nesta manhã, em Brasília, vai discutir o vazamento das informações. Federações do agronegócio vão participar da conversa. Até mesmo a saída do ministro será debatida.
O presidente da Comissão de Meio Ambiente da CNA, Rodrigo Justus, reclama que com essa atitude, o produtor que tinha irregularidades e dividiu a informação com o governo esperando por uma análise para resolver o problema, está com a vida exposta. “Isso foi um desrespeito do ministro. Ele está fazendo graça divulgando dados privados, isso é uma irresponsabilidade, parece querer se transformar em um heroi para as ONGS do meio ambiente. Se não houver base legal, que o ministro seja responsabilizado”, afirma Justus. Ele lembra que mais de 3 milhões de cadastros foram disponibilizados para download no site do Serviço Florestal Brasileiro, e que o reflexo disso não foi ponderado. “São informações que podem ser usadas negativamente até pelos competidores no mercado internacional”.
De acordo com a advogada ambiental, Heloisa Penteado, os dados são públicos.
“Como o CAR é do ministério do Meio Ambiente, automaticamente todas as informações são públicas”, disse.
Nos últimos dias, o Canal Rural recebeu uma serie de reclamações de agricultores que estão indignados com a divulgação dos dados do CAR no site do Serviço Florestal Brasileiro, como o nome da fazenda, por exemplo. Eles estão preocupados, também, com a possibilidade de que mais dados fiquem acessíveis a qualquer pessoa. É que o Ministério Público Federal recomendou ao Ministério do Meio Ambiente que torne público todos os dados do CAR, com base na Lei de Acesso à Informação.
O ministro Sarney Filho diz que enviou o caso à Advocacia Geral da União e que ainda não tem resposta. O diretor do Serviço Florestal Brasileiro conversou rapidamente por telefone, direto de Cancun/México. Inicialmente, ele se mostrou surpreso ao saber que conseguimos visualizar o nome da fazenda no documento do CAR. Raimundo Deusdará enviou o caso para a área de tecnologia do Serviço Florestal.The world’s first “clean coal” plant — that is, the first full-size coal-fired power plant ever to capture and store the majority of its CO2 emissions — is located in, of all places, Saskatchewan. (They should change the name to “Of All Places, Saskatchewan.”) According to the first financial analysis done on the project, it appears to be functioning primarily as a public subsidy to the province’s aging oil industry.
This takes a little explanation. First some quick background on the project.
—
The Boundary Dam Power Station, located just north of the North Dakota border, is the province’s oldest and largest coal-fired power plant. Its first boiler was commissioned in 1959. Boilers have been added and decommissioned over the years; there are now six, four of which are active. It is owned and run by SaskPower, the province’s principal utility. (A vertically integrated monopoly utility, for those keeping score at home.)
In 2008, the provincial government announced the Boundary Dam CCS project, whereby one of the station’s boilers (No. 3) would be replaced with a modern 160-megawatt boiler and coupled with a facility that would capture and store up to 90 percent of the boiler’s CO2 emissions. Seven years later, in 2014, boiler No. 3 began operations, representing the world’s first full-scale coal CCS project.
The captured carbon dioxide is compressed into liquid form and transported via pipeline. Most of it goes northwest to the aging Weyburn oil field, privately owned by Alberta-based Cenovus Energy, where it is used in “enhanced oil recovery” (EOR), boosting oil production.
The same facility that strips carbon dioxide from the boiler’s flue gas also captures sulfur dioxide (which it condenses into sulfuric acid to sell for industrial use) and scrubs out NOx. Fly ash from coal combustion is also captured and sold for industrial use. It’s about as good as you can get for a coal plant, environmentally speaking.
Anyhow. In the run-up to its opening, the project got a lot of press — The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Economist, etc. — but most of it was based on what the plant was expected to do, according to SaskPower.
A few days ago, the first financial analysis of the plant’s actual operations was released. It is not flattering.
Just to be up front: The report is written by a wind guy, James Glennie. He’s got long experience as a financial analyst in the energy industry, MBA, CFA, all that, but he is involved in trying to get wind projects off the ground in Saskatchewan. Just so you know. That said, the report is exhaustively detailed and referenced, and I do mean exhaustively, so do jump in if you’re suspicious of my summary. And as Glennie says, “Critics of our conclusions might well ask themselves why, given the sizeable spend of public funds on this initiative, the proponents have not already shared their own detailed project justifications.”
—
Here are some numbers from Glennie’s report. (All dollar figures are expressed in net-present-value terms, and in Canadian dollars.)
The project — heretofore known as BD3CCS, for Boundary Dam Boiler No. 3 Carbon Capture and Sequestration — was initially forecast to cost $1.2 billion but ended up costing $1.47 billion. Of that, the Canadian federal government contributed $240 million. The remaining $1.23 billion was paid by SaskPower customers. Of the total, the new boiler cost $550 million and |
. The latter are generally very efficient for collecting fine particles. In an investigation by the Ministry of the Environment of Denmark in 2006, the average particulate emissions per energy content of incinerated waste from 16 Danish incinerators were below 2.02 g/GJ (grams per energy content of the incinerated waste). Detailed measurements of fine particles with sizes below 2.5 micrometres (PM 2.5 ) were performed on three of the incinerators: One incinerator equipped with an ESP for particle filtration emitted 5.3 g/GJ fine particles, while two incinerators equipped with baghouse filters emitted 0.002 and 0.013 g/GJ PM 2.5. For ultra fine particles (PM 1.0 ), the numbers were 4.889 g/GJ PM 1.0 from the ESP plant, while emissions of 0.000 and 0.008 g/GJ PM 1.0 were measured from the plants equipped with baghouse filters.[26][27]
Acid gas scrubbers are used to remove hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, hydrofluoric acid, mercury, lead and other heavy metals. The efficiency of removal will depend on the specific equipment, the chemical composition of the waste, the design of the plant, the chemistry of reagents, and the ability of engineers to optimize these conditions, which may conflict for different pollutants. For example, mercury removal by wet scrubbers is considered coincidental and may be less than 50%.[25] Basic scrubbers remove sulfur dioxide, forming gypsum by reaction with lime.[28]
Waste water from scrubbers must subsequently pass through a waste water treatment plant.[citation needed]
Sulfur dioxide may also be removed by dry desulfurisation by injection limestone slurry into the flue gas before the particle filtration.[citation needed]
NO x is either reduced by catalytic reduction with ammonia in a catalytic converter (selective catalytic reduction, SCR) or by a high-temperature reaction with ammonia in the furnace (selective non-catalytic reduction, SNCR). Urea may be substituted for ammonia as the reducing reagent but must be supplied earlier in the process so that it can hydrolyze into ammonia. Substitution of urea can reduce costs and potential hazards associated with storage of anhydrous ammonia.[citation needed]
Heavy metals are often adsorbed on injected active carbon powder, which is collected by particle filtration.[citation needed]
Solid outputs [ edit ]
Incineration produces fly ash and bottom ash just as is the case when coal is combusted. The total amount of ash produced by municipal solid waste incineration ranges from 4 to 10% by volume and 15–20% by weight of the original quantity of waste,[2][29] and the fly ash amounts to about 10–20% of the total ash.[citation needed] The fly ash, by far, constitutes more of a potential health hazard than does the bottom ash because the fly ash often contain high concentrations of heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, copper and zinc as well as small amounts of dioxins and furans.[30] The bottom ash seldom contain significant levels of heavy metals. At present although some historic samples tested by the incinerator operators' group would meet the being ecotoxic criteria at present the EA say "we have agreed" to regard incinerator bottom ash as "non-hazardous" until the testing programme is complete.[citation needed]
Other pollution issues [ edit ]
Odor pollution can be a problem with old-style incinerators, but odors and dust are extremely well controlled in newer incineration plants. They receive and store the waste in an enclosed area with a negative pressure with the airflow being routed through the boiler which prevents unpleasant odors from escaping into the atmosphere. However, not all plants are implemented this way, resulting in inconveniences in the locality.[citation needed]
An issue that affects community relationships is the increased road traffic of waste collection vehicles to transport municipal waste to the incinerator. Due to this reason, most incinerators are located in industrial areas. This problem can be avoided to an extent through the transport of waste by rail from transfer stations.[citation needed]
Debate [ edit ]
Use of incinerators for waste management is controversial. The debate over incinerators typically involves business interests (representing both waste generators and incinerator firms), government regulators, environmental activists and local citizens who must weigh the economic appeal of local industrial activity with their concerns over health and environmental risk.
People and organizations professionally involved in this issue include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a great many local and national air quality regulatory agencies worldwide.
Arguments for incineration [ edit ]
Kehrichtverbrennungsanlage Zürcher Oberland (KEZO) in Hinwil, Switzerland in Hinwil, Switzerland
The concerns over the health effects of dioxin and furan emissions have been significantly lessened by advances in emission control designs and very stringent new governmental regulations that have resulted in large reductions in the amount of dioxins and furans emissions. [16]
The U.K. Health Protection Agency concluded in 2009 that "Modern, well managed incinerators make only a small contribution to local concentrations of air pollutants. It is possible that such small additions could have an impact on health but such effects, if they exist, are likely to be very small and not detectable." [31]
Incineration plants can generate electricity and heat that can substitute power plants powered by other fuels at the regional electric and district heating grid, and steam supply for industrial customers. Incinerators and other waste-to-energy plants generate at least partially biomass-based renewable energy that offsets greenhouse gas pollution from coal-, oil- and gas-fired power plants. [32] The E.U. considers energy generated from biogenic waste (waste with biological origin) by incinerators as non-fossil renewable energy under its emissions caps. These greenhouse gas reductions are in addition to those generated by the avoidance of landfill methane.
The E.U. considers energy generated from biogenic waste (waste with biological origin) by incinerators as non-fossil renewable energy under its emissions caps. These greenhouse gas reductions are in addition to those generated by the avoidance of landfill methane. The bottom ash residue remaining after combustion has been shown to be a non-hazardous solid waste that can be safely put into landfills or recycled as construction aggregate. Samples are tested for ecotoxic metals. [33]
In densely populated areas, finding space for additional landfills is becoming increasingly difficult.
The Maishima waste treatment center in Osaka, designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, uses heat for power generation. Fine particles can be efficiently removed from the flue gases with baghouse filters. Even though approximately 40% of the incinerated waste in Denmark was incinerated at plants with no baghouse filters, estimates based on measurements by the Danish Environmental Research Institute showed that incinerators were only responsible for approximately 0.3% of the total domestic emissions of particulate smaller than 2.5 micrometres (PM 2.5 ) to the atmosphere in 2006. [26] [27]
Fine particles can be efficiently removed from the flue gases with baghouse filters. Even though approximately 40% of the incinerated waste in Denmark was incinerated at plants with no baghouse filters, estimates based on measurements by the Danish Environmental Research Institute showed that incinerators were only responsible for approximately 0.3% of the total domestic emissions of particulate smaller than 2.5 micrometres (PM ) to the atmosphere in 2006. Incineration of municipal solid waste avoids the release of methane. Every ton of MSW incinerated, prevents about one ton of carbon dioxide equivalents from being released to the atmosphere. [22]
Most municipalities that operate incineration facilities have higher recycling rates than neighboring cities and countries that do not send their waste to incinerators. [34] [ not in citation given ]. In a country overview from 2016 [35] by the European Environmental Agency the top recycling performing countries are also the ones having the highest penetration of incineration, even though all material recovery from waste sent to incineration (e.g. metals and construction aggregate) is per definition not counted as recycling in European targets. The recovery of glass, stone and ceramic materials reused in construction, as well as ferrous and in some cases non-ferrous metals recovered from combustion residue thus adds further to the actual recycled amounts. [36] Metals recovered from ash would typically be difficult or impossible to recycle through conventional means, as the removal of attached combustible material through incineration provides an alternative to labor- or energy-intensive mechanical separation methods.
. In a country overview from 2016 by the European Environmental Agency the top recycling performing countries are also the ones having the highest penetration of incineration, even though all material recovery from waste sent to incineration (e.g. metals and construction aggregate) is per definition counted as recycling in European targets. The recovery of glass, stone and ceramic materials reused in construction, as well as ferrous and in some cases non-ferrous metals recovered from combustion residue thus adds further to the actual recycled amounts. Metals recovered from ash would typically be difficult or impossible to recycle through conventional means, as the removal of attached combustible material through incineration provides an alternative to labor- or energy-intensive mechanical separation methods. Volume of combusted waste is reduced by approximately 90%, increasing the life of landfills. Ash from modern incinerators is vitrified at temperatures of 1,000 °C (1,830 °F) to 1,100 °C (2,010 °F), reducing the leachability and toxicity of residue. As a result, special landfills are generally no longer required for incinerator ash from municipal waste streams, and existing landfills can see their life dramatically increased by combusting waste, reducing the need for municipalities to site and construct new landfills.[37][38]
Arguments against incineration [ edit ]
Trends in incinerator use [ edit ]
The history of municipal solid waste (MSW) incineration is linked intimately to the history of landfills and other waste treatment technology. The merits of incineration are inevitably judged in relation to the alternatives available. Since the 1970s, recycling and other prevention measures have changed the context for such judgements. Since the 1990s alternative waste treatment technologies have been maturing and becoming viable.
Incineration is a key process in the treatment of hazardous wastes and clinical wastes. It is often imperative that medical waste be subjected to the high temperatures of incineration to destroy pathogens and toxic contamination it contains.
Incineration in North America [ edit ]
The first incinerator in the U.S. was built in 1885 on Governors Island in New York.[56] In 1949, Robert C. Ross founded one of the first hazardous waste management companies in the U.S. He began Robert Ross Industrial Disposal because he saw an opportunity to meet the hazardous waste management needs of companies in northern Ohio. In 1958, the company built one of the first hazardous waste incinerators in the U.S.[57]
The first full-scale, municipally operated incineration facility in the U.S. was the Arnold O. Chantland Resource Recovery Plant, built in 1975 and located in Ames, Iowa. This plant is still in operation and produces refuse-derived fuel that is sent to local power plants for fuel.[58] The first commercially successful incineration plant in the U.S. was built in Saugus, Massachusetts, in October 1975 by Wheelabrator Technologies, and is still in operation today.[29]
There are several environmental or waste management corporations that transport ultimately to an incinerator or cement kiln treatment center. Currently (2009), there are three main businesses that incinerate waste: Clean Harbours, WTI-Heritage, and Ross Incineration Services. Clean Harbours has acquired many of the smaller, independently run facilities, accumulating 5–7 incinerators in the process across the U.S. WTI-Heritage has one incinerator, located in the southeastern corner of Ohio across the Ohio River from West Virginia.[citation needed]
Several old generation incinerators have been closed; of the 186 MSW incinerators in 1990, only 89 remained by 2007, and of the 6200 medical waste incinerators in 1988, only 115 remained in 2003.[59] No new incinerators were built between 1996 and 2007.[citation needed] The main reasons for lack of activity have been:
Economics. With the increase in the number of large inexpensive regional landfills and, up until recently, the relatively low price of electricity, incinerators were not able to compete for the 'fuel', i.e., waste in the U.S. [ citation needed ]
Tax policies. Tax credits for plants producing electricity from waste were rescinded in the U.S. between 1990 and 2004.[ citation needed ]
There has been renewed interest in incineration and other waste-to-energy technologies in the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S., incineration was granted qualification for renewable energy production tax credits in 2004.[60] Projects to add capacity to existing plants are underway, and municipalities are once again evaluating the option of building incineration plants rather than continue landfilling municipal wastes. However, many of these projects have faced continued political opposition in spite of renewed arguments for the greenhouse gas benefits of incineration and improved air pollution control and ash recycling.
Incineration in Europe [ edit ]
In Europe, with the ban on landfilling untreated waste,[61] scores of incinerators have been built in the last decade, with more under construction. Recently, a number of municipal governments have begun the process of contracting for the construction and operation of incinerators. In Europe, some of the electricity generated from waste is deemed to be from a 'Renewable Energy Source (RES) and is thus eligible for tax credits if privately operated. Also, some incinerators in Europe are equipped with waste recovery, allowing the reuse of ferrous and non-ferrous materials found in landfills. A prominent example is the AEB Waste Fired Power Plant.[62][63]
In Sweden, about 50% of the generated waste is burned in waste-to-energy facilities, producing electricity and supplying local cities' district heating systems.[64] The importance of waste in Sweden's electricity generation scheme is reflected on their 2,700,000 tons of waste imported per year (in 2014) to supply waste-to-energy facilities.[65]
Incineration in the United Kingdom [ edit ]
The technology employed in the UK waste management industry has been greatly lagging behind that of Europe due to the wide availability of landfills. The Landfill Directive set down by the European Union led to the Government of the United Kingdom imposing waste legislation including the landfill tax and Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme. This legislation is designed to reduce the release of greenhouse gases produced by landfills through the use of alternative methods of waste treatment. It is the UK Government's position that incineration will play an increasingly large role in the treatment of municipal waste and supply of energy in the UK.[citation needed]
In 2008, plans for potential incinerator locations exists for approximately 100 sites. These have been interactively mapped by UK NGO's.[66][67][68][69]
Under a new plan in June 2012, a DEFRA-backed grant scheme (The Farming and Forestry Improvement Scheme) was set up to encourage the use of low-capacity incinerators on agricultural sites to improve their bio security.[70]
A permit has recently been granted[71] for what would be the UK's largest waste incinerator in the centre of the Cambridge – Milton Keynes – Oxford corridor, in Bedfordshire. Following the construction of a large incinerator at Greatmoor in Buckinghamshire, and plans to construct a further one near Bedford,[72] the Cambridge – Milton Keynes – Oxford corridor will become a major incineration hub in the UK.
Incineration Units for emergency use [ edit ]
Mobile incineration unit for emergency use
Emergency incineration systems exist for the urgent and biosecure disposal of animals and their by-products following a mass mortality or disease outbreak. An increase in regulation and enforcement from governments and institutions worldwide has been forced through public pressure and significant economic exposure.
Contagious animal disease has cost governments and industry $200 billion over 20 years to 2012 and is responsible for over 65% of infectious disease outbreaks worldwide in the past sixty years. One-third of global meat exports (approx 6 million tonnes) is affected by trade restrictions at any time and as such the focus of Governments, public bodies and commercial operators is on cleaner, safer and more robust methods of animal carcass disposal to contain and control disease.
Large-scale incineration systems are available from niche suppliers and are often bought by governments as a safety net in case of contagious outbreak. Many are mobile and can be quickly deployed to locations requiring biosecure disposal.
Small incinerator units [ edit ]
An example of a low capacity, mobile incinerator
Small-scale incinerators exist for special purposes. For example, the small-scale[73] incinerators are aimed for hygienically safe destruction of medical waste in developing countries. Small incinerators can be quickly deployed to remote areas where an outbreak has occurred to dispose of infected animals quickly and without the risk of cross contamination.[citation needed]
In popular media [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Anti-incineration groups
EU informationGet the biggest Liverpool FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Liverpool’s two ex-Barcelona youngsters have had differing injury fortunes - with one facing a stretch on the sidelines and one ready to try to make an impact.
Exciting wing recruit Bobby Adekanye has enjoyed a terrific start to the season but missed Saturday’s impressive 3-1 victory over Stoke at Kirkby and faces a spell on the sidelines.
U18s mananger Neil Critchley said of the 17-year-old: “He’s had a hernia op. He’d been struggling pretty much since the Blackburn game (first of the season) and we’d tried to manage him. It got a little bit worse and we had to get him scanned and it highlighted a problem.
“We got him in quickly to try to eradicate the problem. It shouldn’t be a long-term thing but it will keep him out for another few weeks.”
It’s a blow for the Nigerian-born player who missed large parts of his first season at the Liverpool Academy with ankle ligament problems.
He came back this year looking stronger with Academy coaches very pleased with the work he’s put in to get back to fitness.
There was better news for Juanma, former Barcelona youth captain who was recently picked up by the Reds after a trial.
The 19-year-old came on for the U23s on Sunday against Leicester at Tranmere and slotted into a centre-back position in place of Corey Whelan for the last 20 minutes.
U23s manager Michael Beale said; “Juanma’s been injured, he’s had a bit of a knock and he’s not had a pre-season. He’s not a centre-back he’s a left-back but it was a chance, with the game quite comfortable, to bring him on.
“I couldn’t really take out (full-backs) Trent (Alexander-Arnold) or Connor (Randall) because I thought they were both excellent. Corey Whelan I thought was outstanding but he played 90 minutes on Thursday (against Brentford) so it was an easy option to give Corey a bit of a break.”
There was less good news of defensive midfielder Jordan Williams, also on the comeback trail after a difficult year with injuries last season, and who impressed in the previous victory at Arsenal.
Beale revealed: “Unfortunately Jordan Williams has picked up a small injury which will keep him out for a month or so.”
The U18s play next at Middlebrough on Saturday while the U23s travel to Tottenham for a Monday night clash next week.Gwynne Dyer: Tyrants face the music with little to fear
Dictators who go back to the scene of their crimes are rarely punished to the full and often forgiven.
"High political office is a club, and the members look after one another." Gwynne Dyer
'I prefer death to surrender," said Pakistan's former military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, on April 1 to the special court that is trying him on five counts of high treason, but it's a reasonable guess that he'd prefer exile to either of those options. The real puzzle is why he ever left his comfortable exile in England in the first place.In theory Musharraf, who seized power in Pakistan in 1999 and finally gave it up under great pressure in 2007, could face the death penalty if he is found guilty, but in practice he is protected by the Important Persons Act, an unwritten law that operates in almost every country.Nevertheless, Musharraf is being greatly inconvenienced by the trial, and last week the Taleban nearly got him with a roadside bomb near Islamabad.Doubtless he missed Pakistan, but what bizarre calculation could have led him to go home and put himself in the hands of his many enemies?Musharraf said he was coming home to run in the 2013 election, which was delusional in the extreme. There was little reason to believe that many Pakistanis would want to vote for him after living under his arbitrary rule for eight years. There was no reason at all to think that he would not be disqualified from running in the election and put on trial for grave crimes.Yet Musharraf is not alone. Other ex-dictators, far nastier than him, have succumbed to the same delusion and gone home convinced that they would be welcomed back. Another recent case is Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, who took over as Haiti's dictator at 19 when his father "Papa Doc" died in 1971 and ruled it until he was overthrown by a popular revolt in 1986.Haiti was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere when he took power, and still the poorest when he lost it, but he took an alleged US$120 million ($139 million) with him into exile in France. His dreaded Tonton Macoute militia murdered thousands and drove hundreds of thousands into exile, and many of them were massacred in the revolution that ended his rule, but he lived on in Paris in great luxury.Eventually Duvalier's spendthrift ways and an expensive divorce got him into financial difficulties, but just going back to Haiti was not going to fix that. Yet he went home in 2011, after a quarter-century in exile. He said he was "just coming to help", whatever that meant, but he arrived just as the recently elected president was facing charges of election-rigging, which led some to speculate that Duvalier still had political ambitions.He was arrested and charged with embezzlement, human rights abuses, and crimes against humanity. Three years later the courts are still pursuing him on those charges, but in the meantime he is frequently seen lunching in the bistros of Petionville, and has even been welcomed at the same events as the current president, Michel Martelly. It's safe to say that he will not die in jail.And then there was Jean-Bedel Bokassa, president of the Central African Republic, later known as Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire. He was a brutal soldier who had served in the French colonial army, and seized power from his country's first president (a cousin) in 1966. For the next 13 years he ruled the country with great violence and practically bankrupted it.The mass murder of schoolchildren and rumours of cannibalism finally moved the French to intervene militarily and overthrow Bokassa in 1979 while he was travelling abroad. He was sentenced to death in absentia in 1980 for the murder of many political rivals - but he returned from exile in Paris in 1986, seemingly confident that he would be welcomed with open arms.He was put on trial and sentenced to death again - in person, this time. But the following year his sentence was commuted to life in prison, and in 1993 he was set free. In 2010, President Francois Bozize issued a decree rehabilitating Bokassa and calling him "a son of the nation recognised by all as a great builder".Two things are odd about this phenomenon of ex-dictators confidently returning to the scene of the crime. One, obviously, is their belief that they are still loved (as if they ever really were). But that is less strange than it seems, for during their time in power very few people dared to tell them anything else.What's much more curious is the fact that the countries they misruled eventually find it necessary to forgive them. They do this not so much out of sympathy for the man who committed the crimes, but rather out of a need for the nation's history not to be merely a meaningless catalogue of blunders and misdeeds.Musharraf may have come back a bit too early to benefit from instant forgiveness, for some of the people he hurt have not yet retired. But he will not face really serious jail time or the death penalty, because Pakistan's army would not permit it. And he will be forgiven by Pakistan's historians and myth-makers in the end, because somehow or other the history has to make sense.David Coulthard has urged Sebastian Vettel to leave Red Bull, saying he will never achieve greatness if he doesn’t win a title with a different team…
David Coulthard has urged Sebastian Vettel to leave Red Bull, saying he will never achieve greatness if he doesn’t win a title with a different team.
Although Vettel has won grands prix with two different teams, Toro Rosso and Red Bull, it’s only with the latter that the German has won World titles.
On his way towards greatness already with three titles on the trot, Coulthard reckons the reigning World Champ will only trully achieve that status if he claims the crown with a different team.
“I don’t think Seb has to do anything but keep winning to satisfy his own desire to be a winning grand prix driver,” the 13-time grand prix winner told The Guardian.
“But do I think he has to move to cement his legacy? Yes, I do.
“For whatever reason, whether it’s just the way we are as humans, or to satisfy the purists who have followed the sport for many, many years, we like to see people not just do it once but multiple times and over different scenarios.
“There is this thing about cementing a place in history and it does seem to mean winningChampionships with different teams.
“You think of [Niki] Lauda, winning at Ferrari and McLaren. He made a comeback after losing a year. [Nelson] Piquet had battles with [Nigel] Mansell and he did win a Championship at Brabham and at Williams.”
Coulthard, though, admits there are exceptions to the rule such as Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna, who only won titles with Lotus and McLaren respectively.
“Senna didn’t win any Championships anywhere else. But he won races at Lotus. He didn’t manage to win races at Williams but he won poles there. Do you need to move? I guess the answer is yes, ultimately, you need to move.
“Seb is a good driver, a world-class driver. But he hasn’t overcome adversity yet in terms of being with another team or being up against a team-mate who was already World Champion. Has he done an amazing job to be a multiple World Champion? Yes, he has.
“But if he goes somewhere else and continues his winning ways, then to the wider public he will get a new-found respect. Because, if it appears as a magic carpet ride, none of us like to see that. We like to see people overcome a bit of adversity.”HOUSTON, Texas — A man in Dallas is being isolated in a hospital after he showed signs of Ebola, the virus that has killed thousands of people in Africa.
Test results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be released on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
The identity of the individual has not been released. The Dallas-based Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital reportedly released a statement on Monday; the hospital claimed that due to the patient’s recent travel history and exhibited condition, it is likely that he has Ebola.
While Ebola has been widespread in Africa, only five people have been treated for it in the United States. A doctor, who is a U.S. citizen, was recently admitted by the National Institutes of Health after contracting Ebola while volunteering in Africa.
Ebola symptoms include high fever, headache, muscle aches, sore throat, weakness, and stomach pain, according to WebMD.
It is unclear what special steps, if any, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital is currently taking to keep its employees and staff safe and away from the infected individual.
Follow Kristin Tate on Twitter @KristinBTate.(Photo: stock_photo_world / Shutterstock.com)
A Muslim woman who was hired to work on the National Security Council under former President Barack Obama decided to stay on in her role for the incoming Trump administration to hopefully give them a more enlightened view of her religion — but she quickly found out that it was a lost cause.
Writing in the Atlantic, former NSC adviser Rumana Ahmed explains that she lasted only eight days under the Trump administration in a role that she had held since 2011.
“When Trump issued a ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries and all Syrian refugees, I knew I could no longer stay and work for an administration that saw me and people like me not as fellow citizens, but as a threat,” she writes.
She went to notify Trump’s senior NSC communications advisor, Michael Anton, of her decision to quit, and she explained that she couldn’t in good conscience work for an administration that would issue such a ban.
He responded by staring at her silently.
Reflecting on her very brief time in the Trump White House, Ahmed says that what she witnessed was “strange, appalling and disturbing.”
“As one staffer serving since the Reagan administration said, ‘This place has been turned upside down. It’s chaos. I’ve never witnessed anything like it,'” she writes. “This was not typical Republican leadership, or even that of a businessman. It was a chaotic attempt at authoritarianism — legally questionable executive orders, accusations of the press being ‘fake,’ peddling countless lies as ‘alternative facts,’ and assertions by White House surrogates that the president’s national security authority would ‘not be questioned.'”
The whole essay can be found at this link.These days, there’s a big elephant in the room for anyone who’s interested in blockchain platform Ethereum.
Two weeks ago, the Decentralized Autonomous Organization fund, or DAO, was hacked, resulting in some $50 million worth of ether being stolen. So where does the Ethereum community go from here?
That was the first topic up for discussion at yesterday’s open house held by Ethereum experts ConsenSys at its Bushwick offices. The event, which attracted a full house of blockchain enthusiasts, included demos of the company’s latest projects and networking. But founder and CEO Joseph Lubin kicked things off by addressing the security breach, calling it “potentially a systemic threat.”
“If we don’t clean this up, there will be months, potentially years of this distraction,” he said. “It’s really sapping the productive energy from the platform.”
That said, the DAO breach hasn’t halted ConsenSys’ day to day work. The bulk of ConsenSys’ revenue comes from its corporate customers, for which it develops private applications. So they have been sheltered from the recent attack. Among those clients, Lubin said, “there’s not much concern.”
@ethereumJoseph giving an update on the state of #ethereum at our @ConsenSysLLC office to an open meet up pic.twitter.com/4nTsypekAZ — Mark DAgostino (@mark_dago) June 29, 2016
The Ethereum community is well on its way to resolving the breach, Lubin said, with a “hard fork,” a software update that would freeze the fund.
ConsenSys at Work
Demonstrating just how hard at work they’ve been, ConsenSys employees showed some of their recent projects to the audience. Igor Lilic, the company’s principal technical lead, demoed a proof-of-identity application, in which a physical letter is used to validate a user’s address and then is associated with the blockchain.
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Lilic’s the application started out as a side project. As such, he admitted, it’s not meant to be an ironclad form of identity verification, but more of a proof of concept. It’s important, he said, to build a “web of trust around identity” on the blockchain to get more people to adopt it.
“We can never fully get rid of trust,” he said. “The DAO showed us that.”
Product lead Ryan Gittleson walked the audience through a demo of Virtue Poker, an online poker application that uses the Ethereum blockchain to hold funds. (The actual game isn’t run on the blockchain; instead, each player uses an encryption key to ensure that no cheating takes place.)
The online poker industry, as Gittleson explained, has been beset by corruption and fraud in the past decade. As a result, regulations vary widely from country to country (Sweden, for example, only allows state operators to run games), or even state to state in the U.S. A blockchain-based operation, Gittleson suggested, could restore trust to the industry.
Though he didn’t give a demo, project manager Jesse Grushack was also on hand to talk about Ujo, a music application in development that would enable better management of artist royalties. Right now, the process of paying musicians is quite complex, in large part because different organizations manage copyrights for specific aspects of music production. ConsenSys recently joined the Open Music Initiative launched by the Berklee College of Music, which aims to simplify how musicians are paid.
“I’ve heard a bunch of stories of $40, $50, $100 checks sitting around, because the labels don’t know who they’re supposed to go to,” Grushack said.
The Company’s Future
Beyond ConsenSys’ current projects, Lubin and Lilic identified some bold goals for increasing adoption of Ethereum and blockchain applications among the average Internet user. Lilic’s proof-of-identity application could be a starting point for a universal ID, independent of any state, in which others could endorse one’s identity.
Such an application, Lubin added, could help bring the billions of people who lack an official ID or bank account into the formal economy. A blockchain-based ID could also help internet users maintain greater control over their personal information and allow them, potentially, to selectively disclose details to companies in exchange for payment.
“It’s a little early, but that’s part of our Holy Grail,” Lilic said.
As for ConsenSys itself, Lubin aims for it to become a familiar name among consumers. Although it started out as a studio, and much of its work has involved building custom applications for enterprise clients, Lubin said that the bulk of ConsenSys’s work will be focused on the average internet user. Though he doesn’t plan to raise funding for the company now, in the future, he said, he may consider holding a crowdsale of shares in a portion of the company. Lubin said he is confident that Ethereum-based applications will become mainstream, though it will likely take five to ten years to get there.
“It will be roughly a World Wide Web timeline,” he said. “That’s how long it took for the internet to filter down to the average person.”
-30-This is merely hypothetical and there have been no proposals, discussion, or financial backers. For those of you unfamiliar with the Kitchener-Waterloo (KW) region, they are two separate cities that immediately border each other. Then add Cambridge, a city not even 5 minutes outside of Kitchener, and these three cities become the Tri-city area. According to the 2016 Canadian Census, the combined population of these three cities is 523,894.
The following cities are where current NHL teams play and their population data is also collected from the 2016 Canadian Census and the United States Census Bureau;
Winnipeg, Manitoba – 705,244
St. Paul, Minnesota – 302,398
Raleigh, North Carolina – 458,880
Buffalo, New York – 256,902
Newark, New Jersey – 281,764
These are some comparable cities to the ‘Tri-City’ area. As you can see, many cities with NHL teams come in much lower than the population of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge. Now, obviously, these are just the population of the cities themselves and not the surrounding areas. To people who don’t know where the Tri-city area is located, here’s a link to Google Maps. It is located approximately half-way between London and Toronto, Ontario.
I’d like to think most hockey fans would be willing to travel 1 hour to see an NHL game, so, let’s look into the population that’s within an hour from the Tri-city area.
London, Ontario – 383,822
Woodstock, Ontario – 40,902
Stratford, Ontario – 31,465
Guelph, Ontario – 151,984
Brantford, Ontario – 134,203
Milton, Ontario – 110,128
Burlington, Ontario – 175,779
Hamilton, Ontario – 747,545
Mississauga, Ontario – 721,599
Brampton, Ontario – 593,698
There are many other smaller cities in the one-hour radius from Kitchener-Waterloo as well. This also doesn’t include Toronto who’s population is North of 2 million. The sum of the population of these 10 cities and that of the Tri-city area is 3,615,019 people! In addition to this, census’ do not incorporate the population of universities and colleges. The Tri-city area is home to two universities and one college.
The population of these schools are;
Waterloo University – 36,670
Wilfred Laurier University – 17,594
Conestoga College – 45,300
I have no doubt this area can support an NHL team.
Although this area is primarily made up of Maple Leafs fans, I encourage you to look at the availability and pricing of tickets at the Air Canada Centre if you’re not familiar with them. I still believe a team in this area would host a sell-out arena almost every home game. A team in KW would fit right into the Atlantic Division and would immediately become a rival of both the Red Wings and Maple Leafs. Fans from both Detroit and Toronto could easily make the trip to Kitchener-Waterloo to see their favourite team go head-to-head with KW. What’s more, |
non-existent apart from a few exceptions.
The system of state and capital domination has created a culminating dystopia which leaves behind the old horses of capitalist exploitation: those who have always (even in conservative terms) had a vital social role through the centuries. The radical economic, social and cultural subversion we hope for as anarchists, will give back the power and the social role stolen by state and bring the living back with the living.
Until then the conditions will become worse. These are warnings that in a few decades the elderly will constitute a majority, so the solution provided is late retirement in order to achieve a minimum time interval between that and death, which means less pensions will be paid by the state, while the health care system will be privatised.
(communique excerpts translated by BlackCat)On Thursday, Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar bookstore in New York City, in Columbus Circle. It is situated on the third floor of the Time Warner Center, a baffling place that, on any given weekday, seems populated exclusively by tourists, sharply dressed professionals taking two-hour lunch meetings, and people with the aura of those C.G.I. figures in architectural renderings—people who are there just because they’re there. The books in the Amazon bookstore—assembled according to algorithm—feel like that, too. They exist far less to serve the desires of the reader than to serve the needs of Amazon, a company whose twenty-year campaign to “disrupt” bookstores has now killed off much of the competition, usurped nearly half of the U.S. book market, and brought it back, full circle, to books on shelves.
The Columbus Circle location is Amazon’s seventh bookstore, so far. It is reminiscent of an airport bookshop: big enough to be enticing from the outside but extremely limited once you’re inside. The volumes on display are spaced at a courteous distance from one another, positioned with their front covers facing out. Greeting customers, front and center, is a “Highly Rated” table, featuring books that have received 4.8 stars or above on Amazon.com, among them Trevor Noah’s memoir, Chrissy Teigen’s cookbook, a book by the couple on the TV show “Fixer Upper,” and a book about kombucha. Other offerings are determined by digital metrics such as Goodreads reviews, Amazon sales, and pre-orders, and by input from the curators at Amazon Books. The store, in other words, is designed to further popularize, on Amazon, that which is already popular on Amazon. (The company’s new Amazon Charts feature, public online as of last week, is intended to challenge the best-seller list at the Times.)
At the right of the shop is a large, Best Buy-esque electronics area that’s mainly dedicated to the Amazon Echo. The Echo section occupies more space in the store than the section dedicated to fiction, which you’ll find on the left. Under the “G”s in the fiction section you’ll find: Roxane Gay, Hazel Gaynor, Paolo Giordano, William Golding, Bryn Greenwood, and Yaa Gyasi. That’s it. Only a handful of authors have two titles featured on the shelves: Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen, Paulo Coelho, Emma Donoghue, Ernest Hemingway, Jojo Moyes, Liane Moriarty, Haruki Murakami, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Marilynne Robinson, and J. D. Salinger. Only John Steinbeck and W. Bruce Cameron have three titles displayed: Cameron’s are “A Dog’s Purpose,” “A Dog’s Journey,” and “A Dog’s Way Home.” Over all, there are fewer than two hundred titles on offer in the fiction section, and three thousand titles in the store as a whole. For comparison, McNally Jackson, in SoHo, stocks about sixty thousand titles; my favorite indie bookstore—Literati, in Ann Arbor, where I went to grad school—stocks twenty-five thousand, with five thousand titles in fiction. _ _
It will be clear by now that I am not the ideal customer for the Amazon bookstore in the Time Warner Center. This doesn’t stem, necessarily, from my dislike of Amazon itself. I support the company’s terrible labor practices by making active use of my Prime membership, and I’m generally happy to buy books anywhere—the Barnes & Noble near my old office; Greenlight, my local indie; or, if I need something obscure quickly, Amazon. But a central draw of Amazon’s online bookstore is its limitless selection, and it’s odd to see the company’s brick-and-mortar outpost offering such a limited mix. Some sections in the bookstore seem organized like an ill-advised dinner party: in nonfiction, James Baldwin sits next to David Brooks, who’s above Ta-Nehisi Coates, who’s next to a book called “Pantsuit Nation,” which is based on a pro-Hillary Clinton Facebook group.
There are a few types of books that are served well by the Amazon bookstore. The shop’s layout does good work for the cookbook section, and it was nice to walk into Y.A. and see exactly what’s popular these days. (I was tempted to pick up a dystopian “Wizard of Oz” reboot called “Dorothy Must Die.”) But the store’s design drains the book-buying process of much of its pleasure. There are signs everywhere encouraging you to download the Amazon app and sign up for Prime. You have to scan a book’s bar code to find out its price. There are Amazon reviews underneath almost every title—Internet comments intruding on your book purchase by design._ _A snippet underneath Rachel Dolezal’s memoir urges readers to check out its “poignant depth.” In the children’s section, there is sometimes more text in the review blurbs than in the books themselves.
The store’s biggest shortcoming, though, is that it is so clearly not intended for people who read regularly. I normally walk into a bookstore and shop the way a person might shop for clothes: I know what I like, what generally works for me, what new styles I might be ready to try. It was a strange feeling, on Thursday, to do laps around a bookstore without feeling a single unexpected thrill. There were no wild cards, no deep cuts, no oddballs—just books that were already best-sellers, pieces of clothing I knew wouldn’t fit me or that I already owned.
Per a friend’s recommendation, I scanned the store for “White Tears,” by Hari Kunzru, and “The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley,” by Hannah Tinti. Neither was stocked. I saw “The Princess Diarist,” by Carrie Fisher, and remembered that I’d been wanting to read her previous book “Wishful Drinking,” but of course the store didn’t have it. Finally, I found something I wanted to read: Lidia Yuknavitch’s novel “The Book of Joan.” I scanned its bar code: $17.70 with my Prime membership. But, because I didn’t have the Amazon app on my phone, and didn’t want to download it, I needed to pay with a card linked to my Prime membership, and I had left my linked card at home.
So I left, and took the subway downtown to McNally Jackson, where, upon entering, I immediately saw six books that I didn’t know about or had forgotten I wanted to read. After wandering around browsing the shelves, I settled on “The Book of Joan” and the new Joshua Ferris story collection, both hardcovers. I had the brief thought that I could have saved some money by buying them from Amazon. Then I paid for them happily anyway.This page is not an effort to blow my own horn on bikes I have owned but to show my history and experience with vintage Italian singles and twins. My introduction to Italian motorcycles began in '84 with the purchase of a new Moto Guzzi V50111 from Jim Woods in Glendale, CA. As you can see it is not stock. I added a new paint design to the body work and the aftermarket Tracey fairing. The rear sets came from Arlette. Looking back I should have bought a Monza. This is the only pic I have. Check out my helmet. I enjoyed the bike for a few years and sold it to a guy in Texas after I moved up to this 1973 Moto Guzzi V7 Sport. This bike really started me off. I soon developed an interest in Ducati and got into singles. I found a 250 Scrambler and shortly after, a Diana. That led me to racing and building a street bike. Pictured below is my evolving narrow case street bitza 250. Features include a ported 350 Desmo head with 32mm DO pumper carb, matching manifold, 250 cylinder and M3 piston, 750 Conti pipe, single sided, twin leading shoe Montesa front brake, Mark 3 tank, Benelli seat and alloy wheels. Ignition system is changed to electronic 12 volts and powered by the Monza DC system. This was not an easy task but it was well worth the effort. I love Ducati twins too, especially the round case models. My first was a GT but later found a Sport which you see above. This shot of my brother and me was taken in Las Vegas, Nevada during the Ducati Revs America show in '94. Pictured above and to the right is my 1959 Ducati 200 Motocross. This is a very unique bike and represents the beginning of Ducati's OHC off road bikes. Conical hubs, fenders, full cradle frame, front end and rear shocks are only found on this model. Notice the extended swing arm support, the non folding foot pegs and the carb's remote float bowl. It even came with the stock tire pump. Of course the body paint and seat are incorrect. I have located a proper seat and tail light. Mechanically the engine runs fine. There are few of these bikes around and I am fortunate to own it. Restoration is forthcoming. Pictured above is my 1962 Benelli Motobi. This OHV 250 cc 4 speed is a beautiful bike in original condition. Above is my 1974 GT. I have owned this bike for about 8 years. The bike came stock with Amal carbs, steel tank and side covers. The Veglia tach is electronic while the speedo is cable driven. I had the seat reupholstered. After a fresh valve job, I installed Sport pistons which made the bike stronger. I have changed handle bar configurations and have yet to come up with a seating position I am happy with. I prefer the narrower frame the Sports came with. Notice the emerald painted Scrab front brake caliper. I have since restored the bike with the original metallic, cherry red and black color scheme. The bike now resides in northern California. Above is my 1962 Parilla 250 Wildcat Scrambler. The Wildcat was Parilla's production motocross racer. It is fitted with a magneto ignition and remote float Dellorto 29 mm SSI carb. These bikes are rare as they were very expensive when new. I found the bike in southern Arizona. It was owned by a former Harley Davidson Aermacchi flat track racer. I raced the Wild Cat for several years with AHRMA and AVDRA. With the racing reverse cone megaphone, the WC sounds like a roadracer. It revs really quick. Other than some wheel changes and normal upkeep, I have replaced a valve seat and piston. This bike always gets attention from those that know it and those that don't. This shot was taken many years ago at a Steamboat Springs, CO race. To the right is a rare sight. This is a 350 Seri Corsa 24 hour endurance racer from 1965. For a few years it sat in the Berlinner showroom next to the V4 Apolo before being sold. Originally it came with a steel tank and bed spring seat but this one has been updated with the later glass tank, seat and full fairing. It came with a sandcast springer head but replaced with a sandcast desmo head. The dual down tube frame is unique and can be considered the first wide case frame since the engine is mounted at both ends by 9 inch bolts. The engine cases and side covers are sand cast with external oil feed and drain lines to/from the head. The head pipe is firmly mounted to two studs coming out of the exhaust port sides. There are no bushings in this engine: only bearings of many sizes. The clutch is wet. The carb is a 35 mm SSI Dellorto with large remote float bowl. The wheels are 19 inch. The front brake is a massive double sided double leading shoe Grimeca. The rear is Grimeca single sided single leading shoe. The clutch is special, the primary gears are straight cut as well as the timing side bevel gears. The engine number is SC4.
The Guzzi V7 Sport is a wonderfull bike. I purchased it with 24k on the clock and recently saw 69. It was the ultimate European sport tourer of it's day. Other than routine maintenance, I ported the heads while retaining the stock carbs. I have had the front brake pads replaced. I added a Piranha fairing. The Sport is lighter and quicker handling than a Le Mans but not as strong in motor and braking. The shot above taken with Paul Smart at DRA in Las Vegas. What an honor! My '74 Sport was a mess when I got it in 1987. High rise Bultaco clip on bars had been modified to fit the fork tubes. The glass tank was filled with cracks and the front half of the seat was removed and foam added for a passenger. I found a steel SS tank and SS seat. I removed the stock front disc and added a set of matching Brembo calipers, drilled discs and master brake cylinder. The rear cylinder rod came loose. The threads on the case supporting the oil filter were messed up. I had to split the cases and have a short, threaded sleeve welded in. In that process, I replaced all bearings and replaced the rods, needles and pins. I also replaced the pistons. After mounting an instrument cluster and fairing support from a Darmah SS, I installed a 900 SS fairing. The clipons are adjustable high rise Verlichi and make the ride more comfortable than the stock bars. Currently the heads are off as the cams are being restored. It is an on going project. I hope to be back on the bike soon. Pictured above is my 1998 900SSFE number 139 out of 400 shipped to North America. This is my newest bike. FE stands for Final Edition. This was the last version of the 900 SS that was air cooled and had carburetors. The fairing is unique and both front and rear fenders are carbon fiber. The black panel and red stripe on the fairing and seat is not stock.This picture was taken in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona. Above is my 350 Sebring Scrambler. I raced it in AHRMA's Premier Heavyweight MX class for many years. I built the engine with a magneto. The head is ported to a 29 mm Dellorto carb. The valves are stock Scrambler size and are operated by shim type rockers. The cam is an orange/white race cam. The front end is 35 mm Ceriani. The front wheel is from a 450 RT. The rear section of the frame has been modified. The tank is from a Husky. The cam cover is an original "Gear Gazer". The seat is custom. The shocks are Works Performance. This bike is pretty light compared to a Goldstar or Matchless singles that I raced against. My 350 Desmo roadracer has gone through a lot of changes over the years and these pics have the previous tank and combo. See Racing Pics for how it looks now. The frame is a slightly modified wide case Scrambler frame. The twin leading shoe front brake is off a later Aermacchi Sprint with Ferodo racing pads. The front end is 35 mm Ceriani racing. The engine has much done to it: enlarged valves with red racing desmo cam, head ported to custom made manifold and 35 mm Dellorto pumper carb. The head has been dual plugged. The crank has been lightened and balanced. The piston is a 11.5 to 1 made by Venolia. External oil drain and feed lines have been added. The exhaust is custom. Ignition is total loss. The oil pump and points drive gears have been lightened. The dry clutch is custom made by Frank Gianinni. This bike is much fun to race and is competitive in the 350 GP class. It is very stable at speed and builds power quickly. To your left is my 250 roadracer on a trip back from a New Mexico race by a roadside attraction. I could not resist the metaphor. Features on this bike include a shorter Monza Jr. frame. The swing arm pin is extended and supported on the diagonal rear frame tubes. The front wheel hub is standard Ducati but the brake backing plate is a highly modified Triumph T100 single sided twin leading shoe and works great. The front end is a modified 35 mm Ceriani MX with shorter fork tubes. The alloy tank comes from Ireland. The cast alloy seat comes from Cleveland. Work done to the non desmo engine includes a seriously ported head, lightened shim type rocker arms with thicker than standard hairpin valve springs. A custom made manifold is mated to a 34 mm Dellorto carb. The head is dual plugged. External oil drain lines have been added. The piston is 11.5 to 1 Venolia type. The crank has been lightened to the weight of a 200 cc unit. The clutch basket, clutch center and pressure plate have been lightened. Ignition can be either magneto or total loss. The oil pump and points drive gears have been lightened. Because of the shorter frame, the bike is extremely nimble in tight turns but on fast straights, the front hydraulic steering damper is needed. The engine revs quickly and you have to back off at the 8500 redline or you will float the valves.Greater uncertainty around stadium infrastructure saw Ireland's 2023 Rugby World Cup bid rated the weakest of the three competing bids by World Rugby's technical review group whose findings were released today.
The report said that Ireland's proposed match venues "require considerable work" and indicated that this made the bid a "higher risk" proposition than its competitors.
Ireland had been widely tipped to win the bid but the findings of the technical review group have delivered a body blow to those hopes, with South Africa now the recommended choice of the board. The final decision will not be made until the 15 November when the World Rugby Council votes on the matter.
The technical review group - made up of a 20-plus strong panel - assessed and scored each of the bids on five criteria.
In descending order of importance, they were: finance and tournament guarantees; venues and host cities; tournament infrastructure; vision and concept, and tournament organisation and schedule.
The Irish bid was praised in several areas and the report described all three candidate submissions as 'outstanding'.
Ireland scored highly in the area 'vision and hosting concept', with World Rugby rating their concept as "more creative" than the other two bids.
However, on the crucial issue of stadium infrastructure, Ireland fell badly behind their rivals, with South Africa achieving full marks in this category.
The report singled out Pearse Stadium, Fitzgerald Stadium and Pairc Ui Chaoimh as requiring a great deal of work to bring them up to Rugby World Cup standard.
They also noted that Casement Park was still subject to a planning approval.
"The amount of upgrade work required introduces complexity and therefore a significant risk factor that is not is not inherent in the other two bids," the report said.
"Parc Ui Chaoimh (complete August 2017), Pearse Stadium and Fitzgerald Stadium require a significant level of overlay which is flagged as a risk, given the amount of work required to bring these venues up to RWC standard.
"Casement Park is scheduled for redevelopment by 2020 and will also require a significant level of overlay. At time of writing, we understand that this venue is still subject to final planning approval."
Fitzgerald Stadium was deemed to require a considerable amount of work
The review group also marked Ireland's venues down on the basis of technological infrastructure: "All but two of the venues require significant levels of upgrade and/or installation of technology and telecoms infrastructure. Telecommunications diversity needs to be added at all but two venues."
Ireland also suffered as a consequence of the country's lack of experience in hosting major events. South Africa and France have hosted World Cups in both soccer and rugby, while Ireland has a very scant history of hosting major events.
The report said that "a level of risk does arise from the overall lack of comparable event hosting experience across the venues, cities and relevant local authorities.
"The cities lack prior experience of an event on the scale of RWC and have therefore scored lower than France and South Africa who have significant city delivery major event experience."
Killarney, included in the Irish bid as one of the six host cities, was singled out for it's small size and what it contended was its lack of experience in hosting largescale events.
While the Irish fan zone strategy was declared to be "robust", it was criticised as not outlining any "innovative ideas or plans that might make the fan zone delivery unique."
Significantly, Ireland also promised a lower 'tournament fee' than its two rivals. Rugby World Cup Limited insists that a minimum of £120 million be paid by the host nation to World Rugby "to ensure the continued investment in and growth of our sport."
The Irish government committed to paying the £120 million minimum, while the South African government promised £160 million. The French had promised a tournament fee of £150 million which was underwritten by the government.CHAPEL HILL—After an eight-day delay thanks to last week's snow storm, North Carolina (18-7, 8-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) will put its seven-game winning streak on the line tonight when it hosts No. 5 Duke (21-5, 10-3). The game was originally scheduled for last Wednesday but was postponed due to wintry weather in North Carolina last week. The Tar Heels and Blue Devils will tip off at 9:10 p.m. in the Smith Center.
The ACC Network will televise the game in the ACC region with Tim Brando (play-by-play) and Dan Bonner (analyst) on the call. Here's a list of affiliates carrying the game.
ESPN will televise the game nationally with Dan Shulman (play-by-play), Jay Bilas (analyst), Dick Vitale (analyst) and Jeannine Edwards (sideline) on the broadcast.
Fans can watch online live at TheACC.com or via WatchESPN.
The contest also will be carried nationally on satellite radio by XM (channel 91) and Sirius (channel 91). GoHeels TV subscribers can listen to the game at GoHeels.com.
Duke enters the game on a four-game winning streak, including a 68-51 win at Georgia Tech on Tuesday night. The Blue Devils have won nine of their last 10 games and are third in the ACC at 10-3.
The Tar Heels started 1-4 in ACC play this season but have won seven in a row to improve to 8-4 and take over fourth place in the conference standings. Carolina's seven-game winning streak is its longest since a nine-game streak in 2011-12.
UNC leads the all-time series with Duke, 132-104, but Duke swept a pair of meetings last season and has won seven of the last nine meetings in the series after UNC previously had won six of seven.
Carolina is 60-34 against Duke in Chapel Hill and 15-13 in the Smith Center. The Blue Devils have won 10 of the last 15 in the series in Chapel Hill. The Tar Heel wins in that span were in 2002-03, 2004-05, 2006-07, 2008-09 and 2010-11. Head coach Roy Williams is 4-6 against Duke in games played in the Smith Center.
UNC has lost the last seven times the Tar Heels and Blue Devils have played their first game of the season in Chapel Hill (the last UNC win in that situation came in 1998). Carolina is 39-39 against Duke since Mike Krzyzewski became the Blue Devil head coach. Duke has won 24 of the last 35 games in the series.
Carolina is 9-12 against Duke since Williams became the Tar Heel head coach prior to the 2003-04 season. The Blue Devils won the first three meetings and the series is tied 9-9 since that initial span.
The last time an unranked Carolina team beat a ranked Duke team was on March 9, 2003, in Chapel Hill. Thursday's game is the 152nd consecutive meeting in the series when at least one of the two schools was ranked in a national poll. The streak dates to Feb. 25, 1955.Infowars
August 8, 2008
Georgia, US start military exercises despite tensions with Russia
CNews
July 15, 2008
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Georgian and U.S. troops started a joint military exercise Tuesday amid growing tensions between the ex-Soviet republic and Russia, a Georgian defense ministry official said.
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Russian military gangs ready to invade Georgia. U.S. sends thousand marines in response
Kavkaz-Center
July 10, 2008
Gangs of the Russian invaders from the so-called North Caucasus Military District are ready "to provide assistance to the Russian troops in case the situation gets more aggravated in the conflict zones in Abkhazia and South Ossetia", as gang leader of Russian North Caucasus Military District, Sergei Makarov, said.
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US army exercises begin in Georgia
Aljazeerea
July 15, 2008
The United States and Russia are holding military exercises on either side of the Caucasus mountains amid increasing tensions over the fate of two separatist regions in ex-Soviet Georgia.
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US runs military exercise around Georgia conflict
Now Public
July 17, 2008
The conflict in the Caucasus country of Georgia is growing to alarming levels. The country is fighting with a break-away region in teh North called Abkhazia, where an ethnic minority lives. The area is currently de-facto independent, and Russia is backing the area’s claims to independence, although it’s not really clear why. The US secretary of state Condoleeza Rice visited the country earlier this month, and now the US military is running exercises around the conflict. Could the US military be planning to get involved in this Caucasus conflict? The US would be supporting its pro-West ally Georgia, while Russia would be supporting the rebels. Not exactly a good idea geopolitically!
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US military advisers arrive in Georgia
BBC
February 27, 2002
Five US military advisers have arrived in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, in what is being seen as a possible new front in the US war on terror.
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Green Berets now in Georgia: U.S. Special Forces are training Georgian soldiers to fight radical Muslims. The mission could benefit other U.S. interests as well
VFW Magazine, June-July, 2002 by Tim Dyhouse
President George Bush called the May deployment of some 150 U.S. advisers to Georgia the latest front in the U.S. war on terrorism. Much like their fellow soldiers in the Philippines, U.S. Special Forces are teaching Georgian soldiers how to better fight Muslim extremists within their country. Also, as in the Philippines, U.S. troops are not permitted to engage in combat.
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Special Forces to Train Georgian Military
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, Feb. 28, 2002
WASHINGTON – Concerned that al-Qaeda terrorists have moved into the former Soviet republic of Georgia, the U.S. military is expected to send as many as 200 special operations soldiers there for up to a year to train the Georgian military in counterterror and counterinsurgency tactics.
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From Wikipedia
The Georgia Train and Equip Program (GTEP) training was conducted using U.S. Special Operations Forces and U. S. Marine Corps forces from May 2002 to May 2004. During this time approximately 2,600 Georgian soldiers, including a headquarters staff element and 5 tactical units, received training. Another assistance program, the Georgia Security and Stability Operations Program (Georgia SSOP), was launched in January 2005 as a continuation of the (GTEP) of 2002-2004. Georgian contingents were involved in the Kosovo Force and continue to participate in the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Russia angry at US war plan for Georgia
Security officials from the post-Soviet state of Georgia are expected for talks in London and Washington amid growing signs that American and British forces are gearing up to attack suspected Islamist terrorists holed up in the north of the country, near the Russian border.
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US troops deployed to former Soviet republic of Georgia
Two US Air Force planes brought forty American military personnel to Tbilisi, capital of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, on February 21, marking the first deployment of US combat forces in the Caucasus region, adjacent to one of the world’s largest oilfields.
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US Military Pushes into Ex-Soviet Georgia Under Guise of Fighting Terror
The article, "The Pentagon is Not Rushing to the Transcaucasus, It’s Already There," by Vasily Streltsov, reprinted from Nezavisimaya Gazeta, supports our analysis of the strategic reasons for the so-called war on terror.
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The Pentagon is Not Rushing to the Transcaucasus, It’s Already There
Vasily Streltsov
Counterpunch
February 26, 2002
For a third day high-placed Russian and Georgian politicians have been pronouncing loaded phrases, in the deparaging sense, which are not acceptable in diplomatic protocal. In reply to the suggestion of Igor Ivanov that bin Laden might be hiding in the Pankisi gorge, a more than insulting answer followed from President Eduard Shevardnadze, with the proposal to seek out the terrorist in Ivanov’s mother’s house. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and Georgian Security Minister Valery Khaburdzania quickly jumped into the frey, while the barbs of the Georgian side continued to carry a very offensive tone.
Read articleFor digital currency users looking to secure their e-fortune, one project is offering a new way to store private keys: on vinyl.
Sound Wallet promises to store users’ private keys as encrypted audio files across a range of products – including CDs and 7-inch vinyl disks.
Theodore Goodman, the brains behind the project, said he used the iconic format as it is the “ultimate archive medium”.
Records, tapes and digital audio
According to the product’s website, Sound Wallets can be used to store any cryptocurrency, not just bitcoin.
To construct the wallet, a user’s BIP38-encrypted private key is first converted into a sound file. Between 30 and 60 seconds long, this file will simply sound like noise to prying ears.
However, using a simple spectroscope app like AndroSpectro on their phone, the user can decipher their code hidden in the static. Alternatively, any high-resolution spectroscope should do.
The same approach can be used with different media, including CDs and magnetic tapes. This also means that a user’s wallet file could be broadcast, at least in theory.
Vinyl as an archive medium
While Sound Wallet may not appeal to mainstream users, this security-minded product may prove popular with technophiles and audiophiles.
Goodman argues that cold storage is the safest way to secure cryptocurrencies, pointing out some advantages vinyl has over other physical wallets.
He adds that records can outlive memory cards, paper wallets or CDs, which degrade over time. Recent research found that CDs dating from the 1990s are already rotting away in certain conditions.
On the project’s previous Startjoin campaign, Goodman added:
“Records are the ultimate archive format. You could add the record to your record crate, put it in a frame and hang it on your wall, or store it in your safe.”
Of course, recording vinyl is more demanding than burning a CD or DVD. It requires specialised hardware such as a record lathe, blanks and a turntable (in this case the legendary Technics SL-1200 was employed).
Although the project did not reach its initial crowdfunding target of €8,000, it appears that the wallets are now in production.
For the time being, Sound Wallet offers two products, a CD wallet and a vinyl wallet, priced at 0.02BTC and 0.09BTC respectively.
Disclaimers: This article should not be viewed as an endorsement of any of the companies mentioned. Please do your own extensive research before considering investing any funds in these products.
Vinyl groove image via Shutterstock
Hat Tip: Object2212The leader of a hard-line, ‘Khomeinist‘ Islamist group was invited onto the BBC Monday, using the opportunity to label prominent journalists and a reformist Muslim as “hate preachers” who he said are to blame for the Finsbury Park terror attack.
Massoud Shadjareh is the chairman of the so-called Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), which has been accused of supporting Hezbollah terrorists and organised the anti-Semitic al-Quds day in London this weekend, where many Hezbollah terror flags were flown.
Mr. Shadjareh has also criticised the prosecution and deportation of Finsbury Park Mosque’s most famous preacher, Abu Hamza al-Masri, the virulently pro-jihad, anti-Western, militant who praised the 9/11 attacks.
Speaking on BBC news Monday afternoon, Mr. Shadjareh labelled political commentator Douglas Murray, right-wing journalist Katie Hopkins, and reformist Muslim and former government adviser Maajid Nawaz, “hate preachers”.
“Unfortunately, this is something that was bound to happen sooner or later,” he said near the site of the attack. “The level of hatred that is being increased, on a daily basis, it is very dangerous and it could lead to something like this.”
“I think we need to address, above everything, this level of hatred, and the fact that we have got hate preachers now on our radio stations – be it, Maajid Nawaz, or Kate Hopkins, or Douglas Murray – they are bombarding our society with hatred towards Muslim community [sic] and indeed towards to mainstream Islam, and this can not go on.”
He said that “Islamophobia” was “increasing for many reasons”, conceding that recent terror attacks in London and Manchester helped to associate Islam with violence.
He added that “these hate preachers” and “the way our society drags Muslims onto the TV station to condemn [attacks]” increased Islamophobia, whereby “in the mind of ordinary people, an association between violence, atrocity, and Islam, and Muslims, is being strengthened”.
He added: “I really blame the environment of hate that is being created and strengthened – even by politicians – and that needs to change.”Since finally making the upgrade to the smartphone generation this spring, I’ve spent a lot of time playing downloadable app games including big names like The Simpsons: Tapped Out, Candy Crush Saga and Angry Birds. All fairly decent games but not ideal and certainly focussed on micro-transactions, the life blood of this new era of gaming. So it’s with joy that I say the recently launched Doctor Who: Legacy is a genuine treat in all respects.
Released shortly after the big 50th anniversary on 23rd November, the plot of Doctor Who: Legacy sees familiar foes the Sontarans finally achieve their long sought after goal of time travel technology. They use this to meddle in the greatest battles history has ever seen, in order to turn the universe into their paradise of a single gigantic war. Of course when you’re talking greatest battles of history the Doctor has been a player in a vast majority of them, so the plan directly threatens his personal timeline. Venturing through it and allying himself with incarnations and companions past, the Doctor must assemble a team from these impressive ranks to relive his greatest adventures and heal time.
Like a lot of popular app games the basic gameplay of Legacy owes a lot to the likes of Tetris, requiring players to make colour bead combos of three or more to clear the screen and advance. Lest you think this is just a generic puzzle game in a Doctor Who shell, there’s actually more at play here. The colours sync up to members of your team, consisting of up to 6 members including a Doctor as standard. Linking colours enables each party member to perform an attack or action, with the eventual result being a specialist charged ability. For the most part characters are split between being fighters or medics, and a balance of the two classes is needed as as in each level you have a health bar that will deplete as your enemies fight back against you. With the initial campaign focused on the recent ‘Season 7’ a fair few of these foes are iconic baddies such as the Cybermen, Weeping Angels and of course the Daleks.
The game’s progress and learning curve really help it stand out as something more than simply a licensed game. The initial levels ease a player in without having the abrupt shift of more money-hungry app games that are available. You quickly learn about the way enemies can mess with your beads as opposed to simply draining your health and stunning your characters, with the education being done in such a way that you don’t feel like you’re being spoon-fed. Obviously most fans will probably be interested to play so they can use a handpicked team of favourite characters, but you’ll find that unlike some other games picking the right characters as opposed to simply favourites determines how far you’ll go. You start the game off with the Eleventh Doctor, Vastra and her wife Jenny. Unlocking other characters is achieved by two means. The most common is drops, wherein select levels give you the chance to receive a new character upon completion. This isn’t guaranteed, however, and actually helps address one of the big issues – grinding. As you play your characters will gain experience and become better and stronger, but sometimes your current best selection still won’t be ready. To fix this you’ll need to replay earlier levels to raise experience, which things less of a chore. It’s much easier to revisit earlier levels when you know you still have new characters to grab from them. Granted, sometimes desperately replaying a level over and over hoping for a drop can be annoying, but this is really the best way I can think to address a common gameplay criticism. The drops also offer new character costumes, such as Eleven’s soothsayer look and Clara’s |
ment airplanes be equipped with the A-5 Automatic Pilot and have provisions permitting the installation of either the M-Series [Norden] Bombsight or the S-1 Bombsight".
British interest, Tizard mission [ edit ]
By 1938, information about the Norden had worked its way up the Royal Air Force chain of command and was well known within that organization. The British had been developing a similar bombsight known as the Automatic Bomb Sight, but combat experience in 1939 demonstrated the need for it to be stabilized. Work was under way as the Stabilized Automatic Bomb Sight (SABS), but it would not be available until 1940 at the earliest, and likely later. Even then, it did not feature the autopilot linkage of the Norden, and would thus find it difficult to match the Norden's performance in anything but smooth air. Acquiring the Norden became a major goal.
Their first attempt, in the spring of 1938, was rebuffed by the US Navy. Air Chief Marshal Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt, commanding RAF Bomber Command, demanded Air Ministry action, and they wrote to George Pirie, the British air attaché in Washington, suggesting he approach the US Army with an offer of an information exchange with their own SABS. Pirie replied that he had already looked into this, and was told that the Army had no licensing rights to the device as it was owned by the Navy. The matter was not helped by a minor diplomatic issue that flared up in July when a French air observer was found to be on board a crashed Douglas Aircraft Company bomber, forcing President Roosevelt to promise no further information exchanges with foreign powers.
Six months later, after a change of leadership within the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics, on 8 March 1939 Pirie was once again instructed to ask the Navy about the Norden, this time enhancing the deal with offers of British power-operated turrets. However, Pirie expressed concern as he noted the Norden had become as much political as technical, and its relative merits were being publicly debated in Congress weekly while the Navy continued to say the Norden was "the United States' most closely guarded secret".
The RAF's desires were only further goaded on 13 April 1939, when Pirie was invited to watch an air demonstration at Fort Benning where the painted outline of a battleship was the target:
At 1:27 while everyone was still searching [the sky for the B-17s] six 300-pound (140 kg) bombs suddenly burst at split second intervals on the deck of the battleship, and it was at least 30 seconds later before someone spotted the B-17 at 12,000 feet (3,700 m)
The three following B-17s also hit the target, and then a flight of a dozen Douglas B-18 Bolos placed most of their bombs in a separate 550 m × 550 m (600 yd × 600 yd) square outlined on the ground.
Another change of management within the Bureau of Aeronautics had the effect of making the Navy more friendly to British overtures, but no one was willing to fight the political battle needed to release the design. The Navy brass was concerned that giving the Norden to the RAF would increase its chances of falling into German hands, which could put the US's own fleet at risk. The UK Air Ministry continued increasing pressure on Pirie, who eventually stated there was simply no way for him to succeed, and suggested the only way forward would be through the highest diplomatic channels in the Foreign Office. Initial probes in this direction were also rebuffed. When a report stated that the Norden's results were three to four times as good as their own bombsights, the Air Ministry decided to sweeten the pot and suggested they offer information on radar in exchange. This too was rebuffed.
The matter eventually worked its way to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who wrote personally to President Roosevelt asking for the Norden, but even this was rejected. The reason for these rejections was more political than technical, but the Navy's demands for secrecy were certainly important. They repeated that the design would be released only if the British could demonstrate the basic concept was common knowledge, and therefore not a concern if it fell into German hands. The British failed to convince them, even after offering to equip their examples with a variety of self-destruct devices.
This may have been ameliorated by the winter of 1939, at which point a number of articles about the Norden appeared in the US popular press with reasonably accurate descriptions of its basic workings. But when these were traced back to the press corps at the Army Air Corps, the Navy was apoplectic. Instead of accepting it was now in the public domain, any discussion about the Norden was immediately shut down. This drove both the Air Ministry and Royal Navy to increasingly anti-American attitudes when they considered sharing their own developments, notably newer ASDIC systems. By 1940 the situation on scientific exchange was entirely deadlocked as a result.
Looking for ways around the deadlock, Henry Tizard sent Archibald Vivian Hill to the US to take a survey of US technical capability in order to better assess what technologies the US would be willing to exchange. This effort was the start on the path that led to the famous Tizard Mission in late August 1940. Ironically, by the time the Mission was being planned, the Norden had been removed from the list of items to be discussed, and Roosevelt personally noted this was due largely to political reasons. Ultimately, although Tizard was unable to convince the US to release the design, he was able to request information about its external dimensions and details on the mounting system so it could be easily added to British bombers if it were released in the future.
Production, production problems, and Army standardization [ edit ]
The conversion of the Norden company's New York City engineering lab to a production factory was a long process. Before the war, skilled craftsmen, most of them German or Italian immigrants, hand-made almost every part of the 2,000-part machine. Between 1932 and 1938, the company produced only 121 bombsights per year. During the first year after the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Norden produced 6,900 bombsights, three-quarters of which went to the Navy.
When Norden heard of the Army's dealings with Sperry, Theodore Barth called a meeting with the Army and Navy at their factory in New York City. Barth offered to build an entirely new factory just to supply the Army, but the Navy refused this. Instead, the Army suggested that Norden adapt their sight to work with Sperry's A-5, which Barth refused. Norden actively attempted to make the bombsight incompatible with the A-5, and it was not until 1942 that the impasse was finally solved by farming out autopilot production to Honeywell Regulator, who combined features of the Norden-mounted SBAE with the aircraft-mounted A-5 to produce what the Army referred to as "Automatic Flight Control Equipment" (AFCE) the unit would later be redesigned as the C-1. The Norden, now connected with the aircraft's built-in autopilot, had the ability to allow the bombardier alone to fully control minor movements of the aircraft during the bombing run.
By May 1943 the Navy was complaining that they had a surplus of devices, and full production was turned over to the USAAF. After investing more than $100 million in Sperry bombsight manufacturing plants, the USAAF concluded that the Norden M-series was far superior in accuracy, dependability, and design. Sperry contracts were canceled in November 1943. When production ended a few months later, 5,563 Sperry bombsight-autopilot combinations had been built, most of which were installed in Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers.
Expansion of Norden bombsight production to a final total of six factories took several years. The Army Air Forces demanded additional production to meet their needs, and eventually arranged for the Victor Adding Machine company to gain a manufacturing license, and then Remington Rand.[26] Ironically, during this period the Navy abandoned the Norden in favour of dive bombing, reducing the demand. By the end of the war, Norden and its subcontractors had produced 72,000 M-9 bombsights for the Army Air Force alone, costing $8,800 each.
Description and operation [ edit ]
Bombardier's Information File (BIF) that describes the components and controls of the Norden Bombsight. The separation of the stabilizer and sight head is evident. A page from the(BIF) that describes the components and controls of the Norden Bombsight. The separation of the stabilizer and sight head is evident.
Background [ edit ]
Typical bombsights of the pre-war era worked on the "vector bombsight" principle introduced with the World War I Course Setting Bomb Sight. These systems consisted of a slide rule-type calculator that was used to calculate the effects of the wind on the bomber based on simple vector arithmetic. The mathematical principles are identical to those on the E6B calculator used to this day.
In operation, the bombardier would first take a measurement of the wind speed using one of a variety of methods, and then dial that speed and direction into the bombsight. This would move the sights to indicate the direction the plane should fly to take it directly over the target with any cross-wind taken into account, and also set the angle of the iron sights to account for the wind's effect on ground speed.
These systems had two primary problems in terms of accuracy. The first was that there were several steps that had to be carried out in sequence in order to set up the bombsight correctly, and there was limited time to do all of this during the bomb run. As a result, the accuracy of the wind measurement was always limited, and errors in setting the equipment or making the calculations were common. The second problem was that the sight was attached to the aircraft, and thus moved about during maneuvers, during which time the bombsight would not point at the target. As the aircraft had to maneuver in order to make the proper approach, this limited the time allowed to accurately make corrections. This combination of issues demanded a long bomb run.
Experiments had shown that adding a stabilizer system to a vector bombsight would roughly double the accuracy of the system. This would allow the bombsight to remain level while the aircraft maneuvered, giving the bombardier more time to make his adjustments, as well as reducing or eliminating mis-measurements when sighting off of non-level sights. However, this would not have any effect on the accuracy of the wind measurements, nor the calculation of the vectors. The Norden attacked all of these problems.
Basic operation [ edit ]
To improve the calculation time, the Norden used a mechanical computer inside the bombsight to calculate the range angle of the bombs. By simply dialing in the aircraft's altitude and heading, along with estimates of the wind speed and direction (in relation to the aircraft), the computer would automatically, and quickly, calculate the aim point. This not only reduced the time needed for the bombsight setup but also dramatically reduced the chance for errors. This attack on the accuracy problem was by no means unique; several other bombsights of the era used similar calculators. It was the way the Norden used these calculations that differed.
Conventional bombsights are set up pointing at a fixed angle, the range angle, which accounts for the various effects on the trajectory of the bomb. To the operator looking through the sights, the crosshairs indicate the location on the ground the bombs would impact if released at that instant. As the aircraft moves forward, the target approaches the crosshairs from the front, moving rearward, and the bombardier releases the bombs as the target passes through the line of the sights. One example of a highly automated system of this type was the RAF's Mark XIV bomb sight.
The Norden worked in an entirely different fashion, based on the "synchronous" or "tachometric" method. Internally, the calculator continually computed the impact point, as was the case for previous systems. However, the resulting range angle was not displayed directly to the bombardier or dialed into the sights. Instead, the bombardier used the sighting telescope to locate the target long in advance of the drop point. A separate section of the calculator used the inputs for altitude and airspeed to determine the angular velocity of the target, the speed at which it would be seen drifting backward due to the forward motion of the aircraft. The output of this calculator drove a rotating prism at that angular speed in order to keep the target centered in the telescope. In a properly adjusted Norden, the target remains motionless in the sights.
The Norden thus calculated two angles: the range angle based on the altitude, airspeed and ballistics; and the current angle to the target, based on the ground speed and heading of the aircraft. The difference between these two angles represented the "correction" that needed to be applied to bring the aircraft over the proper drop point. If the aircraft was properly aligned with the target on the bomb run, the difference between the range and target angles would be continually reduced, eventually to zero (within the accuracy of the mechanisms). At this moment the Norden automatically dropped the bombs.
In practice, the target failed to stay centered in the sighting telescope when it was first set up. Instead, due to inaccuracies in the estimated wind speed and direction, the target would drift in the sight. To correct for this, the bombardier would use fine-tuning controls to slowly cancel out any motion through trial and error. These adjustments had the effect of updating the measured ground speed used to calculate the motion of the prisms, slowing the visible drift. Over a short period of time of continual adjustments, the drift would stop, and the bombsight would now hold an extremely accurate measurement of the exact ground speed and heading. Better yet, these measurements were being carried out on the bomb run, not before it, and helped eliminate inaccuracies due to changes in the conditions as the aircraft moved. And by eliminating the manual calculations, the bombardier was left with much more time to adjust his measurements, and thus settle at a much more accurate result.
The angular speed of the prism changes with the range of the target: consider the reverse situation, the apparent high angular speed of an aircraft passing overhead compared to its apparent speed when it is seen at a longer distance. In order to properly account for this non-linear effect, the Norden used a system of slip-disks similar to those used in differential analysers. However, this slow change at long distances made it difficult to fine-tune the drift early in the bomb run. In practice, bombardiers would often set up their ground speed measurements in advance of approaching the target area by selecting a convenient "target" on the ground that was closer to the bomber and thus had more obvious motion in the sight. These values would then be used as the initial setting when the target was later sighted.
System description [ edit ]
The Norden bombsight consisted of two primary parts, the gyroscopic stabilization platform on the left side, and the mechanical calculator and sighting head on the right side. They were essentially separate instruments, connecting through the sighting prism. The sighting eyepiece was located in the middle, between the two, in a less than convenient location that required some dexterity to use.
Before use, the Norden's stabilization platform had to be righted, as it slowly drifted over time and no longer kept the sight pointed vertically. Righting was accomplished through a time consuming process of comparing the platform's attitude to small spirit levels seen through a glass window on the front of the stabilizer. In practice, this could take as long as eight and a half minutes. This problem was made worse by the fact that the platform's range of motion was limited, and could be tumbled even by strong turbulence, requiring it to be reset again. This problem seriously upset the usefulness of the Norden, and led the RAF to reject it once they received examples in 1942. Some versions included a system that quickly righted the platform, but this "Automatic Gyro Leveling Device" proved to be a maintenance problem, and was removed from later examples.
Once the stabilizer was righted, the bombardier would then dial in the initial setup for altitude, speed, and direction. The prism would then be "clutched out" of the computer, allowing it to be moved rapidly to search for the target on the ground. Later Nordens were equipped with a reflector sight to aid in this step. Once the target was located the computer was clutched in and started moving the prism to follow the target. The bombardier would begin making adjustments to the aim. As all of the controls were located on the right, and had to be operated while sighting through the telescope, another problem with the Norden is that the bombardier could only adjust either the vertical or horizontal aim at a given time, his other arm was normally busy holding himself up above the telescope.
On top of the device, to the right of the sight, were two final controls. The first was the setting for "trail", which was pre-set at the start of the mission for the type of bombs being used. The second was the "index window" which displayed the aim point in numerical form. The bombsight calculated the current aim point internally and displayed this as a sliding pointer on the index. The current sighting point, where the prism was aimed, was also displayed against the same scale. In operation, the sight would be set far in advance of the aim point, and as the bomber approached the target the sighting point indicator would slowly slide toward the aim point. When the two met, the bombs were automatically released. The aircraft was moving over 110 metres per second (350 ft/s), so even minor interruptions in timing could dramatically affect aim.
Early examples, and most used by the Navy, had an output that directly drove a Pilot Direction Indicator meter in the cockpit. This eliminated the need to manually signal the pilot, as well as eliminating the possibility of error.
In U.S. Army Air Forces use, the Norden bombsight was attached to its autopilot base, which was in turn connected with the aircraft's autopilot. The Honeywell C-1 autopilot could be used as an autopilot by the flight crew during the journey to the target area through a control panel in the cockpit, but was more commonly used under direct command of the bombardier. The Norden's box-like autopilot unit sat behind and below the sight and attached to it at a single rotating pivot. After control of the aircraft was passed to the bombardier during the bomb run, he would first rotate the entire Norden so the vertical line in the sight passed through the target. From that point on, the autopilot would attempt to guide the bomber so it followed the course of the bombsight, and pointed the heading to zero out the drift rate, fed to it through a coupling. As the aircraft turned onto the correct angle, a belt and pulley system rotated the sight back to match the changing heading. The autopilot was another reason for the Norden's accuracy, as it ensured the aircraft quickly followed the correct course and kept it on that course much more accurately than the pilots could.
Later in the war, the Norden was combined with other systems to widen the conditions for successful bombing. Notable among these was the radar system called the H2X (Mickey), which were used directly with the Norden bombsight. The radar proved most accurate in coastal regions, as the water surface and the coastline produced a distinctive radar echo.[27]
Combat use [ edit ]
Early tests [ edit ]
The Norden bombsight was developed during a period of United States non-interventionism when the dominant U.S. military strategy was the defense of the U.S. and its possessions. A considerable amount of this strategy was based on stopping attempted invasions by sea, both with direct naval power, and starting in the 1930s, with USAAC airpower. Most air forces of the era invested heavily in dive bombers or torpedo bombers for these roles, but these aircraft generally had limited range; long-range strategic reach would require the use of an aircraft carrier. The Army felt the combination of the Norden and B-17 Flying Fortress presented an alternate solution, believing that small formations of B-17s could successfully attack shipping at long distances from the USAAC's widespread bases. The high altitudes the Norden allowed would help increase the range of the aircraft, especially if equipped with a turbocharger, as with each of the four Wright Cyclone 9 radial engines of the B-17.
In 1940, Barth claimed that "we do not regard a 15 square feet (1.4 m2)... as being a very difficult target to hit from an altitude of 30,000 feet (9,100 m)". At some point the company started using the pickle barrel imagery, to reinforce the bombsight's reputation. After the device became known about publicly in 1942, the Norden company in 1943 rented Madison Square Garden and folded their own show in between the presentations of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Their show involved dropping a wooden "bomb" into a pickle barrel, at which point a pickle popped out.[30]
These claims were greatly exaggerated; in 1940 the average score for an Air Corps bombardier was a circular error of 120 metres (400 ft) from 4,600 metres (15,000 ft), not 4.6 m from 9,100 m. Real-world performance was poor enough that the Navy de-emphasized level attacks in favor of dive bombing almost immediately. The Grumman TBF Avenger could mount the Norden, like the preceding Douglas TBD Devastator,[31] but combat use was disappointing and eventually described as "hopeless" during the Guadalcanal Campaign. In spite of giving up on the device in 1942, bureaucratic inertia meant they were supplied as standard equipment until 1944.[32]
USAAF anti-shipping operations in the Far East were generally unsuccessful. In early operations during the Battle of the Philippines, B-17s claimed to have sunk one minesweeper and damaged two Japanese transports, the cruiser Naka, and the destroyer Murasame.[33] However, all of these ships are known to have suffered no damage from air attack during that period. In other early battles, including the Battle of Coral Sea or Battle of Midway, no claims were made at all, although some hits were seen on docked targets.[34][35] The USAAF eventually replaced all of their anti-shipping B-17s with other aircraft, and came to use the skip bombing technique in direct low-level attacks.
Air war in Europe [ edit ]
As U.S. participation in the war started, the U.S. Army Air Forces drew up widespread and comprehensive bombing plans based on the Norden. They believed the B-17 had a 1.2% probability of hitting a 30 metres (100 ft) target from 6,100 metres (20,000 ft), meaning that 220 bombers would be needed for a 93% probability of one or more hits. This was not considered a problem, and the USAAF forecast the need for 251 combat groups to provide enough bombers to fulfill their comprehensive pre-war plans.
After earlier combat trials proved troublesome, the Norden bombsight and its associated AFCE were used on a wide scale for the first time on the 18 March 1943 mission to Bremen-Vegesack, Germany;[36] The 303d Bombardment Group dropped 76% of its load within a 300 metres (1,000 ft) ring, representing a CEP well under 300 m (1,000 ft) As at sea, many early missions over Europe demonstrated varied results; on wider inspection, only 50% of American bombs fell within a 400 metres (1⁄ 4 mi) of the target, and American flyers estimated that as many as 90% of bombs could miss their targets.[37][38][39] The average CEP in 1943 was 370 metres (1,200 ft), meaning that only 16% of the bombs fell within 300 metres (1,000 ft) of the aiming point. A 230-kilogram (500 lb) bomb, standard for precision missions after 1943, had a lethal radius of only 18 to 27 metres (60 to 90 ft).
Faced with these poor results, Curtis LeMay started a series of reforms in an effort to address the problems. In particular, he introduced the "combat box" formation in order to provide maximum defensive firepower by densely packing the bombers. As part of this change, he identified the best bombardiers in his command and assigned them to the lead bomber of each box. Instead of every bomber in the box using their Norden individually, the lead bombardiers were the only ones actively using the Norden, and the rest of the box followed in formation and then dropped their bombs when they saw the lead's leaving his aircraft. Although this spread the bombs over the area of the combat box, this could still improve accuracy over individual efforts. It also helped stop a problem where various aircraft, all slaved to their autopilots on the same target, would drift into each other. These changes did improve accuracy, which suggests that much of the problem is attributable to the bombardier. However, precision attacks still proved difficult or impossible.
When Jimmy Doolittle took over command of the 8th Air Force from Ira Eaker in early 1944, precision bombing attempts were dropped. Area bombing, like the RAF efforts, were widely used with 750 and then 1000 bomber raids against large targets. The main targets were railroad marshaling yards (27.4% of the bomb tonnage dropped), airfields (11.6%), oil refineries (9.5%), and military installations (8.8%). To some degree the targets were secondary missions; Doolittle used the bombers as an irresistible target to draw up Luftwaffe fighters into the ever-increasing swarms of Allied long-distance fighters. As these missions broke the Luftwaffe, missions were able to be carried out at lower altitudes or especially in bad weather when the H2X radar could be used. In spite of abandoning precision attacks, accuracy nevertheless improved. By 1945, the 8th was putting up to 60% of its bombs within 300 metres (1,000 ft), a CEP of about 270 metres (900 ft).
Still pursuing precision attack, various remotely guided weapons were developed, notably the AZON and RAZON bombs and similar weapons.
Adaptations [ edit ]
The Norden operated by mechanically turning the viewpoint so the target remained stationary in the display. The mechanism was designed for the low angular rate encountered at high altitudes, and thus had a relatively low range of operational speeds. The Norden could not rotate the sight fast enough for bombing at low altitude, for instance. Typically this was solved by removing the Norden completely and replacing it with simpler sighting systems.[42]
A good example of its replacement was the refitting of the Doolittle Raiders with a simple iron sight. Designed by Capt. C. Ross Greening, the sight was mounted to the existing pilot direction indicator, allowing the bombardier to make corrections remotely, like the bombsights of an earlier era.[42]
However, the Norden combined two functions, aiming and stabilization. While the former was not useful at low altitudes, the latter could be even more useful, especially if flying in rough air near the surface. This led James "Buck" Dozier to mount a Doolittle-like sight on top of the stabilizer in the place of the sighting head in order to attack German submarines in the Caribbean Sea. This proved extraordinarily useful and was soon used throughout the fleet.[43]
Wartime security [ edit ]
Photo of the AFCE and Bombsight shop ground crew in the 463rd Sub Depot affiliated with the USAAF 389th Bomb Group based at Hethel, Norfolk, England
Since the Norden was considered a critical wartime instrument, bombardiers were required to take an oath during their training stating that they would defend its secret with their own life if necessary. In case the bomber plane should make an emergency landing on enemy territory, the bombardier would have to shoot the important parts of the Norden with a gun to disable it. As this method still would leave a nearly intact apparatus to the enemy, a thermite grenade was installed; the heat of the chemical reaction would melt the Norden into a lump of metal.[27] The Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bomber was originally equipped with flotation bags in the wings to aid the aircrew's escape after ditching, but they were removed once the Pacific War began; this ensured that the aircraft would sink, taking the Norden with it.[44]
After each completed mission, bomber crews left the aircraft with a bag which they deposited in a safe ("the Bomb Vault"). This secure facility ("the AFCE and Bombsight Shop") was typically in one of the base's Nissen hut (Quonset hut) support buildings. The Bombsight Shop was manned by enlisted men who were members of a Supply Depot Service Group ("Sub Depot") attached to each USAAF bombardment group. These shops not only guarded the bombsights but performed critical maintenance on the Norden and related control equipment. This was probably the most technically skilled ground-echelon job, and certainly the most secret, of all the work performed by Sub Depot personnel. The non-commissioned officer in charge and his staff had to have a high aptitude for understanding and working with mechanical devices.
As the end of World War II neared, the bombsight was gradually downgraded in its secrecy; however, it was not until 1944 that the first public display of the instrument occurred.
Herman W. Lang (FBI file photo)
Espionage [ edit ]
In spite of the security precautions, the entire Norden system had been passed to the Germans before the war started. Herman W. Lang, a German spy, had been employed by the Carl L. Norden Company. During a visit to Germany in 1938, Lang conferred with German military authorities and reconstructed plans of the confidential materials from memory. In 1941, Lang, along with the 32 other German agents of the Duquesne Spy Ring, was arrested by the FBI and convicted in the largest espionage prosecution in U.S. history. He received a sentence of 18 years in prison on espionage charges and a two-year concurrent sentence under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[45]
German instruments were actually fairly similar to the Norden, even before World War II. A similar set of gyroscopes provided a stabilized platform for the bombardier to sight through, although the complex interaction between the bombsight and autopilot was not used. The Carl Zeiss Lotfernrohr 7, or Lotfe 7, was an advanced mechanical system similar to the Norden bombsight, although in form it was more similar to the Sperry S-1. It started replacing the simpler Lotfernrohr 3 and BZG 2 in 1942, and emerged as the primary late-war bombsight used in most Luftwaffe level bombers. The use of the autopilot allowed single-handed operation, and was key to bombing use of the single-crewed Arado Ar 234.
Postwar analysis [ edit ]
Postwar analysis placed the overall accuracy of daylight precision attacks with the Norden at about the same level as radar bombing efforts. The 8th Air Force put 31.8% of its bombs within 300 metres (1,000 ft) from an average altitude of 6,400 metres (21,000 ft), the 15th Air Force averaged 30.78% from 6,200 metres (20,500 ft), and the 20th Air Force against Japan averaged 31% from 5,000 metres (16,500 ft).
Many factors have been put forth to explain the Norden's poor real-world performance. Over Europe, the cloud cover was a common explanation, although performance did not improve even in favorable conditions. Over Japan, bomber crews soon discovered strong winds at high altitudes, the so-called jet streams, but the Norden bombsight worked only for wind speeds with minimal wind shear. Additionally, the bombing altitude over Japan reached up to 9,100 metres (30,000 ft), but most of the testing had been done well below 6,100 metres (20,000 ft). This extra altitude compounded factors that could previously be ignored; the shape and even the paint of the bomb mantle greatly changed the aerodynamic properties of the weapon, and, at that time, nobody knew how to calculate the trajectory of bombs that reached supersonic speeds during their fall.[27]
Unable to obtain the Norden, the RAF continued development of their own designs. Having moved to night bombing, where visual accuracy was difficult under even the best conditions, they introduced the much simpler Mark XIV bomb sight. This was designed not for accuracy above all, but ease of use in operational conditions. In testing in 1944, it was found to offer a CEP of 270 metres (890 ft), about what the Norden was offering at that time. This led to a debate within the RAF whether to use their own tachometric design, the Stabilized Automatic Bomb Sight, or use the Mk. XIV on future bombers. The Mk. XIV ultimately served into the 1960s while the SABS faded from service as the Lancaster and Lincoln bombers fitted with it were retired.[47]
Postwar use [ edit ]
In the postwar era, the development of new precision bombsights essentially ended. At first this was due to the military drawdown, but as budgets increased again during the opening of the Cold War, the bomber mission had passed to nuclear weapons. These required accuracies on the order of 2,700 metres (3,000 yd), well within the capabilities of existing radar bombing systems. Only one major bombsight of note was developed, the Y-4 developed on the Boeing B-47 Stratojet. This sight combined the images of the radar and a lens system in front of the aircraft, allowing them to be directly compared at once through a binocular eyepiece.[48]
Bombsights on older aircraft, like the Boeing B-29 Superfortress and the later B-50, were left in their wartime state. When the Korean War opened, these aircraft were pressed into service and the Norden once again became the USAF's primary bombsight. This occurred again when the Vietnam War started; in this case retired World War II technicians had to be called up in order to make the bombsights operational again. Its last use in combat was by the Naval Air Observation Squadron Sixty-Seven (VO-67), during the Vietnam War. The bombsights were used in Operation Igloo White for implanting Air-Delivered Seismic Intrusion Detectors (ADSID) along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.[49]
See also [ edit ]
Lotfernrohr 7, a German equivalent.
Mary Babnik Brown, who donated her hair in 1944, often said to be for the bombsight crosshairs, though this has been disputed.
Explanatory notes [ edit ]
^ CEP is a circle into which 50% of the bombs should fall. ^ Different sources disagree on Norden's time at Sperry. Most place him there between 1911 and 1915, Moy and Sherman state he left in 1913, and Moy implies he worked there since 1904.
References [ edit ]
Citations [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]Think about what the Palin pick really says about how McCain views this campaign and how he views his potential responsibilities in national security.
Think about what it says about the sincerity of McCain's own central criticism of Obama these past two months in foreign affairs.
Think about how he picked a woman to be a heartbeat away from a war presidency who hadn't even thought much, by her own admission, about the Iraq war as late as 2007.
Think about how he made this decision barely knowing the woman.
Think about the fact that the most McCain could say about his potential war-time vice-president in foreign affairs and national security when selecting her is that she commanded Alaska's National Guard as governor and has a son in the military.
Think about the men and women serving this country who have every right to trust that their potential commander-in-chief, whatever their party, would have some record of even interest in foreign policy before assuming office.
Think about how the key factor in this decision was not who could defend this country were something dreadful happen to McCain in office but how to tread as much on Obama's convention bounce and use women's equality as a wedge issue among Democrats because it might secure a few points here or there. Oh, and everyone would be surprised. And even Rove would be annoyed.
This is his sense of honor and judgment. This is his sense of responsibility and service.
Here's the real slogan the McCain campaign should now adopt:
Putting. Country. Last.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.ELIZABETH Quay will deliver a “direct economic impact” of almost $3 billion within the next decade, according to a report commissioned by the Barnett Government.
The prediction comes as new figures show the CBD’s revamped waterfront attracted 6.7 million visitors in its first year, based on mobile phone pings — more than the Colosseum in Rome (4 million), the Empire State Building and One World Trade Centre in New York (3.5 million and 2.3 million respectively) and not far behind the Sydney Opera House (8.2 million) and the Eiffel Tower (7 million). In contrast to Elizabeth Quay, most of these attractions charge entry fees.
Opened with huge fanfare a year ago next Sunday, Elizabeth Quay has largely been a success but hasn’t been without teething problems – namely the 10-month shutdown of the water park because of bacterial contamination – while the development of massive land lots has not progressed as quickly as some would like.
Fresh modelling by Deloitte Access Economics for the Government shows by 2025-26 the quay will have a direct impact of $2.945 billion. This includes $2.1 billion in private investment, $348 million in tourism spending, $430 million in capital works and $48.7 million in operating expenditure.
Camera Icon Planning Minister Donna Faragher on the river, looking back towards the Quay. Picture: PerthNow, Simon Santi
Deloitte estimates Elizabeth Quay will boost WA’s gross State product by $637 million and generate a yearly average of 543 full-time direct and flow-through jobs, reaching a peak of 962 jobs in 2022-23.
Those predictions are conservatively based on an estimate of four million visitors a year, a figure that has already been blown out of the water by the first year’s tally of nearly 6.7 million visitors.
Planning Minister Donna Faragher labelled the landmark project a massive success, with WA set to reap an impressive return on investment.
“There’s no doubt there’s more work to be done over a period of time and these things don’t happen overnight, but I think that we can be really proud of the fact that in just over a year we’ve had well over six million visitors to Elizabeth Quay and |
advanced medium range surface to air missiles and missile defense systems to the Indian Army. The missile will be produced by Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) in partnership with L&T, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and others Indian companies. It is expected that major part of the Barak 8 production would be undertaken in India in a bid to save costs.10 Fascinating Infographics about Death
Infographics offer an interesting way to visualize concepts that can be abstract. Because they provide such a straightforward way to turn ideas into images, infographics have become quite popular. You might be surprised at how many different ways there are of looking a subject when you begin to study various infographics.
One subject with many approaches is death. We all die sometime, although the causes and circumstances may vary. If you are interested in learning more about your eventual devise, these 10 infographics on death offer interesting insight.
1. Population of the Dead
Estimates of the current world population of the living are at more than 6.8 billion. But how many people have died? This interesting infographic looks at how many people have died in the past 200,000 years, as compared to the current population of the living. According to this infographic, Population of the Dead, 106 billion people have lived on this planet. Since only 6.8 billion are alive now, that puts the population of the dead at just under 100 billion. 4.1 billion people died during the 20th Century alone.
2. Chances of Death in America
One of the coolest infographics on death is Chances of Death in America. This interactive infographic allows you to play minesweeper to find different causes of death. Then the infographic provides visual representations of your chances of dying due to those specific causes of death. Includes information on heart disease, car accident, cancer, poison and terrorist attack.
3. Death Odds
Another infographic that offers information on your odds of dying from various causes, Death Odds provides an interesting look at even more probably causes of death. Includes suicide, earthquake, drowning, fireworks discharge and many more. Also includes an interesting figure of the total odds of dying. There is a 100% chance that someone, somewhere, will die of something each day.
4. Leading Causes of Death
Around the world, there are a number of different causes of death. Interestingly, though, one of the biggest causes of death is smoking. Leading Causes of Death considers the different reasons that people die, and points out that six out of the eight top causes of death are actually related to smoking. With 57 million people dying every year, and with the odds in favor of smoking causing a significant number of those deaths, it seems pretty clear that if more people would quit smoking, we'd have fewer premature deaths.
5. Causes of Death
If you are looking for a more organized and detailed look at various causes of death, this infographic is for you. Causes of Death lays out the top causes of death and organizes them by race and age, as well as gender. It is interesting to note that the #1 cause of death for white and Asian males under the age of 35 is suicide. The #1 cause of death for all male youths is suicide. The numbers for females are different, and you could spend hours speculating about the differences in causes of death across gender, age and race.
6. The Dirt on Death
If you are looking for another comprehensive look at death, The Dirt on Death is a great infographic, full of good information. The Dirt on Death breaks death down by intentional and unintentional death (only 68% of deaths caused by injury are unintentional). It also looks at death by disease, violence and other causes. This infographic goes so far as to include by-country information on AIDS deaths, as well as information on women who die from birth-related complications.
7. Swine Flu Mortality
Not too long ago, the swine flu scared many of us. However, in a 300-day period swine flu really didn't do that much damage. Indeed, many think that swine flu was overhyped. After all, in the 300-day period represented in the infographic Swine Flu Mortality, only 5,850 of the more than 50 million deaths were due to swine flue. Cardiovascular problems were by far the biggest killer, and a number of other diseases exceeded the death toll of swine flu. An interesting infographic that puts swine flu into perspective - and cautions us against hysteria.
8. The Death Penalty Around the World
Sometimes people die because they are scheduled for execution for some crime. The death penalty is a debated policy in the U.S., but in much of the world there isn't much of a debate: Most countries have abolished the death penalty. The infographic The Death Penalty Around the World points out that 92 countries have abolished the death penalty, and an additional 36 haven't had executions in the last 10 years. Only 69 countries use the death penalty, and 10 of those reserve it for exception cases, like war crimes. The U.S. is one of 59 countries, including, Cuba, China and much of the Middle East, which allows the death penalty without the qualification of exceptional circumstances.
9. Deadliest Drugs
Which drugs are most likely to kill you? Find out from Deadliest Drugs, an interesting look at drug deaths in the U.K. This interesting infographic also looks at number of reports about the deaths caused by certain drugs. For instance, heroin causes way more deaths than marijuana, but the press reports about marijuana related fatalities are more prevalent. Something that many might find interesting is that alcohol is the second most deadly drug. The list also includes anti-depressants and aspirin.
10. Death by Caffeine
Especially fun is the interactive Death by Caffeine infographic. You can choose your favorite energy drink or caffeinated food, and then find out how much of it would kill you upon consumption. For instance, someone weighing 130 pounds would need to drink about 64 bottles of 5-Hour Energy in order consume a lethal amount of caffeine. Choose from popular caffeine and energy products in the U.S., Down Under and in Europe and the U.K.The US military is beginning to develop algorithms and other technology that can automatically learn to jam certain new wireless transmissions that may threaten personnel.
BAE Systems recently got about $8.4 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to begin work on what's known as the Behavioral Learning for Adaptive Electronic Warfare (BLADE) system.
The weirdest, wackiest and stupidest sci/tech stories of 2010
According to DARPA: As wireless communication devices become more adaptive and responsive to their environment by using technology such as Dynamic Spectrum Allocation, the effectiveness of fixed countermeasures may become severely degraded. The BLADE program will develop algorithms and techniques that will let our electronic warfare systems to automatically learn to jam new RF threats in the field.
DARPA added that it expects new software algorithms will be integrated into existing electronic warfare gear and not require new hardware.
BLADE development includes three central components. From DARPA:
Detection and Characterization - this includes the development of algorithms and techniques for detecting the presence of a new threat and learning its characteristics. Proposals should address methods for detecting new communication threats operating over very wide frequency ranges and in highly cluttered tactical RF environments. Of particular interest are algorithms capable of deriving Physical (PHY), Media Access Control (MAC), and Network (NET) layer features of communication threats from over-the-air observables.
Jam Waveform Optimization - this includes the development of methods and techniques for automatically synthesizing countermeasures that effectively and efficiently deny detected communication threat(s). Of special interest are machine learning algorithms that use information derived through passive signal characterization as well as from active probing and learning, to automatically synthesize surgical 'jamming techniques.
Battle Damage Assessment - this includes the development of algorithms and techniques for accurately assessing jam effectiveness in the field. Proposals should address methods for evaluating jam effectiveness over-the-air, i.e., without physical access to the threat radio. Of particular interest are techniques that exploit the over-the-air observable changes in the threat radio caused by our jamming to enable the BLADE system to assess its impact and infer the integrity of the threat communication link.
BLADE is just one of many of DARPA's wireless efforts. In September the agency said it was looking for technology that would let wireless communications work even through the most extreme and nasty interference. DARPA's Communications Under Extreme RF Spectrum Conditions (CommEx) program wants to develop wireless communication networks that can operate under severe and complex interference, anticipating traditional interference and communications threats, high power threats, as well as novel interference resulting from new adaptive threats, DARPA stated.
The CommEx program will assess next generation and beyond jamming threats and then develop advanced interference suppression and avoidance technologies to successfully communicate in the presence of severe, traditional, and novel types of interference that are orders-of-magnitude more severe than what are currently addressed by the most advanced systems, DARPA stated.
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How to squelch the security threat of digital copiersDear Rabbi, Now that the Pacific island of Samoa has changed from the east side of the International Date Line to the west—to be in sync with Australia and New Zealand, its main sources of tourism and business—I’ve been wondering if there are any implications in Jewish law. When will Samoan Jews and Jewish tourists observe the Sabbath? Answer: You ask a good question. Jews worldwide celebrate the Sabbath, or Shabbat, on the seventh day of the week. But what happens when a country skips a day and changes their Friday to Saturday? The concept of a date line, and the fact that a traveler would either gain or lose a day after circumnavigating the globe, had been discussed in Jewish works hundreds of years before the establishment of the International Date Line. In fact, the first to articulate the need for a date line was the Jewish philosopher Rabbi Yehudah Halevi (1075–1141), in his classic work, the Kuzari.
History of the International Date Line In 1884 Greenwich, England, was chosen as the central point for time and date calculations (the prime meridian), and the International Date Line sits at exactly 180° longitude from there. By using Greenwich as the prime meridian, the International Date Line falls conveniently in the Pacific Ocean. In those few areas where it should traverse a landmass, the line was slightly bent to avoid dividing countries. The date line is not governed by international law, and it is up to the individual countries to choose which side of the line they wish to be on. Occasionally a country decides to switch sides, as the islands of Samoa and Tokelau did last week. To determine the Jewish view on the date line and Sabbath observance, we must examine four major opinions in halachah, Jewish law.
1. 90° East of Jerusalem Rabbi Zerachiah ben Isaac Halevi Gerondi (12th century) and Rabbi Yehudah Halevi opined that the date line runs 90° east of Jerusalem. The reasoning behind their opinion is that we consider Israel, and more specifically Jerusalem, to be the center of the “inhabited” world (at that time). In other words, six hours, or 90°, to the east and west of Jerusalem at one time encompassed the entire known world. The other side of the world (i.e. the western hemisphere) was considered the “lands of the sea.” Since the day begins to the east of Jerusalem, the quarter of the world to the west of Jerusalem, together with the entire western hemisphere, completes the day. Thus, the date line is 90°, a quarter of the globe, east of Jerusalem, or about 125° east of Greenwich. The problem with this is that the date line would cut right through two huge landmasses—Asia (Russia, China, Korea) and Australia—and several Southeast Asian islands. You could end up with two people standing right next to each other, where for one the Sabbath is starting and for the other it is ending! As such, Rabbi Avraham Yeshayah Karelitz, known as the Chazon Ish, bases the 90° on the knowledge that the major landmass to the east of Jerusalem ends at that point. Since the entire landmass is on one side of the date line, the line actually zigzags, and so Siberia, Korea, eastern China, and Australia are considered to be on the west of the date line, while Japan and New Zealand are on the east side. According to the Chazon Ish’s date line, Sabbath in Japan and New Zealand is actually on Sunday.
2. 180° East of Jerusalem Rabbi Yechiel Michel Tucazinsky says that the date line runs 180° east of Jerusalem. He explains that because Jerusalem is considered the center of the land given to the Jewish people, it is also considered the center of the world according to Jewish law. Therefore, the date line would be located exactly 180° opposite Jerusalem, which would also enable every Jew in the world to observe at least 12 hours of the Sabbath together with those who live in Jerusalem. Since Jerusalem is 35° east of Greenwich, the date line would be 35° east of the current International Date Line, or 145° west of Greenwich. Accordingly, Hawaii and parts of Alaska would be on the western side of the date line, and the Sabbath in Hawaii would be on Friday. However, it is possible that according to this opinion the line would zigzag around Alaska, in order that it follow the majority of the landmass.
3. Mid-Pacific: Closely Resembling the International Date Line Rabbi David Shapira opined that the date line is approximately 135°, or 9 hours, east of Jerusalem. This would make the date line approximately 170° east of Greenwich, which is only 10° off the International Date Line. According to R. Shapira, however, the line zigzags, slanting toward the Siberian coast as it goes through the Bering Straits, and then through the Pacific at 177°. Then it turns east of New Zealand. His rationale for this placement is based on the statement of our sages that G‑d positioned the sun in the heavens at the end of the third hour of the fourth day of creation. Now, if it is the third hour of the day in Jerusalem, then three hours (45°) to the east of Jerusalem it would be noon, and nine hours (135°) east of Jerusalem the sun would be setting. To say that the sun was placed in the heavens on the fourth day, it must have been the fourth day on the entire planet. Therefore, we have to say that east of where the sun was setting, the fourth day was just beginning. Accordingly, Hawaii and Japan would observe the Sabbath on Saturday.
4. There is No Specific Date Line According to Rabbi Menachem Kasher, since there is no clear tradition or Talmudic source, one should observe the Sabbath when the locals do. Since we, as individuals, are commanded to count six days and rest on the seventh, when the first Jews settled in remote areas (over a long period of time), they simply continued counting six days and resting on the seventh. It was only later, when travel became more frequent, that the question of changing the dates arose. As such, there is no need for any community to change dates from their established custom (which is basically the same as following the International Date Line). However, travelers continue counting six days from the last Sabbath they observed, and the seventh day is the Sabbath. Only once the travelers arrive at their destination would they follow the local Jewish community’s Sabbath.
The Samoa Issue The Jewish Telegraphic Agency tracked down one Jew living in Samoa, and there may be many more. When would this person mark future Sabbaths? It would depend on which of the above opinions he follows. According to the first opinion—that the date line is 90° east of Jerusalem—then it runs west of Samoa, so until now the Sabbath was on Saturday. But now that Samoa has switched to the western side of the International Date Line, Sabbath would actually be on Sunday. According to the second opinion—that the date line runs 180° east of Jerusalem—these islands, as well as Hawaii, were always west of the line. So until now the Sabbath in Samoa was actually on Friday, but now it will be on Saturday. If, according to the third opinion, we say that the date line is 135° east of Jerusalem, then it runs to the west of Fiji. This means that until now the Sabbath in Samoa was on Saturday, but from now on it will be on Sunday. According to the last opinion, Sabbath observance is based on an existing Jewish community. If a traveler or tourist were to arrive on an island with no Jewish community, the traveler would continue to keep the Sabbath according to his or her individual count, as if still on a boat.De acuerdo a los primeros informes, la crisis ocurrió cerca de las 23:30 horas del domingo cuando el estudiante de la UC caminaba solo frente al Mall Plaza Vespucio, en avenida Ossa.
"Pasaba justo un radiopatrulla de Carabineros que lo encontró tirado en el suelo", contó el padre del joven, agregando que "esperaron a que recobrara la conciencia, me llamaron y lo trasladaron a Urgencias del Hospital Clínico de la UC".
Rodrigo Avilés, en tanto, se encuentra en recuperación a la espera de los resultados de los últimos exámenes.
"Está tranquilo, acompañado por sus amigos y compañeros de la universidad", recalcó Félix Avilés, puntualizando que "no es un cuadro que esperábamos ni queríamos, pero no es raro que pase dada la fuerza con la que el chorro de agua de Carabineros impactó a Rodrigo".
Este es el segundo episodio de este tipo que sufre el universitario luego que el primero lo afectara el día de Año Nuevo, debiendo ser hospitalizado en el centro asistencial de la UC, donde lleva a adelante su tratamiento.
SANTIAGO.- Un nuevo episodio de convulsiones afectó a Rodrigo Avilés la noche de ayer, a diez meses de haber sido impactado por un chorro de un carro lanzaagua de Fuerzas Especiales de Carabineros el pasado 21 de mayo y que lo dejó en coma durante semanas.Así lo confirmó asu padre, Félix Avilés, quien detalló que el joven se encuentra "estable y tranquilo" mientras continúa en observación en el Hospital Clínico de la Universidad Católica (UC).Originally Posted by Sandro Sammarco (Source) Originally Posted by
Hello Private Backers!
Your flurry of activity has indeed, worked! Here's our current thinking. Remember of course, that all usual caveats apply; this is not set in stone - we might change our mind.
So, current thinking is to have a small number of characters available per account. Say perhaps three normal characters. These can be "normal" commanders or "perma-death" commanders. Only one could ever be active "in-game" at a time and there would be no concept of links between them (so no shared stash, or reputation ties or any such stuff).
Our reasoning so far is as follows:
* More than one person can have a commander, so family members can get in on the act (of course, to play at the same time you'd need two accounts, but this is still - I think - a benefit. Personally I like to think that multiple commanders allows additional players to dip their toes and hopefully progress into obtaining additional accounts.)
* Player choices in-game can be more about the specific commander, reducing the worry that a bad call will ruin everything achieved so far. This is actually quite important; I want to train people away from the idea that there are "right" and "wrong" ways to play Elite: Dangerous. There are just choices and consequences, and we're trying to ensure that all lead to more fun. I want to remove barriers to player experimentation, whilst retaining consequence; I think multiple commanders helps this cause.
* Any potential exploits for multiple commanders almost certainly exists the the multiple account level as well, so limiting an account to one commander would not save us the time and effort of guarding against multiple commander exploits.
* Any serious player infractions (exploits and cheating, player abuse etc.) would always be dealt with on an account basis rather than at the commander level.
* Multiple commanders allow a player to have multiple roleplay options available at the same time, which could be very useful (e.g. I have a scoundrel pirate and a legit trader available depending on my mood, which friends are online etc.)
* I don't find the terms "main", "alt" or "toon" particularly useful in what we are creating. Whilst at a basic level you could certainly argue that the commander with the best current gear/most money/best contacts is your "main" there are no levels - that money can be lost, the gear can be broken, powerful friends can become deadly enemies.
Now this is not to say that we are casually dismissing potential dangers of multiple commanders. We are and always will be on the look out for exploits and activity that undermines the experience (the "cheapening" effect is a valid concern we have considered). But at the moment, we feel a more compelling argument can be made for multiple commanders.
I hope this gives a clear enough picture of our intentions as they stand currently.Having Linux’s hardware detection software configure your network devices, including your WiFi, is the usual thing. But you may come across a botched configuration from time to time. When that happens, you need to be ready.
Conventions used in this guide Throughout our command line tutorials, we use $ to indicate you can run the command shown as a regular user, and # to indicate you must run the instruction as superuser/root or using sudo. When we show both the instruction and its output, what you have to actually type is shown in bold.
In the early days of Linux, say, oh, 10 years ago ;-), the opposite was true: configuring a network by hand was the norm. And configuring a WiFi by hand was a privilege! At least it meant your hardware worked.
But before we get down and dirty with the command line, you should first take a look at the first and second part of this series, just in case the problems you have with your connection lay elsewhere.
In the first part of this series you saw how to troubleshoot your hardware and restart the network subsystem on your computer to get your network connectivity working.
In the second part, once you were sure the problem was not from unsupported hardware, missing drivers and failing network subsystems, you tackled setting up a wired connection by hand, from IP, to route, and, finally, DNS.
Which is all well and good for wired connections, but what if WiFi is all you’ve got? This is quite common in modern ultrabooks which cannot accommodate much more than the skinniest of USB slots and a headphone jack. Often there’s no space for an RJ45 port. All that sleek comes at a price.
Take heart, though, because getting connected to your network from a wireless interface is more or less the same as from wired interface, except there are a couple more steps on the way.
Blocks
Let’s start from a premise similar to what we saw in part 2 and assume your WiFi, wlan0, is your only interface, and it is down for whatever reason:
$ ip addr show dev wlan0 3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000 link/ether 74:e5:0b:96:33:62 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
Before we bring wlan0 up, you have to check and see if it is blocked. A wireless card is often blocked for security reasons. This makes sense if you think about it, after all, you don’t want people trying to access your laptop while you’re out and about. Manufacturers include sliding switches or key combos that allow you to close down or power up you machine’s WiFi hardware.
There are two types of blocks to look out for: hardware blocks, that come in the shape of switches, usually located on the side of your laptop (check it now. It should be in the “on” position), or software blocks, that require you press a combination of keys to activate or deactivate WiFi. The rfkill command will tell you what blocks are in place and most of the time will allow you to override software blocks. As for hardware, again: check those sneaky switches, will ya?
Try
# rfkill list 0: asus-wlan: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: yes Hard blocked: no 1: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: yes Hard blocked: yes
For some reason, rfkill is seeing two interfaces on my laptop, when really there is only one. But, whatever: You can see from the output that the wireless interface is blocked on both.
Let’s go ahead and unblock everything:
# rfkill unblock 0 # rfkill unlock 1
Check rfkill list again to see how things are now:
# rfkill list 0: asus-wlan: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no 1: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no
You can now bring up the WiFi interface with
# ip link set dev wlan0 up
You’re doing this first (and not setting the IP first, as we did in part 2) because you need wlan0 up to be able to scan available WiFi networks.
You scan for networks with
# iw dev wlan0 scan
The output from this instruction is *very* verbose indeed. You’ll probably need to scroll up and down to find the name (SSID) of the network you have to connect to. Note that, unless you’re in the middle of the Sahara desert, you’ll probably pick up more than one. If you can’t see yours, you may be out of range — another reason for not being able to connect to the net.
SSID and Password
Armed with the name of the network and the password, you are now in position to log on. To do this, create a simple text file (you can do it as a regular user) and save it somewhere in your user’s directory. I called mine wpa_config_file. Open the file with your text editor and write in the following information:
network={ ssid="your_network's_ssid_name" psk="your_password" }
Where your_network’s_ssid_name is… well, your network’s SSID name, and your_password is the password you use to access it.
Save the file and exit. You will now use this file to log onto the network using the wpa_supplicant tool:
# wpa_supplicant -B -iwlan0 -cwpa_config_file Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant
The -B option tells the app to run in the background, the -i option tells wpa_supplicant what interface to use (wlan0), and -c flag tells the app which file it has to look into to get the SSID and password.
All of the Rest
At this point, you can try running
# dhclient
like you did in part 2. If you’re lucky, and there’s a good chance you will be, the DHCP server on your network will supply you with an IP for your machine and configure the rest of your network. If that happens you’re done. Hurrah!
But, if that doesn’t work, rest assured that from this point onwards, configuration is virtually the same as with the wired connection you saw in part 2.
Assuming your internal network has IPs ranging from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.254, and your router is located at 192.168.1.1, you assign an IP to wlan0 with
# ip addr add 192.168.1.67/24 dev wlan0
Note that 192.168.1.67 is just a random IP I picked from what was free on my network.
You set up a route to external networks with
# ip route add 0/0 via 192.168.1.1 dev wlan0
Remember that we are assuming the router’s IP is 192.168.1.1. Check what yours is.
And, finally, you add DNS servers to /etc/resolv.conf by adding lines like
nameserver 8.8.8.8
to the file.
The 8.8.8.8 IP is one of Google’s DNS servers, but there are plenty of lists of other public DNS servers online, even classified by country and reliability, if you would prefer to use something else.
Once you save the file, you will be able to connect to the network, the Internet and use URLs (“website names”) as well as IP numbers.
As explained in part 2, this configuration is temporary. As soon as your reboot or, indeed, restart the networking system with systemctl, your networking will probably go down again and you’ll loose the settings, because, presumably, the problem is in the configuration somewhere. As different distro have different configuration files and syntaxes they use to configure a permanent connection, check online with your community on how to fix yours.
Checklist
So, to recap, the steps to get your wireless interface working are:
Check to see if the WiFi interface is blocked and unblock it with rfkill unblock if it is. Bring up the WiFi interface with ip link. Find available WiFi networks with iw. Create a file containing your network’s SSID and password. Log on to your WiFi network using wpa_supplicant and the file you created in step 4. Assign an IP to your interface with ip addr. Set up a route to other networks with ip route. Add DNS servers to /etc/resolv.conf.
And we’re done! This three part series, although not the be-all and end-all of Linux net configuration, should get you on the fast track to troubleshooting (and solving!) network problems on your computer.
Part 1 of this tutorial deals with checking your hardware and making sure the modules (drivers) to make it work were available. We also see how to restart the network subsystem in case it has crashed or failed to start.
In part 2 we delve into the intricacies of configuring a makeshift wired connection by hand with and without DHCP, using the new set of GNU/Linux networking tools. Especially useful, when despite doing all of the above, you still can’t get online.
Cover Image: Masts by Manfred Antranias Zimmer for Pixabay.com.Algorithms will always matter. Sure, processor speeds are still increasing. But the problems that we want to solve using those processors are increasing in size faster. People who are dealing with social network graphs, or analyzing twitter posts, or searching images, or solving any of the hundreds of problems in vogue would be wasting time without the fastest possible hardware. But they would sitting around forever if they weren't using the right tools.
That's why I get sad when I see code like this:
# find the top 10 results results = sorted(results, reverse=True)[:10]
Anything involving a sort will usually take O(nlogn) time, which, when dealing with lots of items, will keep you waiting around for several seconds or even minutes. An O(nlogn) algorithm, for large N, simply cannot be run in realtime when users are waiting.
The Heap
Finding the top K items can be done in O(nlogk) time, which is much, much faster than O(nlogn), using a heap ( wikipedia ). Or, since I usually end up rewriting everything in C++ eventually, a priority queue
The strategy is to go through the list once, and as you go, keep a list of the top k elements that you found so far. To do this efficiently, you have to always know the smallest element in this top-k, so you can possibly replace it with one that is larger. The heap structure makes it easy to maintain this list without wasting any effort. It is like a lazy family member who always does the absolute minimum amount of work. It only does enough of the sort to find the smallest element, and that is why it is fast.
Here's some code to demonstrate the difference between a linear search, and a heap search to find the top K elements in a large array. The heap search is 4 times faster, despite the test being biased in favour of the linear search. The linear search ends up executing in compiled C inside python itself, while the heap search is completely in interpreted python. If they were both in C, the difference in performance would be more pronounced.
#!/usr/bin/python import heapq import random import time def createArray(): array = range( 10 * 1000 * 1000 ) random.shuffle( array ) return array def linearSearch( bigArray, k ): return sorted(bigArray, reverse=True)[:k] def heapSearch( bigArray, k ): heap = [] # Note: below is for illustration. It can be replaced by # heapq.nlargest( bigArray, k ) for item in bigArray: # If we have not yet found k items, or the current item is larger than # the smallest item on the heap, if len(heap) < k or item > heap[0]: # If the heap is full, remove the smallest element on the heap. if len(heap) == k: heapq.heappop( heap ) # add the current element as the new smallest. heapq.heappush( heap, item ) return heap start = time.time() bigArray = createArray() print "Creating array took %g s" % (time.time() - start) start = time.time() print linearSearch( bigArray, 10 ) print "Linear search took %g s" % (time.time() - start) start = time.time() print heapSearch( bigArray, 10 ) print "Heap search took %g s" % (time.time() - start)
Creating array took 7.15145 s [9999999, 9999998, 9999997, 9999996, 9999995, 9999994, 9999993, 9999992, 9999991, 9999990] Linear search took 10.9981 s [9999990, 9999992, 9999991, 9999994, 9999993, 9999998, 9999997, 9999996, 9999999, 9999995] Heap search took 2.66371 s
Also, if you see stuff like this, you should go directly to the wikipedia page on the Selection Algorithm
# find the median median = sorted(results)[len(results)/2]
My Heap in Javascript: Githubby Derek Sheriff
From San Francisco to New York, if you’re paying attention these days, you’d almost think that local government officials across this great country of ours had been sent a copies of Tom Woods’ new book, or were devoting some of their spare time to a quick study of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798.
The Virginia Resolutions of 1798Â were written, of course, by the man who is usually referred to as the “Father of our Constitution”. These resolutions assert:
“..that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact [the US Constitution], the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil…”
So what does that have to do with the TSA?
LOCAL INTERPOSITION
The Washington Times recently quoted New York City Council member David G. Greenfield, who is proposing a city-wide ban on the TSA’s new x-ray scanners. “Our Constitution encourages local governments to stand up when the federal government goes too far..These naked X-ray machines..constitute an unreasonable search,” which violates the Fourth Amendment, he said.
Meanwhile in California, current chief deputy DA and incoming DA of San Mateo County, Steve Wagstaffe, has stated that he will prosecute TSA employees if it can be proven that it they are involved in inappropriate touching with a lewd or sexual intent when they frisk passengers who opt-out of the X-rated … um, I mean the X-ray scans. We’re told that sheriff’s deputies will be sent into airports to keep an eye on TSA employees.
Given the fact that the Constitution, including the Fourth Amendment, rather than federal statutes and regulations, is the supreme law of the land, every single state and local official who has taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States would seem to have a duty to interpose on behalf of the People, whenever it comes to their attention that the individuals who are pleased to call themselves our federal government, either ignore or trample on the Bill of Rights.
On this important issue, it seems that local government officials are surging ahead of their state counterparts. However, it should always be remembered that it is within the power of the governors of the several states to convene their separate legislatures in order to devise constitutional measures that could obstruct, if not immediately halt unreasonable searches mandated by the TSA in each of their states.
GOVERNOR TRUMBULL
In 1809, Connecticut Governor Johnathan Trumbull convened such a special session, partially in response to unreasonable searches and seizures that were part of the embargo enacted by President Jefferson at that time. In his opening address at that state’s special legislative session he said:
“Despairing of substantial relief from any other quarter, the people are now looking with anxious solicitude and hope, to the wisdom and direction of the Legislature of their own choice [their state legislature] ; and seem confident that some mode may be devised to remove the pressure under which they are at present suffering. To your collected wisdom and prudence they submit the task. And may it not be hoped, that, with our united efforts under a temperate, discreet and firm consideration of our situation and circumstances, we may be able by the influence of divine |
�s distinctive villa and much of its surrounding grounds. She warned the Granoffs could legally level the building and replace it with a cul-de-sac development.
Moses was seething after the votes. He said the plan his clients submitted to the commission conformed to all the city�s current zoning rules and there was no legal justification for denying it.
�This is an example of an applicant meeting all the requirements of the law and because a crowd showed up some people didn�t have the intestinal fortitude� to do their jobs, he said.
He said he had no comment on what his clients might do next.AN excerpt from the unpublished book, America Erased, by Lawrence Auster:
What are the practical results of [the] pervasive nihilism on white, middle-class Americans? What does the human product of a nihilist culture look like? As white America has progressively lost its belief in God, in objective truth and morality, in law, in nationhood and in race, whites have acquired an increasingly bland, complacent, pacific aspect. This seems to be true not only in the United States but in the white West as a whole.
One is especially struck by this ennervated quality in contemporary whites when observing them at their leisure, on Sundays, or on their innumerable vacations, or when they are shopping. In the all-white or predominantly white pockets of society, the environment is orderly and peaceful and aesthetically attractive, but something vital is missing.
I have noticed it when strolling in downtown Chicago, or on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on a Sunday afternoon, or watching on TV the audience of a July 4th concert of Broadway show tunes (not traditional patriotic songs) held on Capitol Hill in 1996. Even the relatively refined whites (i.e. those who avoid the aggressively nihilistic “grunge” look of today’s pop culture) have their own, passively nihilistic style — dressed down, neat but nondescript.
There is the predominance of t-shirts and shorts, the absence of clothing that conveys dignity or a large sense of self, the vaguely unisex fashions that deny the true scale of man and woman. Whites seem to have lost the energy, confidence and leadership qualities that once created a civilization. Absent is any sense of the long views and great plans, the intensity and faith that once bestrode a continent. There is no look of destiny, or even of character, in the faces of contemporary whites. Even the “WASPy” upper-class types on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, for all their supposed elitism, do not have the aspect of leaders of society, but of an enervated clique maintaining a residue of manners. It might be said that they have declined into a mere ethnic group; but even that would be an overstatement. What they are is simply consumers.
And in this peaceful, orderly and insipid aspect of today’s middle-class white people, they bear an eerie resemblance to that race of drones called the Eloi, as portrayed in H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine–those pretty, passive, dimwitted creatures in the distant future who laze about peacefully in the sun waiting for the night to come when the beastly Morlocks, coming up from their underground hiding places, will seize and eat them. The graceful and attractive Eloi, whom Wells’ protaganist at first glance believes to be the masters of this future world, turn out to be the mere sheep or cattle of the Morlocks.
— Comments —
Mark Jaws writes:
There I was walking home from the community pool late this afternoon after swimming a half mile, when I passed by our sub-division’s community center. There was evidently a shindig going on because out emerged several attractively-dressed young women in their 20s. As I continued to walk away from the center I noticed an old acquaintance, a quintessential WASP, whom I had not seen in about eight to ten years approaching the center. It turns out that it was this gentleman’s daughter who was having a bridal shower, and he was dressed as if he was about to mow the lawn! I thought immediately about this blog entry and how white middle-aged men no longer know how to dress for the occasion. This evening I am going to a Carly Fiorina fundraiser and I will be darned if I am going to look like some schlub who just emerged from Home Depot.
Bob writes:
There is a very strong social pressure on white middle and upper class men to dress down. This is especially noticeable among white male faculty. When I first joined a university faculty in 1972, we all wore ties and sports coats to class. Students dressed down. By the time I retired in 2007 it was de rigueur for men to wear chinos or jeans and informal shjirts (no tees, that was still a student thing). Students still thought it was inappropriate for faculty to wear jeans, but many did.
Interestingly, there were two groups who were exceptions to the code. All women faculty dressed up, either in dresses or commonly business suits. Radical women wore pants suits, but they are a minority. The other group was male administrator, who dressed in formal business suits.
There is some psychological process underway here, but I don’t know what it is. In part, there has been a total abdication by male faculty to the students, or maybe its just boomers who are deluded into to thinking it’s still the 60’s. With the women and male administrators, it’s a clear class statement.Episode 25 – Quantum Black
or
You Say Formless Beast of Lovecraftian Nightmares Like It’s a Bad Thing
Sharon, Chris, and Pete sit down with Ron Loz and Scott Jones and talk about their new book: Quantum Black. Quantum Black is a modern horror setting using the Ubiquity engine, the same system that powers the classic Hollow Earth Expeditions. Ron & Scott spent a lot of time working on this book, and kickstarted it late in 2015. The kickstarter was a success and they’re about to put it out, just in time for convention season!
Check out Quantum Black here
Visit their Facebook page
RELEASE DATE: MAY 1
The book will be available here
And pretty soon, you can find the PDF on DriveThruRPG.com
And find Ron & Scott’s games at Origins and GenCon!
Need more Ubiquity games? Pick up Exile Studios’ flagship product hereWhile the official documentation for OpenStack is a fantastic resource that's growing every day, sometimes all you're looking for is a single-purpose guide to walk you through a specific task.
In this monthly roundup of our favorite how-tos, guides, and tutorials, we look at getting OpenStack play well with firewalld and NetworkManager, using Test Kitchen with Puppet on an OpenStack deployment, and more.
First up, are you using Kerberos to control network authentication in your organization? Ever wondered how to integrate it with Keystone, the OpenStack identity service? Adam Young provides a guide for doing just that, by configuring Keystone to run with an LDAP backend in Apache httpd, and then connecting the two.
to control network authentication in your organization? Ever wondered, the OpenStack identity service? Adam Young provides a guide for doing just that, by configuring Keystone to run with an LDAP backend in Apache httpd, and then connecting the two. Firewalls are an important part of any system's security, but not everyone is an expert in configuring them correctly. Lars Kellogg-Stedman provides a quick set of notes on how to configure your FirewallD, as well as NetworkManager with OpenStack.
with OpenStack. Test Kitchen is a tool that allow's you to test our your configured code on a platform of your choice with a number of testing frameworks. Edmund Haselwanter has written a great article on how to use Test Kitchen with Puppet to easily conduct your tests against an OpenStack environment by using the kitchen-openstack driver.
to easily conduct your tests against an OpenStack environment by using the kitchen-openstack driver. There has been a lot of buzz using Linux containers—and Docker specifically —as an alternative to traditional virtual machine environments for isolating applications running on the same physical server. Docker has very low overhead, so for applications that can be packaged up in Docker containers, it might be a faster alternative than a normal VM, and possibly easier to configure, too, depending on your requirements. Maish Saidel-Keesing has written a guide, aptly titled "The quickest way to get started with Docker," which will take you through the basics and let you evaluate Docker as a potential tool for managing and deploying applications in your OpenStack environment.
—as an alternative to traditional virtual machine environments for isolating applications running on the same physical server. Docker has very low overhead, so for applications that can be packaged up in Docker containers, it might be a faster alternative than a normal VM, and possibly easier to configure, too, depending on your requirements. Maish Saidel-Keesing has written a guide, aptly titled "The quickest way to get started with Docker," which will take you through the basics and let you evaluate Docker as a potential tool for managing and deploying applications in your OpenStack environment. Finally, are you managing systems in a Solaris environment and want to give OpenStack a try? Oracle has provided a simple guide to get started exploring OpenStack on top of VirtualBox with a Solaris 11.2 virtual machine template, though you'll still need a Linux live CD of your favorite distribution to get through some of the steps.
That's it for this month. Check out our past OpenStack tutorials collection for more great guides and hints. And if we missed your favorite new guide or resource, let us know in the comments!Daniel Ochoa de Olza/Associated Press
The age of the super clubs is upon us, but there remains at least one comfort for those outside the elite, which is that those with the most money so often seem to have so little idea how to spend it wisely.
For Real Madrid, the original super club, this is turning out to be an awful season by their standards—the vast majority of sides, of course, can only dream of finishing second in La Liga and reaching a Champions League semi-final—and it’s almost entirely the result of illogical transfer spending.
Daniel Ochoa de Olza/Associated Press
A lopsided, ill-balanced collection of stars will still outshine many sides. When lots of players who are very gifted have control of the ball, they will tend to wreak havoc, as Madrid do so regularly in La Liga. But at the very highest level, against gifted and canny opponents, flaws will be exposed.
What was particularly striking about Juventus’ progress to the Champions League final on Wednesday was how easy they found it and how little they were tested, especially in the second half.
By the end, Madrid seemed devoid of ideas, banging crosses into the box almost by rote, where what had become a back three of Giorgio Chiellini, Andrea Barzagli and Leonardo Bonucci happily passed a relatively unchallenging aerial examination.
It’s Gareth Bale who has come to symbolise Madrid’s woes, which isn’t entirely fair. It's true he had a night that drew the attention, and the strange disapproving noise the Bernabeu crowd made after every chance he missed after half-time suggested the extent to which it has made him its scapegoat.
Alex Livesey/Getty Images
The Wales international is not playing well, and he creates a tactical imbalance, but at €100 million, he is the president’s man and cannot be dropped.
In the first half, he was almost anonymous, managing just 15 touches, according to statistics from WhoScored.com. In the second period, though, he came into the game but might have wished he hadn’t.
In total, he had seven efforts on goal and hit only one of them on target. His pass-completion rate was the lowest of any Madrid outfielder.
He did at least keep going, demonstrating what legendary manager Brian Clough termed “moral courage” (from my biography of Clough, Nobody Ever Says Thank You) by risking further opprobrium, but that’s probably the best that can be said of his performance.
The problem is that Bale is an explosive, direct player in a team that regularly finds itself facing deep defences. He rarely has the space to run into he had at Tottenham Hotspur. He is not a tactical fit and never was.
Add in the political upheaval caused by the challenge his arrival made to Cristiano Ronaldo’s ego, and the signing looks even more baffling now than it did at the time.
Alex Livesey/Getty Images
This was another game that suggested Ronaldo’s influence has diminished since last year's knee injury. He has increasingly become a penalty-box player, which creates an imbalance on the left.
It was filled last year by Angel Di Maria, but he has gone; despite being man of the match in the 2014 Champions League final, Real essentially sold the Argentinian for looking a bit like Franz Kafka and so not being marketable enough.
The other modifiers, the players with the intelligence and self-sacrificing nature to create balance, were also missing on Wednesday—Xabi Alonso gone and Luka Modric injured.
The result was a team full of players who would all like to be playing a No. 10 role, which is why Juve so often broke so threateningly without a breakwater in midfield to halt the flow counters and why Madrid’s left-back, Marcelo, just about the only Madrid player bothering to use the flank, was their most dangerous player.
Fans can blame Bale. The board will probably blame the coach, Carlo Ancelotti. But the man mainly responsible for Madrid’s defeat to Juventus is the president who oversaw a transfer policy that prioritised marketability over tactical coherence: Florentino Perez.Justin Carter, 19, has been in jail since March 27, when the Comal County (Texas) teen was arrested for making an off-color joke to a friend about a MOBA* computer game they were playing. "You're crazy," the friend told Carter. "I think I’ma shoot up a kindergarten. And watch the blood of the innocent rain down. And eat the beating heart of one of them," Carter replied, adding "lol j/k."
For this transgression, Carter was not just investigated, but arrested. He's been in jail for months now, held on $500,000 bail. His attorney says he's been beaten several times and placed on suicide watch; suicide watch, in case you didn't know, translates to "placed naked in solitary confinement."
Across the country, in Washington, D.C., a very similar situation has had a very different outcome. D.C. Police Officer Christopher Picciano, "a 17-year veteran who was a member of the elite presidential motorcade detail," will be suspended without pay for a little over a month after joking about killing the first lady, threatening to go on a shooting spree, and calling Pres. Obama a communist:
A District police officer accused of threatening Michelle Obama has been cleared of administrative charges related to the first lady but was found guilty of posting a derogatory job description on social media and depicting the president as a communist, his attorney said Monday. [....] Picciano got into trouble in July 2012 while eating breakfast with a group of officers in a downtown restaurant. They were talking about the first lady’s threat level, and one officer explained that it was high because “a lot of people want to kill her.” Another officer then testified that Picciano said, “Yeah, because I want to kill her” and then showed that officer a picture of a handgun on his phone. But Pressler said that two separate conversations were crossing the table at the same time. Picciano’s version is that the officer asked who would kill Obama — to which he answered, “I guess I would.” Pressler said his client was also talking about a birthday gift of a.40-caliber handgun and at the moment he made the joke, the picture of the gun downloaded on the phone he was holding up.
According to the Washington Post, the U.S. attorney's office declined to press charges against Picciano because it "agree[d] with the Secret Service that Picciano was not serious with his comment about Michelle Obama." Picciano also "wrote on Facebook about taking a rifle to a tall building," after the D.C. Council voted to trim pension benefits for the MPD. That wasn't serious either, apparently.
Comal County, Texas, is a world away from Washington, D.C., so the two cases aren't exactly apples-to-apples. Then again, Texas is also a world away from Massachusetts, where another teenager was nearly rail-roaded for posting violent raps on Facebook. Could the differences between how Carter and Picciano were treated be largely geographical? It's possible.
But there's also something to be said about the benefit of a doubt afforded police officers (even bad ones) versus regular people. Picciano joked about killing the first lady and going on a Charles Whitman-esque shooting spree, yet remains free and employed in a job that allows him to carry a gun; Carter, a 19-year-old who doesn't own a gun, joked about shooting up a school, and is being kept naked in solitary confinement as a result.
It's possible that Carter made that joke in the wrong state, but I think in this case, and others like it, power matters far more than geography.
Related: Why Firing a Bad Cop is Damn Near Impossible.
*League of Legends is a MOBA, not a MMOG.An Open Letter to Kevin Durant
Francis McCarthy Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jun 28, 2016
Is this it?
Dear Kevin,
As a Thunder fan, the prospect of you leaving Oklahoma City brings me great sadness. Living in Seattle, I have copped my fair share of abuse as the sole Thunder fan in a bar full of fukkboi Warriors fans, all showing up to cheer against the Thunder in Western Conference Finals that we should’ve won.
I know, I know… losing hurts. Just ask Draymond Green. This was him a year ago. Not so chipper now.
WE WON, NOPE.
All I’m saying is, I hope you stick with the Thunder. We’re this close. And if we win it all next season, you can’t really see Russell leaving a championship team, can you? Stay in Oklahoma City, be a one-team player, and retire a legend in the Horse Show Capital of the World.
If you do decide to leave though, I have some ideas for you. I know you’re talking to the likes of the Warriors (barf), Spurs (boring), Celtics (mediocre), Clippers (perennial underachievers), Heat (LeBron did that already), and Knicks (you gotta be shitting me).
While you’re contemplating your future over the next few days in New York, I’d suggest you have your people line up some meetings with the good folks from Sacramento, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia.
LET ME EXPLAIN.
Why choose the Kings?
Boogie is the only man who is as committed to US Men’s National Team program as you are. #BoogieForAmerica. The least you can do is allow him, Vlade and Vivek (aka The Three Musketeers) the chance to board a plane to Manhattan and pitch you on the vision for the Kings. The vision includes Giorgios Papagiannis. PAPAGIANNISSSSSSS!
You’ll get to play with renowned team first guy, Rajon Rondo. Imagine how many assists Rondo will be able to hunt, dropping dimes back to you on those 2-on-0 fast breaks! The Kings also have Rudy Gay, who is a poor man’s version of yourself. You can’t deny that. Kevin Johnson even saved them from going back to Seattle! The future is bright in Sac-Town, I tells ya!
Projected Starters:
PG: Rajon Rondo
SG: Ben McLemore
SF: Rudy Gay
PF: Kevin Durant
C: Boogie Cousins
Why choose the Bucks?
Wingspan, motherfuckers. Jason Kidd aka. The New Mad Scientist (goodbye, Nelly) has just drafted 30-year-old Australian phenom Thon Maker to add to the Bucks’ collection of SLAFS (Super Long Athletic Freaks).
If you join Jason Kidd, he can play you and Giannis as rotating point guards, then swing a trade for your mate Steven Adams to come over and play shooting guard. Tell me one good reason this plan doesn’t result in a championship for Milwaukee!
Projected Starters:
PG: Giannis Antetokounmpo / Kevin Durant
SG: Steven Adams
SF: Jabari Parker
PF: Thon Maker
C: John Henson
Bench: Greg Monroe (not athletic enough to start with these guys).
Why choose the Sixers?
I’m not angry that the Sixers weren’t on your shortlist of potential suitors to begin with, just disappointed.
Where in the league could you find a deeper pool of talent that’s two years away from being two years away? Sam Hinkie did not die for Philadelphia’s sins to not be rewarded with a top 3 player in the league.
What am I saying? I mean, the best player in the league. That’s what you are, Kevin. And that’s why you need to join the juggernaut that is the Philadelphia 76ers.
Projected starters:
PG: T.J. McConnell
SG: Timothe Luwawu
SF: Kevin Durant
PF: Ben Simmons
C: Nerlens Noel
Tell me you who’s gonna stop this team from barnstorming through the East (see ya, Lebron!) and going on to shock the world and bring the championship back to Philly!? WHO GON STOP ME.
The hours are counting down, Kevin, and you have a decision to make. You can shift the balance of power in the NBA with this one choice.
I will #PrayforKD and hope that you consider these three worthy teams who deserve a chance at bringing you home to their respective cities. Give them hope, KD. Give them hope.
Yours in Thunder,
Francis McCarthy.
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You can follow my NBA stuff on Twitter @FrancisOKC.The Conservative Political Action Conference is the biggest annual gathering of Republican leaders and conservative activists, but neither Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell nor House Speaker John A. Boehner is scheduled to make the 10-mile drive from Capitol Hill to speak to CPAC this year, underscoring the lingering tensions between Republican Washington leadership and the party’s grass roots.
It marks the first time in years that Mr. McConnell will skip the CPAC gathering, a year after the Kentucky Republican made headlines by holding aloft a gun during his speech. Mr. Boehner last spoke at CPAC in 2010, months before the tea party helped fuel Republicans’ takeover of the House and made the Ohio Republican the speaker.
Both have tussled with their right flank over how best to advance a conservative agenda at the Capitol.
Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman, said his boss is bogged down by his day job.
“Speaker Boehner’s responsibilities in the Capitol, and his travel schedule, will not allow him to attend this year, but he has always had a good relationship with ACU and that hasn’t changed,” Mr. Steel said.
Mr. McConnell’s office said the scheduling didn’t work out this year and he felt that with a spending fight over the Department of Homeland Security raging on the Senate floor, he needed to be at the Capitol.
Grover Norquist, chairman of Americans for Tax Reform and board member of the American Conservative Union, which hosts CPAC, said he didn’t read too much into the absence of the Republican Party’s two most powerful congressional leaders. The event this year is focused more on grass-roots activism and the 2016 presidential race, he said.
“Neither of them are running for anything,” Mr. Norquist said. “The presidential candidates are trying to elbow their way onto the stage, and every issue group is trying to elbow their way in as well.”
A number of rank-and-file lawmakers will be speaking, as will Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the fourth-ranking House Republican, and Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, who chairs the Senate Republican Policy Committee.
The biggest names from Congress are the three senators considering presidential bids: Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas.
CPAC marks the second time this year that the emerging crop of potential Republican presidential contenders will be able to speak to a big conservative audience. Last month, a number of them flocked to Des Moines, Iowa, for the Freedom Summit, hosted by Rep. Steve King, who voted this year to oust Mr. Boehner as speaker.
“CPAC 2015 is all about the 2016 Republican presidential field, and Boehner and McConnell don’t figure into that equation,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican Party strategist. “While they are not exactly crowd favorites at CPAC, their time is better served at the Capitol working to prevent a government shutdown.”
The four-day CPAC gathering will feature about a dozen potential Republican candidates, including Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, in addition to the three senators.
Former Govs. Rick Perry of Texas, Jeb Bush of Florida and Sarah Palin of Alaska also are slated to address the audience, as are former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, retired neurosurgeon Ben S. Carson and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
The event, which is being held at a hotel just outside the Washington Beltway, typically draws hordes of conservatives with a libertarian bent and provides a snapshot of who is in good standing with that slice of the party. Mr. Paul, the party’s leading libertarian voice in Washington, won the CPAC presidential straw poll the past two years.
In 2013, Mr. Christie was not invited. The snub was based in part on criticism he aimed at Mr. Boehner and other House Republican leaders over Superstorm Sandy recovery funds.
In the midst of a re-election campaign last year, Mr. McConnell strode awkwardly onto the CPAC stage holding up a rifle as rocker Jon Bon Jovi’s song “Living on a Prayer” blared from the speakers.
“If I am given the opportunity to lead the U.S. Senate next year, I won’t let you down,” Mr. McConnell pledged to the crowd. “I will lead it with integrity. We will fight tooth and nail for conservative reforms that will put this country back on track.”
Mr. McConnell overcame some conservative opposition in the Republican primary and to win his sixth term in the November election, where Republicans flipped control of the Senate.
John Feehery, a Republican Party strategist, said the Boehner and McConnell no-shows are proof that CPAC has lost some of its luster and clout.
“CPAC has become less and less relevant over the years — mostly populated by Ron Paul people and folks who want to sell books,” Mr. Feehery said.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.The Sabres have spent much of the year wandering aimlessly in search of an identity. They may have found it.
“I just like the fact they’re not going to have quit in them,” Buffalo coach Dan Bylsma said. “They’re not going to stop trying, and they’re not going to stop believing that they can come back.”
The Sabres have grown into a team that knows it can rally. In the 17 games since Dec. 1, Buffalo has erased two-goal or third-period deficits six times. They earned victories after trailing by two against Winnipeg and Los Angeles, and got a point after being down by two to Florida. They erased third-period deficits to beat the New York Rangers, Edmonton Oilers and New York Islanders.
The 4-3 victory over Winnipeg on Saturday actually falls into both categories because Buffalo started the third period in a 3-1 hole.
“It’s nice that we’ve been able to have that this year that we’re not out of the game,” captain Brian Gionta said. “We continue to push and are able to come from behind.”
Buffalo has four wins this season when trailing after two periods. Only Pittsburgh (seven), Vancouver, Montreal and New Jersey (five each) have more.
The Sabres took over Saturday’s game, scoring three third-period goals in less than five minutes while outshooting the Jets, 16-5, in the final period.
“We knew we score one we’re going to get them on their heels,” goaltender Robin Lehner said.
There is, of course, one major drawback to being known as a team that can rally. It means the team falls behind.
Midway through Saturday’s victory, the Jets were outshooting the Sabres, 26-10, and leading, 3-1. Winnipeg took the opening five shots of the game and the first 11 of the second period.
“We’ve got to do a better job from the start of games, start of periods of making sure we’re ready,” Gionta said. “We’ve got to come out a little more desperate, a little more looking to play our game right off the bat, not waiting for things to happen.
“You can’t continue to rely on” comebacks, “can’t continue to think you’re going to do that night in, night out, coming from behind like that. It’s on us to be better at the start, and that’s something we need to improve on.”Photos: Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild The iconic blue gingham apron and shirt costume that Judy Garland wore as Dorothy in the 1939 classic "The Wizard of Oz" sold for $1,565,000 at a New York auction. Here are other items that fetched eye-popping record sales prices on the auction block in recent times: Hide Caption 1 of 10
Photos: Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild June 2015 has been a big month for art auctioneers. Artist Chris Ofili's controversial work "The Holy Virgin Mary," which shows an African Virgin Mary covered with elephant dung, sold for $4,522,643 at Christie's -- a record for the artist, according to the auction house. Hide Caption 2 of 10
Photos: Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild When Pablo Picasso's "Les Femmes d'Alger (Version O)" sold for $179,365,000, it broke the world auction record for any work of art, according to Christie's. Hide Caption 3 of 10
Photos: Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild Jesse Owens' 1936 Olympic Gold Medal sold for $1,466,574 at auction in December 2013, setting a record for the highest price paid for Olympic memorabilia. This medal is considered one of the most important in Olympics history and is one of four Owens won at the games in Berlin, spoiling Adolf Hitler's planned showcase of Aryan superiority. Hide Caption 4 of 10
Photos: Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild Norman Rockwell's painting "Saying Grace" sold for $46 million in 2013 at Sotheby's American Art auction. It was a record for works by the late artist and for a single American painting. The illustration originally appeared on the Thanksgiving issue cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1951. Hide Caption 5 of 10
Photos: Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild "The Whole Booke of Psalmes" -- universally known as "The Bay Psalm Book" -- was produced in the virtual wilderness of Massachusetts Bay Colony by the Congregationalist Puritans. When it sold for $14,165,000, it set a world auction record for any printed book. Hide Caption 6 of 10
Photos: Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild Titanic band leader Wallace Hartley's violin sold for $1.7 million at Henry Aldridge and Son Auctioneers in Devizes, England -- by far the highest ever fetched for memorabilia tied to the sunken passenger ship Hide Caption 7 of 10
Photos: Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild An engraving from Wallace Hartley's fiancee, Maria Robinson, is attached to the Titanic band leader's violin. Hide Caption 8 of 10
Photos: Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild This 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 sold at auction for $30 million in England. It was part of a group of race cars that won nine of 12 Forrmula 1 World Championship-qualifying races during 1954 and 1955 and was driven by Juan Manuel Fangio. Hide Caption 9 of 10The Winnipeg Blue Bombers organization chose three rookies when they put their current triumvirate of president Wade Miller, general manager Kyle Walters and head coach Mike O’Shea together during the final five months of 2013.
So far it’s showing in the team’s record. In fact, they are winning at less of a clip than the Blue and Gold did during the disastrous Joe Mack era that proceeded it.
Mack, who took over as general manager in January 2010, produced a 21-39 mark before getting the pink slip in August 2013, which works out to a.350 winning percentage. Since then the Bombers are 15-37, which represents a.288 winning percentage over eight fewer games than Mack lasted.
The current leadership group gets a break for some of their losses since Mack did such a horrendous job with Winnipeg’s roster, but that is no longer an excuse. Miller, who appears to be involved in personnel matters, and Walters will celebrate their third anniversary with the club in a few weeks.
Miller’s most famous quote from his introductory press conference happened when he was asked about firing Mack.
“A GM has a responsibility to win football games,” Miller said on Aug. 9, 2013. “Let’s call a spade a spade. Under Joe Mack the record speaks for itself.”
BAD BOYS
The Bombers committed 14 penalties that set them back 136 yards on Thursday night. Those were the most in both categories since last year’s Labour Day Classic, when they had 17 penalties for 140 yards against the Roughriders. Winnipeg also had 14 penalties in Ottawa last October.
The Bombers spread the infractions out evenly, as they took five on offence, five on defence and four on special teams. O’Shea believes he knows how to fix it.
“Correct each one. Coach better. Coach technique,” he said. “Address each individual penalty, and give guys tools to fix it.”
ALWAYS LEARNING
One of those penalties was O’Shea’s, as he tried to challenge illegal interference on a loose ball. He earned a delay of game infraction because only illegal interference on passing plays can be challenged.
O’Shea believed a member of the Eskimos interfered with one of his players after Edmonton quarterback Mike Reilly fumbled in the third quarter. The Eskimos recovered the ball and ultimately kicked a field goal that tied the game.
“If it’s not ‘challengeable,’ I believe it to be reviewable by the review official, but it’s not,” O’Shea said. “So that’s one of those ones you can do nothing about. It has to be seen on the field. So the 10 yard penalty, they move up, they kick another field goal.
“That’s definitely my mistake. I don’t know that even challenging it’s a bad thing, because maybe you make them think about it.”
NO LETTING UP
The Bombers are half way through what appeared to be the toughest stretch of their schedule, but it might not get much easier when they emerge from this rough road in early August.
Winnipeg’s next three games are at home against Calgary, in Edmonton and back at IGF versus Hamilton on Aug. 3, but they still have to play Ottawa (3-0-1) and B.C. (2-1) twice, and then Edmonton a third time.
“We just gotta face reality here,” running back Andrew Harris said. “We gotta be more physical and more tough as a whole and step up. … It’s the ebbs and flows of a season. It’s not always pretty. You gotta come back with a vengeance. Whether it’s a win or a loss, you still gotta come back and fix the things you didn’t do well.
“We got a good team here, and I have full confidence that we’re gonna bounce back and respond in a positive way.”
NOT LOOKING GOOD
The Bombers have started with a 1-3 four times since 1990, and their best finish in any of those seasons was 7-11.
They made the playoffs at 7-11 in 1995, when they were in the North Division during American expansion, but they have missed the post-season in the three occasions since.
LATE HITS
The Bombers lost Thursday’s game despite holding a 16-13 lead through three quarters. They are an unimpressive 7-5 under O’Shea when leading after 45 minutes … The Eskimos had two players clear the 150 receiving yards mark during Thursday’s tilt. Adarius Bowman had 10 catches for 185 yards, while Derel Walker hauled in seven balls for 154 yards … Winnipeg fell to Edmonton even though it won the turnover battle. The Bombers are 5-4 since the start of last season when turning the ball over fewer times than their opponent.
kpenton@postmedia.com
twitter.com/PentonKirkEarlier this year, Twentieth Century Fox registered a trademark for the word “Gotham” for;
Entertainment services in the nature of a television series featuring drama; providing on-line information in the field of television and video entertainment featuring drama via the Internet; entertainment services in the nature of non-downloadable videos and images featuring television shows transmitted via the Internet and wireless communication networks; on-line journals, namely, blogs featuring personal opinions in the field of general interest and drama; entertainment amusement park and theme park services; entertainment services in the nature of live musical, comedy and dramatic performances
Little bit cheeky. But there you go. Then Fox and Warners came to… some kind of deal over the future of the Batman TV series and its licensing. Now that trademark has been abandoned by Fox. And now Warners subsidiary DC Comics has registered the trademark Gotham for;
Entertainment services in the nature of live-action, comedy, drama, animated and/or reality television programs; production of live-action comedy, drama, animated and/or reality television programs. Downloadable live-action, comedy, drama, animated and reality television series; audio tapes, audio-video tapes, audio video cassettes, audio video discs, and digital versatile discs featuring music, comedy, drama, action, adventure, and/or animation.
You know, if there was a TV series set in the pre-Batman days of Bruce Wayne concerning the five families of organised crime, or some kind of Gotham PD show, calling it Gotham wouldn’t be a bad idea…
About |
for all the complaints about the aggression of the upgrade offer before the cut-off, we heard from many people who still wanted a little more time to upgrade and were concerned about being cut off.
If you still want to make the switch, it seems you're in luck, because it's not clear that the free upgrade program has truly ended. Paul Thurrott has been testing the use of Windows 7 or 8.1 serial numbers to install and activate Windows 10, and he reports that they continue to work. They may cease working at some point, but they haven't yet... so if you missed the free upgrade period but still want to switch to Windows 10, it seems that you still have time to do so.
On the one hand, removing the Get Windows 10 app suggests that Microsoft may be winding down the program completely and that the days of using Windows 7 and 8.1 keys with Windows 10 are drawing to a close. On the other hand, the free upgrade program continues to run for anyone using assistive software such as screen readers. There's no formal end date yet for this alternative upgrade scheme, and there appears to be zero enforcement of the assistive technology requirement, so anyone willing to lie has easy access to the Windows 10 upgrade if they want it.One simple way to do this is to use a Pipe to abstract out reads and writes to handles. One type you can use is:
example :: Monad m => Pipe String String m ()
For example, let's say that your original code looked something like this:
original :: IO () original = do str1 <- getLine str2 <- getLine putStrLn (str1 ++ str2)
The new pipes version would look like this:
import Pipes example :: Monad m => Pipe String String m () example = do str1 <- await str2 <- await yield (str1 ++ str2)
Then, you can test it purely like this:
>>> import qualified Pipes.Prelude as Pipes >>> Pipes.toList (each ["Hello, ", "world!"] >-> example) ["Hello, world!"]
... or you can test it with real input and output:
>>> runEffect $ Pipes.stdinLn >-> example >-> Pipes.stdoutLn Hello, <Enter> world!<Enter> Hello, world!
This lets you keep your main logic pure, and then choose whether or not to run it purely or impurely.Mulching is an essential component of the garden that is often overlooked. It can save time in the long run by reducing time spent weeding, watering, fertilizing, and controlling pests. Let’s look at how to use mulch in the permaculture garden and what types of materials to use.
Posts may contain affiliate links, which allow me to earn a commission at no extra cost to you. This helps keep costs down so that I can continue providing high quality content to you for free. I appreciate your purchase through the links! (full disclosure)
Mulching: An Extra Task?
Strapped for time, many of us busy gardeners barely find time to plant and harvest, let alone keep everything weeded. When it comes to mulch, it may seem like an extra task on the to-do list, but it is an essential component of the permaculture garden. Mulch will create a healthier ecosystem and reduce the amount of time required for other maintenance tasks.
WHAT IS MULCH?
Mulch is a biodegradable layer of organic material added to the top of soil in a garden or landscaping. In the permaculture garden, mulch mimics the forest floor, which is usually covered with herbs and shrubs, sticks and twigs, and leaf litter.
In nature, bare soil equals damaged soil.
WHY MULCH?
Mulch does all of the following good things:
Retains moisture
Prevents erosion (See 5 Ways to Prevent Erosion
Creates humus
Fertilizes
Suppresses weeds
Makes an attractive top dressing
Note: Your mulching practice will have a lot to do with your climate and season. Gardeners in hot/dry climates will mulch more thickly to retain more moisture and protect from the hot sun. Gardeners in cool/wet climates will use a thinner mulch that will protect the soil from washing away while allowing excess moisture to evaporate to reduce fungal issues.
In my climate, where we have cool/wet springs and hot/dry summers, I mulch lightly in the spring and thickly during other times of the year.
Mulch is a crucial element in the no-till garden.
TYPES OF MULCHES AND THEIR USES
I like to focus on using plants and free materials as mulch. I’ll review types of mulch such as living mulch, green mulch, leaf mulch, and what I call my ‘magic mulch combo’.
Living Mulch
Living plants—either annual or perennial—planted underneath a primary crop will help to suppress weeds, retain moisture, reduce soil erosion, and create habitat for beneficial insects.
Use annual plants as mulch in the vegetable garden, and perennial plants as mulch under perennial crops such as fruit trees.
Many people wonder whether a living mulch will smother the primary crop. Consider the forest or prairie, where plant species naturally grow intertwined or close together. Different plants have different root structures; some are shallow and wide, while others are narrow and deep. A variety of root structures planted next to one another will not compete for nutrients.
One of my favorite living mulch + vegetable combinations is Swiss chard and sweet alyssum. I also like to plant comfrey under my fruit trees.
A Few Examples of Living Mulches
Annual Mulches Perennial Mulches nasturtium comfrey sweet alyssum rhubarb calendula thyme oregano white clover
Green Mulch
Green mulch is also called “chop-and-drop” mulch: Green weeds or other plants that are cultivated to protect bare soil and provide nutrients (fertilizer) to major crops.
Have you ever wondered why many of those pesky weeds have such deep taproots?
Dandelions, for example, heal bare earth by dredging up nutrients with its deep roots. We can take advantage of this free and abundant resource by mulching and fertilizing with dandelion leaves.
Learn more about weeds: when weeds are good and 5 weeds you want in your garden.
Common Green Mulches (Many are Weeds)
Rhubarb Leaves, Lamb’s Quarters (5) Chickweed (3) Parsley (4) Chives (2) Purslane (3) Comfrey (6) Yarrow (4) Dandelion (7)
(#) indicates the number of nutrients the plant accumulates in its leaves
Chart information above is taken from Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition
To use weeds for green mulch, cut them at the base, leaving their roots intact to feed beneficial soil organisms. Chop the green matter roughly into 2-3 inch pieces, and lay the green mulch on top of the soil beneath (but not touching) the garden crops. For a more attractive look, green mulch can be topped with a layer of leaf mulch or wood chips (see ‘Magic Mulch Combo’ below.)
Would you like to learn more about improving the biodiversity of your garden, reducing maintenance, and increasing yield?
You’ll find loads of information just like this in my book, The Suburban Micro-Farm.
Leaf Mulch
Leaf mulch is an attractive top-dressing in the garden, but also helps retain moisture. We collect leaves from many of our neighbors, shred them with the lawn mower or leaf mulcher, and pile them in wire bins for use throughout the year.
Walnut leaves should not be used, as they have a chemical called juglone that suppresses healthy plant growth in all but a few plants. Oak leaves should be used only when mixed with other leaves because they break down slowly and contain tannins that can affect the soil composition.
Leaf mold (leaves that have composted for 2-3 years) is an excellent soil conditioner.
Wood Chips
Wood chips can be delivered—often for free—from local tree services (giving the driver a tip may ensure more deliveries in your future!). Wood chips are a perfect mulch to use around perennials. They should never make contact with the stems or trunks of the plants.
Wood chips that have broken down for 2-3 years are a gold mine of a soil conditioner. Use them without caution in the vegetable garden, under fruit trees as an attractive top dressing, or in the ‘Magic Mulch Combo’ in place of leaves.
*Magic Mulch Combo*
A study was done at Michigan State University in the 1990s that researched leaf mulch and whether it contributed to weed suppression or fertilization. The researchers found that leaf mulch did not serve much value as a weed suppressor or fertilizer source by itself.
When coupled with a nitrogen source (think green mulch), the weed suppression and fertilization levels went up. So I’m a proponent of composting in place just like you would in your compost bin, by layering the greens and the browns.
Though I use many types of green mulch around the garden, my favorite combo is using the abundant grass clippings from my neighbor. We piled them thickly–about 1 to 2 inches–in the garden beds (but not touching the plants) and topped with an equally thick layer of shredded leaves.
The gardens are happy, I’ve kept more organic material out of the waste stream, weeds are few, and it looks appealing with the leaf mulch on top. It also solved my problem of not having enough room in the compost bins to accommodate all of the grass clippings from the neighbors.
Preparing the Garden for Winter
Another ‘Magic Mulch’ option is using composted animal manure (horse, cow, chicken, rabbit, etc.) in place of green mulch. In the fall spread a thick layer of composted manure over the beds and top with a layer of shredded leaves or composted wood chips. This will not only protect the soil from the harsh winter temps, but it will also help to improve soil quality.
Note: Ask questions about the origin of the manure. Unfortunately, manure can be laced with herbicides if the animals ate from pasture that was sprayed, or it can contain pharmaceuticals.
More mulching ideas:
All in all, mulching is an important component of lasting soil health, water conservation, and time savings for the gardener. When the soil is happy, the plants will be happy, too, and you will experience fewer pest problems. You’ll thrive as a gardener, and will regenerate your soil’s fertility over time. This is part of the process of connecting to our place as active residents.
Need more ideas for building soil in the permaculture garden?
Click here to get your 19-page Guide to Organic Soil Amendments!
READ NEXT:
What’s your favorite way to mulch?Burma Burma Ranked World’s 2nd Most Generous Nation
Burma ranks near the top of a list gauging global generosity, with the Southeast Asian country’s deeply karmic mindset a likely motivator for its benevolence.
RANGOON — Burma has been ranked near the top of a list gauging global generosity, with the Southeast Asian country’s deeply karmic mindset a likely motivator for its benevolence.
Behind only the United States and tied with Canada and New Zealand, Burma this month was ranked as the world’s second-most generous nation in a survey of 160 countries conducted by the UK-based Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).
The index was based on charitable tendencies, and measured the frequency of charitable behavior in three categories: the percentage of people who, in a typical month, donated money to charity, volunteered their time and helped a stranger.
Burma excelled particularly in the cash donations category. The survey found that 85 out of 100 people in Burma donated to social or religious organizations on a monthly basis.
“For what purpose they donated and to whom is not specified in the index,” said Naing Oo, a Burmese writer. “People donate with the expectation of having a better next life. People are not motivated to donate for education or health, but to build a pagoda or monastery. They may use millions of kyats. It’s Burmese moral instinct.”
The United States ranked first in the index, lifted into the top spot by Americans’ proclivity for helping strangers. Seventy-seven percent of Americans said they helped a stranger in a typical month.
Donation to religious causes is rooted in Burma’s majority-Buddhist culture, at the expense, Naing Oo said, of charitable giving to social institutions.
“It’s not wrong to donate to a monastery or pagoda, but people want to do it too much because they think they earn merit with donations to religious or spiritually affiliated matters,” Naing Oo told The Irrawaddy.
Burma also did well in the volunteering category, tied for fourth place on the index with the Philippines. A culture of volunteerism in Burma grew in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, which hit the Irrawaddy Delta in 2008, killing an estimated 140,000 people.
Aung Kyaw Phyo, a teacher at the Volunteer Internship Program in Rangoon, said he volunteered because he found it to be a meaningfully way to spend his time while also benefitting others.
“It’s Burmese’s moral instinct to help, even to strangers,” Naing Oo said.
However, Kyaw Thu, founder of the Free Funeral Service Society (FFSS), said the same Buddhist mindset that directed funds toward pagodas instead of social causes could limit generosity in Burma.
“Some people discriminate based on religion in the people they help. It shouldn’t be that way,” said Kyaw Thu, whose FFSS provides free funeral services to people who cannot afford to bury their loved ones. “We help anyone based on humanity, not discriminating on nationality, religion, rich or poor.”
Buddhist notions of karma stipulate that one’s actions—and generosity—in this life have a direct bearing on the form in which the individual will be reincarnated in his or her next life.
“We can see grand buildings for monasteries, while schools are in a shabby condition,” said Naing Oo. “Burmese understand merits affiliated with religion. That’s the reason that they don’t want to donate much to schools or libraries, whereas charity in the West is the other way around.”
“Burma was the country with the largest proportion of people donating money to a charity [85%]. This highlights the fact that giving is about more than just wealth,” stated a press release from Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), a reference to the fact that Burma is one of Asia’s most impoverished nations.Since 2004, Google has been working with university and research libraries to create digital scans of their collections. Of the approximately seven million books that Google has already scanned, four million to five million are out of print.
Google now makes the content of those books available in its book search service but shows only snippets of text, unless it has permission from the copyright holder to show more.
Under the agreement, Google will now show up to 20 percent of the text at no charge to users. It will also make the entire book available online for a fee. Universities, libraries and other organizations will be able to buy subscriptions that make entire collections of those books available to their visitors.
“This huge body of books that were effectively lost to the marketplace are being rescued,” said James Gleick, the author of five books and a member of the board of the Authors Guild, one of the plaintiffs in the suit.
Google plans to take 37 percent of the revenue, leaving 63 percent for publishers and authors. If Google sells ads on pages where previews of scanned books appear, it will split the revenue on the same basis.
The settlement being paid by Google will go in part to establish a digital book registry that will administer the new system. The money will also be used to resolve existing claims by authors and publishers and cover legal fees. At least $45 million is being designated to compensate authors and publishers whose books were scanned by Google before the settlement.
“We as publishers are encouraging the widest possible digital discovery for books, while ensuring the best possible commercial prospects for those books across both print and electronic markets,” said Richard Sarnoff, chairman of the Association of American Publishers, at a press conference Tuesday morning.
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Sergey Brin, a Google co-founder and its president of technology, said in an interview that the broader book search service was “the kind of thing we built the company to do.”
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He added: “The thing that really made it come together is the shared vision of enabling people to get access to this information and enabling the rights holders to be compensated for it.”
Google has long said that the scanning project was part of its mission to provide access to all the world’s information.
Some authors and publishers hailed the agreement, saying it finally recognized their right to be compensated for their works and to control their distribution.
“It really says that individual authors can still survive in the Internet age and are not going to get dropped off the cliff,” said Paul Dickson, author of 50 books and one of the named plaintiffs in the Authors Guild suit.
But some librarians and legal experts worried that the deal would give Google too much control over books and other materials that are the backbone of the nation’s library system.
“On the one hand, one admires all of Google’s inventions,” said Rick Prelinger, board president of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization that has scanned and made available online one million public domain books. “But when you start to see a single point of access developing for world culture, by default, it is disturbing.”
The settlement of the lawsuits, which were filed in 2005, did not resolve the question of whether Google’s unauthorized scanning of copyrighted books was permissible under copyright law.
Still, publishers were claiming victory, noting that under the settlement, publishers and authors must give permission for snippets of their in-print books to be included in Google’s search program. Google had argued that under the “fair use” doctrine of copyright law, it did not need such permission.
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“I think that it is a stupendous victory for rights holders of the written word, because it has established that we should and must maintain control over the intellectual property that writers create and that we invest in,” said Carolyn Reidy, chief executive of Simon & Schuster, one of the parties to the suit brought on behalf of the Association of American Publishers.
Ms. Reidy added that she did not view the settlement merely as a victory for publishers and authors, but also as an opportunity, enabled by Google. “Not only did we win our point, we also did so while enabling Google to move forward in creating opportunities for authors in the future,” she said.
Google said its decision to no longer show snippets for in-print books without permission was made simply to secure the settlement.
“It is not a concession of our legal position,” said David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer.Playing with others is at the core of the World of Warcraft experience. Whether it's simply coming across another player while questing and giving a /wave, joining a quick group to take down an elite, jumping into a dungeon, or running a raid, being in a world full of other players is what the game is all about. And there's no bigger or more coordinated player congregation than a guild.
Guilds have existed in World of Warcraft from day one, but we've always wanted players who were in guilds to have some progression to work toward with their friends and guildmates beyond simply downing bosses, as well as a way to better recognize their accomplishments and show them off. In Cataclysm we've added some features to support that goal in the form of a new guild UI, levels, perks, achievements, reputation, and rewards.
While playing the game with your guild you'll earn guild experience, level the guild up, earn perks, chase guild achievements, earn personal reputation with your guild, and unlock purchasable rewards. These are all part of the larger whole we call Guild Advancement.
Guild Experience and Perks
With the new Guild Advancement system, members can help contribute guild experience to level up their guild in a similar manner to how you'd level up a character. Through a number of personal or group actions that each guild member undertakes, the guild earns experience. The experience in turn goes toward raising the guild's level. Guild members can contribute experience to their guild level by completing quests, daily quests, killing dungeon and raid bosses with a group comprised of at least 80% guild members, and winning rated Battleground matches with a group comprised of at least 80% guild members.
An exception to the 80% rule is for five-person dungeons, which only require 3/5 people to be in the guild to earn guild experience and achievements.* The amount of experience gained scales, with 3/5 guild members granting 50% normal guild xp, 4/5 giving 100%, and 5/5 giving 125% guild xp. The amount gained from each boss scales with your level relative to the boss's level, with Heroic bosses worth even more (1.5x). It pays off to have a full group of guild members!
Another exception is when visiting the older 40-person raids, which only require 25% guild participation (10 members) to earn experience and achievements.
As your guild gains levels, you unlock unique powers called perks at a rate of one perk per guild level. Currently guilds can level up through 25 individual levels, each with its own perk. Perks affect every member of your guild, and grant a variety of useful benefits -- netting extra gold from mobs, earning more experience from your kills, increasing mount speed, a mass resurrection spell helping you bounce back from those inevitable raid wipes, and more. The perks currently affecting your character can be viewed in a new tab available on your spell book.
The rate of guild leveling is similar to an individual player's leveling curve -- in other words, earlier levels require less experience and are gained more quickly than later levels. However, there's a cap on how much guild experience can be accrued per day to help ensure guilds of smaller sizes can maintain some pace with the larger ones. This cap can be seen in the guild interface as a blue section of un-gained experience, and/or arrow pointing to the daily cap. Helpful if it's already been reached. The daily cap on guild experience, however, is removed at level 23, allowing each guild to progress at their own pace from that point to level 25.*
Guild Reputation and Rewards
While your guild as a whole unlocks perks with guild experience, your individual contributions also improve your personal standing within the guild, measured as guild reputation.
Guild reputation works like earning reputation with a faction -- your reputation with your guild starts at neutral and levels to exalted (though, unlike faction reputation, there's a weekly cap on how much guild reputation you can earn). The exact same activities that earn experience for your guild (completing quests, killing bosses, and winning rated Battleground matches), as well as earning guild achievements, will raise your reputation with your guild. Just like guild experience, you can see how much additional reputation you can earn each week with your guild as a blue section and arrow pointing to your weekly cap.*
Increasing your guild reputation grants a number of benefits in the form of guild rewards which are purchased from a guild vendor. Guild Vendors can be found at the Visitor's Center in all capital cities, right next to the Guild Master NPC. Most guild rewards require guild achievements or a specific guild level to unlock, and then a personal guild reputation requirement for each guild member to purchase them. Guild rewards differ from guild perks as they require personal reputation with the guild to access, require gold to purchase, and are generally physical rewards and not guild-wide passive bonuses like most guild perks.
Purchasable guild rewards come in many forms, including extra tabs for your guild bank, guild cloaks that customize your look and provide mechanical benefits, heirlooms, recipes, pets, unique guild mounts, and more.
It's important to note that if you leave your guild and join a new one your reputation with the previous guild is removed and your reputation with the new guild will be set to neutral. If you leave your guild and don't join a new one you have the ability to rejoin your previous guild and keep all of your previous reputation. Whether you rejoin or not you'll keep any rewards you purchased, but will of course lose the unlocked guild perks.
Guild UI
Along with the guild advancement features, the entire guild interface has been revamped and improved.
The main Guild tab (J) is there to bring much of the immediate information you'd want right to the front page. Displaying highlights of recent events, the guild level, perks, and your guild reputation. For more information on recent events you'll want to click on the News tab of the guild UI, which will show a history of guild activity including achievements, bosses downed, epic loots looted, and guild advancement progress.
An updated Roster tab allows guild members to easily browse and sort their guild members by a number of categories, including by their status, contribution to the guild's advancement, and (potentially the most useful) by profession. Sorting by profession allows anyone to easily browse for guild members that have a specific profession, what skill level they're at, and directly view their recipe collection. They don't have to be online, either!
Although there are a number of other nuances and improvements throughout the guild UI, you'll want to be sure to check your achievement interface (Y) as a new tab has appeared at the bottom. Achievements are part of unlocking a number of guild rewards; see where you can help out!
We plan to keep building on the guild features and advancement system and adding to it as times goes on. All you need to do is sound the recruiting call, gather your group, and set out to strengthen your guild. It's time for you and your guildmates to leave an even bigger footprint on the world of Azeroth!
* Available with patch 4.0.6Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius said Friday that Mykola Zelenec, the country's honorary consul in eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk, has been kidnapped and killed by the pro-Russian rebels there.
Linkevicius, who is on a visit to Kyiv, posted the news on his Twitter account.
The announcement came after local officials in Ukraine said 20 trucks had entered the pro-Russian stronghold of Luhansk on Friday, despite objections from Kyiv. Lithuania had requested a meeting of the Security Council for late on Friday, describing the convoy as an "invasion."
In a phone call to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Putin said after Kyiv's "clear procrastination," further delays would have been "unacceptable" considering the disaster in the conflict zone. Ukraine's state security chief Valentin Nalivaychenko on Friday said Moscow's decision to start sending the trucks across the border constituted a "direct invasion" and a "well-planned dangerous provocation," according to the Interfax Ukraine news agency. He added that Ukraine would not attack the convoy and wanted to avoid any confrontations.
Alarming buildup of Russian forces
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Friday there was an "alarming buildup" of Russian air and ground forces around Ukraine.
"We have also seen transfers of large quantities of advanced weapons, including tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery to separatist groups in eastern Ukraine," Rasmussen said in a statement.
He sharply criticized Moscow's decision to send the convoy forcefully over the border, saying it was a "blatant breech of Russia's international commitments" and that it "only deepens the crisis."
"The disregard of international humanitarian principles raises further questions about whether the true purpose of the aid convoy is to support civilians or to resupply armed separatists," he added.
Humanitarian crisis
A humanitarian disaster has been unfolding in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks. According to the United Nations, more than 415,000 people have been displaced since fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists began four months ago. More than 2,000 have been killed. Parts of the country have been without running water or electricity for weeks.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Saturday.
rc/sb (AFP, AP, Reuters)If you own the DJI Mavic Pro, you’re probably looking to protect your investment and make sure you get the most of your new drone. Below you will find some of our favorite and best accessories for the DJI Mavic Pro.
Extra Battery — $89 on Amazon
The one thing you’ll find yourself immediately looking to buy is an extra battery for your Mavic. The battery gets you 27 minutes of flight time, so having a spare or two doesn’t hurt. You can find them on Amazon with 1-day prime shipping.
5 In 1 Rapid Battery Charger — $59 on Amazon
This charging hub can charge 3 batteries at one time, giving them a full charge in just 1 hour. It also features 2x dual USB to charge both controller and phone!
DJI Mavic Car Charger — $49 on Amazon
Not only is the Mavic Car Charger useful to recharge your batteries while driving, but it will also charge them even faster than your wall charger. That’s because a standard wall charger is 50w and the Car charger is 75w.
Smatree D500 Storage Carrying Case — $49.99 on Amazon
This case is a favorite amongst Mavic owners. It has the ability to hold the Mavic plus 3 extra batteries (4 in total!) along with the controller, and even has extra space for the wall/car charger, or other accessories you want to bring along.
Xberstar Rugged Carry Case — $32.99 on Amazon
Similar to the Smatree but slight cheaper, this case is by Xberstar is super compact and it will fit the Mavic, 2 batteries, controller, as well as the charger or accessories.
Propeller Holder by SKYREAT — $9.99 on Amazon
DJI Mavic Gimbal Cover & Clamp Combo — $7.50 on Amazon
This gimbal cover has a built in gimbal holder on the cover, we have also found this is the easiest one to put on your drone — even easier than the one that comes with the Mavic!
Right Angled Lightning Cable — $10 on Amazon
The Mavic Pro can fit an iPad Mini insider the controller, and if you set it up this way we highly recommend this right angled cable on Amazon. It’s the perfect length of 7" and comes in a little plastic keychain that you can break off.
iPad Mini Adapter — $35 on Etsy
If you want to mount your iPad Mini on top of your controller, this vendor on Etsy has designed and 3D prints the adapter. Keep in mind you will need a spare lightning cable to plug in the ipad. The perfect length for no slack is an 8" cable. We could only find a 3 pack on amazon for $10.99
64Gb Micro SD Card — $14.99 on Amazon
The DJI Mavic Pro comes with a 16Gb Micro SD card, which is great to get you started. If you want to increase the capacity and take longer video in 4k, it’s a small investment to make for 4x the storage. This one is compatible since it’s Class 10 and UHS-1 rated (Mavic Pro SD Card Max capacity = 64 GB)
PolarPro Katana — DJI Mavic Cinema Tray ($49.99)
This is one of the most useful accessories for your drone, because it turns it into a handheld gimbal — allowing you to use your Mavic as an all-in-one every day camera. Keep footage consistent from your handheld shots to your sky shots!
PolarPro ND Filters 3-pack — $49.99 on Amazon
ND Filters are also a must have when filming aerial photography with the DJI Mavic Pro. This 3 pack includes a CP filter to reduce glare and increase color saturation, and ND filter to reduce shutter speed for smooth cinematic videos, and an HD glass filters to get razor sharp clarity and optics.
Propeller Guard Bumper — $11.99 on Amazon
These prop guards are useful for the Mavic, so you can protect your drone in case it bumps into anything. It’s useful for flying indoor, near people, or anywhere the Mavic will be flying in close quarters.
Lens Hood Sun Shade — $22.99 on Amazon
Prevent glare and lens flare by using this lens hood. If you fly in direct sunlight, you will notice the glare and even sometimes flickering in your footage, coming off the blades from the drone.
This Sun Shade can also protect your gimbal in the event of a crash!
Controller transport clip protector — $10 on Amazon
If you prefer to carry your drone in your own bag, this transport clip will protect the control sticks. Whether in your pocket or in your backpack, the clip secures the control sticks so that they can’t get caught and damaged.Colleen Tatum, 34, a mother to three children four and under, runs an automotive services company with her husband and was elected to city council this spring. (Peter Power for the Globe and Mail) Those who leave and those who stay Forget oil prices or the environment – the real tension in a maturing Fort McMurray, Peter Scowen finds, is between newcomers looking to cash in and move on and residents who want to build something that lasts
It’s a cold Saturday evening but, inside the night club, things are getting hot. Prostitutes in racy underwear are gyrating on customers’ laps while the band plays loudly on the balcony and the emcee simulates obscene acts with two dancers. Some of the regulars are drinking themselves into oblivion. Who knows? Maybe they just lost their jobs. The economy is tanking, after all. But what good is sitting alone in your room?
Welcome to Fort McMurray, the 2015 version. The night club in question is the infamous but fictional Kit Kat, and its louche decadence – once the trademark of this northern oil boom town – exists only on stage in an amateur production of the musical, Cabaret.
At the intermission, the audience of 600 sips white wine in the lobby. After the final curtain, they get in their SUVs and pickups and go home to liberate the babysitter and walk the dog. Maybe home is one of the new detached houses in Thickwood and Timberlea, the quiet suburbs north of the Athabasca River. Maybe it’s a nice condo overlooking the Clearwater River, or one of the fancier places in Waterways, the oldest part of town.
Compared with the Kit Kat, the city’s real bars and clubs are quiet, and it’s not because of the current drop in oil prices.
The truth is, the lurid 2006 version of Fort McMurray embedded in the Canadian imagination – the wild-west town where transient oil workers with pockets full of cash abuse drugs and alcohol, and prostitutes solicit clients outside the 7-Eleven on Franklin Avenue – is gone. Less than 10 years after being swallowed whole by the social disruptions inherent to boom towns, this city has pulled itself together.
Today, Fort McMurray is a family town. Nestled along the Athabasca and Clearwater rivers a half-hour drive south of the oil sands, it’s a city of 75,000 with an aging, slightly seedy downtown surrounded by comfy suburban developments and dotted with large, pleasant green spaces. Indie coffee joints and hipster eateries compete with the usual food franchises and family-run ethnic restaurants. There are shiny new schools as well as elaborate recreational and arts facilities, almost all sponsored by industry.
A whopping 69 per cent of residents are married, according to an eye-opening survey done last year by the Canadian Index of Wellbeing at the University of Waterloo. (The national average is 47 per cent.) There are more than 100 live births a month at the hospital. The local malls and grocery stores suffer stroller gridlock.
But as Fort Mac grows up, new fault lines are being exposed. There is a growing gap between the living conditions of newcomers and lower-income earners and those who own homes or condos in the subdivisions. As well, the results of the wellbeing survey point to a potential mental-health crisis. People here work long, gruelling shifts while trying to raise a family, and they are clearly feeling the stress.
Boom town turned young family town While comparative national statistics are not available, findings from surveys conducted for the Canadian Index of Wellbeing may challenge some assumptions about Fort McMurray
Then there’s the question of the future.
On Wednesday, a group of prominent Canadian and U.S. scientists and academics called for a moratorium on further development of the oil sands. On Tuesday, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said the industry faces a decade of slow production caused by fal-ling crude prices and worries about higher royalties and environmental costs under the province’s newly elected New Democratic Party government.
But possibly the biggest blow came Monday, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper signed a declaration committing G7 nations to the “decarbonization of the global economy” by 2100. He subsequently qualified the goal as “aspirational,” but that doesn’t change the fact that the world has basically put an expiration date on Fort McMurray just as a new generation of residents is more determined than ever to bring a sense of permanence to their home.
The unresolved tensions between Fort McMurray’s past, present and future have led to a bitterness among many residents. There is an abiding suspicion that people in the “south” deliberately discount the fact that Fort Mac has become a modern, livable city, preferring to see it only as the remote headwaters of a river of oil royalties.
In fact, Alberta doesn’t even consider Fort McMurray a city, even though it’s far bigger than officially designated cities such as Airdrie, Grande Prairie and Medicine Hat. It used to be a city, until the province amalgamated it as one of eight “hamlets” in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in 1995. Most of the RMWB, a giant inverted apostrophe the size of Nova Scotia, is muskeg and boreal forest. The next-biggest hamlet, Fort Chipewyan, has a population under 1,000.
The region’s total population is approximately 116,000, including the work camps in the oil sands. But most of the roughly 35,000 workers in those camps at any one time never even see Fort McMurray; the planes bringing them |
Founders in 1930. The typeface is an exploration of geometric forms, and is contemporary with the rectilinear slab serif typeface City by Georg Trump. The typeface also bears comparison with late-nineteenth-century engraving faces.
In the 1980s, Mergenthaler Linotype Company created a digital version that includes small caps characters to map onto the lowercase keys of the keyboard. At the time, Linotype only digitized the medium weight of the family, and no PostScript version has been made.
Cuts [ edit ]
Bank Gothic Pro [ edit ]
In 2010, FontHaus released an updated revival of the original Bank Gothic complete with a lowercase, a complement of small caps and a new suite of punctuation glyphs. The family consists of Light, Medium and Bold weights in both a regular and a condensed style. The new lowercase characters did not exist with the original release and were modeled after many similar Morris Fuller Benton designs released by The American Type Founders Company in the 1930s. Bank Gothic is a registered trademark of Grosse Pointe Group LLC, and is licensed exclusively through DsgnHaus, Inc. operating as FontHaus.
DeLuxe Gothic [ edit ]
In 2003, letterforms artist Michael Doret began work on DeLuxe Gothic—a derivative version of American Type Founder's Bank Gothic. Unlike the 1930s original, Doret’s font contains lowercase characters. The DeLuxe Gothic Family was released in OpenType format in 2010 by Alphabet Soup Type Founders with both regular and condensed styles as well as traditional shortcaps. DeLuxe Gothic was the name originally used by the Intertype Corporation for its version of Morris Fuller Benton's Bank Gothic. Prior to its September 8, 2010 release, it was known as Bank Gothic AS.
Morris Sans [ edit ]
In 2005, Linotype editor Dan Reynolds began work on the Morris Sans family, a revised and extended Bank Gothic. The revised design includes lowercase letters, and redesigned letters %, ‰, Ø, §, ƒ, Ç. A base is also added to the numeral 1.
The font family comes in 3 weights and 2 widths. OpenType features include small caps, old style figures, proportional lining figures. It supporting ISO Adobe 2, Adobe CE, Latin extended Character sets.
Squarish Sans CT [ edit ]
Squarish Sans is a typeface under development as of September 2014. It was developed specifically to address the need of open-source software having access to this popular design, and is thus under the terms of the Open Font License. It was first publicly distributed, in a preliminary but very usable state, with Aleph One 1.0 in 2011.[1] It follows DeLuxe Gothic and Morris Sans in containing true lowercase characters, as well as small caps. While other cuts usually include only Latin and maybe Cyrillic characters, Squarish Sans offers Greek, Hebrew, and a large number of non-alphabetic (e.g. mathematical) symbols as well.[2]
Popular use [ edit ]
TV series [ edit ]
Bank Gothic is often used for opening credits in TV series, such as 24, Battlestar Galactica, Drake & Josh, The King of Queens, ER, NCIS, Robot Wars, The Event, Falling Skies, Terra Nova, Crisis, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
The Amazing Race replaced Microgramma with Bank Gothic as the main font used in the show, although Microgramma is still used on the logo and clues. The sitcom Just Shoot Me! also used the font for its title logo and credit type from the start of the third season until midway through its fifth season. The Nick GaS logo has the letters "G" and "S" set in Bank Gothic. It was also used as the font for Series 1 and 2 of the UK Channel 4 game show The Crystal Maze.
Bank Gothic is also used in the motifs of graphical user interfaces on several shows (often referred to in art direction terms as "playback"), including Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Universe and Dark Matter.
Telecasts of the XFL used Bank Gothic as the base font for all on-screen graphics.
Movies [ edit ]
Bank Gothic has been used heavily in posters and advertising for movies in the 2000s, particularly action movies; it has been used for either the opening credits, closing credits or the promotional materials of The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Hancock (2008), Jumper (2008), Eagle Eye (2008), Knowing (2009), The International (2009), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), A Perfect Getaway (2009), Moon (2009), Clash of the Titans (2010), Despicable Me (2010), Seeking Justice (2011), Battle: Los Angeles (2011), Real Steel (2011), Cars 2 (2011) The Hunger Games (2012), Wrath of the Titans (2012), Despicable Me 2 (2013), and Edge of Tomorrow (2014).
Bank Gothic was also used in the movie RoboCop (1987) when the view transitions to RoboCop's point of view.
Video games [ edit ]
It has also been used in these video games: GoldenEye 007, Descent: FreeSpace, FreeSpace 2, StarCraft, Hitman: Contracts, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty: Ghosts, and Call of Duty: Black Ops. The typeface was used extensively in packaging and advertising of Bungie's Marathon series, and entire manuals were laid out in Bank Gothic. A derivative of Bank Gothic is used as the official Nintendo GameCube logo typeface.
Some of the games from the Grand Theft Auto series, most notably Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto IV also make use of the font for packaging, manuals and various game interface elements.
Television news [ edit ]
The typeface is a popular font for the use of digital on-screen graphics for local and national television news, seeing heavy use by the stations owned by Hearst Television since the 1990s, along with CBS News. Between 1998 and 2001, it was also used on Granada Television's regional news programme, Granada Tonight (now called ITV News Granada Reports).
Computers and electronics [ edit ]
The Das Keyboard Professional uses Bank Gothic for its keycap font. Also, Quantum Accessories uses Bank Gothic for its logo.
Mac OS X installation [ edit ]
Mac OS X contains a Bank Gothic release in Light and Medium weights. Intended for use by a limited number of applications such as iWork and iDVD, it is not made available to all programs as with other fonts. It may be installed for general use by copying the font files out of their location with other application support files, and installing them in the same way as third-party fonts.[3] Apple's reasons for hiding this font have not been made public, but licensing reasons[citation needed] have been suggested as the cause.
References [ edit ]A man has been arrested in connection with the murder of a Texas A&M student.
Victor Manuel Garcia-Loyo was taken into custody in Fort Worth.
He is charged with Murder, and is in the Brazos County jail on $500,000 bond.
College Station Police were called to the Scandia Apartments on Anderson Street Saturday night.
Officers found the body of 21 year old Maricarmen Quiroz-Octaviano.
Police say she had multiple gunshot wounds.
According to the arrest report, Garcia-Loyo told a friend that he was with Maricarmen inside of the apartment when an ex-boyfriend forced his way inside and started shooting at both of them.
Garcia-Loyo fled and told his friend that he drove home to the Bastrop area for treatment.
The Bastrop County Sheriff's office was unable to find him at his home.
Authorities pinged his cell phone and were able to track him down at a home in Fort Worth.
Police say they found evidence of wound care items in plain view and a wallet with Maricarmen's drivers license on the floor.
A backpack with bloody clothes and a handgun and ammunition were also found. Garcia-Loyo eventually confessed to police.
He says he got into a fight with Maricarmen on Saturday and shot her two times while she was inside of the bathroom and then fired more shots through the closed door before he left the apartment.
Maricarmen was a senior at A&M studying genetics. She also worked as a promotions assistant at 98.3 KORA and often co-hosted the Saturday morning show on sister station Radio Alegria 1240 AM. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family at this time.1 Newbie Corner Beginners' subforum for general Arch issues. Please consult the excellent Arch wiki and web before posting. Also try the forum search function at the upper left. (Moderated by 2ManyDogs, ewaller, fukawi2, HalosGhost, R00KIE, Slithery, V1del, WorMzy, Xyne) 59,321 394,394 Today 11:32:13 by Lone_Wolf
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6 Networking, Server, and Protection Networking, server (apache, php, mysql) and communications security (firewall, ssh) issues. (Moderated by 2ManyDogs, ewaller, fukawi2, HalosGhost, R00KIE, Slithery, V1del, WorMzy, Xyne) 15,401 78,880 Today 12:16:49 by unixman
7 Multimedia and Games Audio/Video/Image issues, playback, creation and editing. Also for games support and discussion. (Moderated by 2ManyDogs, ewaller, fukawi2, HalosGhost, R00KIE, Slithery, V1del, WorMzy, Xyne) 14,153 77,853 Today 09:08:38 by V1del
8 System Administration Technical, advanced and complex issues related to general system maintenance. (Moderated by 2ManyDogs, ewaller, fukawi2, HalosGhost, R00KIE, Slithery, V1del, WorMzy, Xyne) 1,418 8,187 2017-10-12 03:36:42 by ngooneeBack in 2011, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk gave U.S. president Barack Obama a copy of The Witcher 2, because it's pretty much the best thing Poland has ever done.
Sadly, Mr. Obama doesn't seem to have actually played it, as he reveals in this new talk recorded by Poland's TVN24. Here's the full quote, via a PR rep for The Witcher:
The last time I was here, Donald gave me a gift, the video game developed here in Poland that's won fans the world over, The Witcher. I confess, I'm not very good at video games, but I've been told that it is a great example of Poland's place in the new global economy. And it's a tribute to the talents and work ethic of the Polish people as well as the wise stewardship of Polish leaders like prime minister Tusk.
Really, The Witcher might be a little tough for someone who hasn't played that many video games. He and Michelle should check out Mario Kart 8.President Trump feeds fish with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on Nov. 6. (Toru Hanai/Pool photo via Associated Press)
Media critic
President Trump makes all kinds of news on his overseas trips. This is a fellow, after all, who’ll nudge a foreign leader aside for greater visibility. Who’ll skip a walk with his fellow Group of 7 leaders and wait for a golf cart. Or who’ll say whatever occurs to him.
So, by all means, watch his every move.
That’s apparently what CNN was doing when it published a story Monday under the headline, “Trump feeds fish, winds up pouring entire box of food into koi pond.” How is that newsworthy? Well, it’s newsworthy if Trump acted like a boor and pounded the precious koi with an overabundance of food. Such appears to be the case if you look at the video below, which starts with a shot of Trump, alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, flicking spoonfuls of food from a wooden box into the koi pond below. Then the shot narrows to Trump himself, and he empties the entire box.
President Trump feeds fish with PM Shinzo Abe in Japan, then pours the entire box of food into the koi pond. pic.twitter.com/CQjGGf5k0J — Veronica Rocha (@VeronicaRochaLA) November 6, 2017
Another instance of presidential boorishness abroad? As Mediaite pointed out, that’s how it played out among some media types. There’s that CNN headline, for starters, which places outsize significance on the president’s handling of the box. Jezebel headlines, “Big Stupid Baby Dumps Load Of Fish Food On Japanese Koi Pond.” The New York Daily News: “Photo of Donald Trump dumping fish food into koi pond during Japan visit draws Obama comparisons.” And more than one prominent journalist wrote tweets fixated on the fish-food box-dump.
A wider shot of the proceedings, however, shows that Trump was merely following the lead of his host:
So Trump was acting as a responsible guest, merely following the actions of Abe. The CNN story admits as much, noting that Abe “actually appeared to dump out his box of food ahead of Trump.”
In light of those facts, perhaps a new headline is in order: “Trump, Japanese PM both dump small boxes of fish food into koi pond.”President Trump casts shadows on the wall as he walks with Poland's President Andrzej Duda on Thursday in Warsaw. (Czarek Sokolowski/AP)
Being President Trump's lawyer means telling the courts that your client's comments shouldn't be taken literally — a lot. And it just happened again, this time when it comes to the women who accused Trump of unwanted sexual advances.
The Post's Rosalind S. Helderman writes about a strategy from Trump's personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz. It comes in a lawsuit brought by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos, who is accusing Trump of defamation for saying she had made up stories and lied about Trump. Kasowitz is asking that the suit be dismissed. (Emphasis added):
Kasowitz also argued that Zervos’s complaint should be dismissed because her original allegations against Trump were not true and, in addition, because Trump’s campaign-trail statements were protected by the First Amendment. A certain level of hyperbole is to be expected in the heat of a political campaign, he wrote, and such statements are legally protected speech. During the campaign, Trump said the women who accused against him of inappropriately touching them were putting forward “made-up stories and lies” and “telling totally false stories.” Kasowitz argued those statements and others could not be considered defamatory but instead were “nothing more than heated campaign rhetoric designed to persuade the public audience that Mr. Trump should be elected president irrespective of what the media and his opponents had claimed over his 18-month campaign.”
Here is the court filing, for those interested.
To be clear, Kasowitz isn't saying Trump was inaccurate when he said the women made up these stories; in fact, he's reiterating that their stories are false. But he's making a legal argument that Trump's comments should be held to a different standard because he was a candidate for office. Basically, he's trying to move the bar for defamation higher, even if Trump's comments were inaccurate. Which, again, he's saying they're not.
As a legal strategy, that might be a smart move. (I'm not a lawyer.) And Kasowitz cites precedent for campaign speech being held to a looser standard. But as a public-relations strategy, it is far less ideal. Kasowitz is at once backing up Trump's contentions that the women made up the stories and guarding against the possibility that they could be judged as over-the-top. In effect, he wants Trump's words to be taken seriously, not completely literally.
We've been here plenty of times before. Trump's literal comments about his proposed ban on all Muslim immigrants have repeatedly been cited by the courts in temporarily halting his travel ban executive orders. And a federal judge in Kentucky allowed a lawsuit to proceed against Trump for allegedly inciting violence at a campaign rally by citing Trump's admonitions that the crowd should remove a protester. “It is plausible that Trump’s direction to ‘get 'em out of here’ advocated the use of force,” U.S. District Judge David J. Hale wrote at the time. “It was an order, an instruction, a command.”
Trump's comments about his female accusers, it bears noting, often went far beyond just saying they made up the stories. He called them “horrible, horrible liars” and called one of them a “crazy woman.” He repeatedly seemed to suggest they weren't attractive enough for him to have done the things they accused him of. “You take a look. Look at her. Look at her words. You tell me what you think. I don’t think so,” he said. He urged supporters to look up another woman's Facebook page and said she “would not be my first choice.” He also accused them of seeking attention. “Some are doing it for probably a little fame,” he said. “They get some free fame.” So Trump has more to fend off than merely having said these women's stories were untrue or that they are liars.
But it's just remarkable to see Trump's lawyers have to contend, over and over again, that his words should not be taken at face value. For a president who has made more than 700 inaccurate claims in less than six months in office, you have to wonder whether he might be better suited toning down the hyperbole — if for no other reason than for his lawyers' sake.Obama discussing the Trans-Pacific Partnership in October. Photo by Martin H. Simon-Pool/Getty Images
The full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal is finally available to the public after the Obama administration released it early Thursday. You can find a PDF version here, and a slightly more Internet-friendly one on Medium.
TPP is a hotly contested deal in the United States that touches 12 countries and about 40 percent of the global economy. Its economic implications are vast. Supporters of TPP tout its ability to open up overseas markets for U.S. companies, while detractors worry that it will cause job losses and depress wages by increasing competition from low-wage workers in other parts of the world. Representatives from the 12 nations in the deal reached an agreement on it last month. Now that the White House has released the full text, it enters into a 90-day review period.
That TPP had previously been unavailable to the public was almost as controversial as the deal itself. In lieu of actual documents, the public was left with whatever information could be gleaned from the government and a few drafts published by Wikileaks. Here’s Slate’s Dan Gillmor on this point back in April:
You might expect that a deal affecting up to 40 percent of the global economy would get near-saturation coverage from political and business journalists. Wishful thinking, as usual. … Oh, there have been some stabs at serious analysis in the press, but most of the coverage has been the standard blend of stenography and rah-rah fluff. New York Times ubercommentator Thomas Friedman, a TPP supporter, transcended self-parody when he said on TV that he supported another trade deal without knowing what was in it, because “I just knew two words: free trade.”
At last, we can all know a good bit more than that.SUPPORTERS CALL ON TRUMP to Buy TV Time and Read Off Wikileaks Emails
There are calls on social media for Donald Trump to buy TV time and read off the damning Wikileaks emails.
The media will not report on the emails since they are involved in colluding with Hillary and Democrat Party.
@realDonaldTrump You will win if you buy half hour TV air time & read most damaging Wilileaks docs. MSM won't cover since they are involved — Jane Spillane (@jane_spillane) October 11, 2016
Or Trump could go live on Facebook, YouTube, Periscope and Twitter?
This would be BRILLIANT!
President @realDonaldTrump, this is a GREAT Idea! Go LIVE on Facebook, Periscope, and YouTube. MILLIONS will see! @DonaldJTrumpJr https://t.co/zbvZAhALUh — Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) October 11, 2016
Three cameras @DonaldJTrumpJr
1. Facebook live
2. Periscope
3. YouTube Wikileaks releases. Trump's own social media press conference! https://t.co/D6XaEceQIQ — Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) October 11, 2016The Wednesday-Thursday drama time slot is going through a shakeup as KBS’s “Chief Kim” leaves and MBC’s “Radiant Office” is on a rise.
On March 30, “Radiant Office” recorded its highest nationwide ratings yet of 6.0 percent, which is 0.6 percent higher than the previous episode. The drama started at 3.8 percent in its first episode and has continuously been gaining a larger viewer audience through word of mouth.
Though the drama is still in third place in its time slot, it is gradually catching up to SBS’s “Saimdang, Light’s Diary” at 9.3 percent. In first place for the night was KBS’s highly popular drama “Chief Kim,” which ended its last episode with ratings of 17.2 percent.
“Chief Kim” is set to be followed by “Queen of Mystery,” which will be helmed by Kwon Sang Woo and Choi Kang Hee. It will be interesting to see if the new drama will be able to capture the hearts of viewers as “Chief Kim” did, or whether “Radiant Office” will work its way to the top of the time slot.
Will you be checking out KBS’s new drama or are you watching “Radiant Office” or “Saimdang, Light’s Diary” already?
Source (1)WACO, Texas -- Baylor quarterback Bryce Petty is set to play against Kansas State on Saturday night, one week after suffering a concussion.
School officials said Friday that Petty has been medically cleared for the No. 6 Bears when they play the ninth-ranked Wildcats. The winner is guaranteed at least a share of the Big 12 title, with Baylor the defending champion.
Petty was a full participant in practice Thursday, though he was still progressing through the concussion protocol.
After taking a high hit midway through the third quarter in last Saturday's 48-46 win over Texas Tech, Petty came out of that game with what the team called a "mild concussion."
Even when he was still having headaches Monday, Petty said then he expected to play in the home finale against the Wildcats.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.Republican frontrunner wants ‘total and complete shutdown’ of borders to Muslims after San Bernardino shooting in latest boundary-pushing proposal
Donald Trump, the leading contender to become the Republican party’s nominee for US presidential candidate, has called for a “total and complete shutdown” of the country’s borders to Muslims in the wake of the San Bernardino terrorist attack.
Trump made his most extreme pledge yet – in a race in which he has consistently pushed the boat out on issues of race and immigration – in a statement released to the media through his presidential campaign team.
He said there was such hatred among Muslims around the world towards Americans that it was necessary to rebuff them en masse, until the problem was better understood.
Trump campaign: 'Nothing wrong' with banning Muslims from entering US Read more
“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” the billionaire real estate developer said.
Trump put out his incendiary proposal just hours before he was scheduled to appear at a rally on board the USS Yorktown, a second world war aircraft carrier that is berthed near Charleston, South Carolina. The military location was carefully chosen for an address that falls on the 74th anniversary of the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor that brought America into the war. After being interrupted several times aboard the ship, he said the proposal was “probably not politically correct, but I don’t care”.
To justify his extreme call for a total rejection of all Muslims seeking to enter the US, Trump turned to what he claimed to be polling data that underlined what he said was the violent hatred of followers of the faith toward Americans. However, the statement cites the Center for Security Policy, an organisation branded extremist by anti-race-hatred campaigners at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won’t convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women,” Trump’s “policy statement” said.
The former reality TV star added: “Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine.”
Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said Trump’s proposed ban would apply to “everybody”, including Muslims seeking immigration visas as well as tourists seeking to enter the country. Another Trump staffer confirmed that the ban would also apply to American Muslims who were currently overseas – presumably including members of the military and diplomatic service. “This does not apply to people living in the country,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News, “but we have to be vigilant.”
In an interview with the Guardian, Trump senior policy adviser Sam Clovis said: “I don’t think there is anything wrong about asking about religious affiliation.”
Trump’s remarks immediately drew condemnation from Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley, who tweeted: “@realdonaldtrump removes all doubt: he is running for President as a fascist demagogue.” Other politicians on both sides of the aisle quickly followed suit – including former vice-president Dick Cheney.
Trump faces backlash from both parties after call to bar Muslims entering US Read more
Trump has come under fire before for his contentious views on how to deal with the threat of domestic radicalization of Muslims. He has refused to rule out creating a government database of all American Muslims.
He has also called for the deportation of 11 million undocumented Hispanics, as well as said were he elected president, he would build a wall along the border with Mexico.
Since the Paris attacks orchestrated by Islamic State, and last week’s attack in San Bernardino, California by a married couple inspired by the terror group, Trump has sought to build his already substantial lead over his Republican presidential rivals by portraying himself as being tougher than all others on national security.
He responded in a tweet on Sunday night to President Obama’s Oval Office address on combating the Isis threat by saying: “Is that all there is? We need a new President – FAST!”
In his address to the nation on Sunday night, the president was at his most passionate when he made an appeal to Americans for tolerance in the aftermath of the California shooting.
Obama specifically sought to underscore that while Muslims have a responsibility to identify and reject extremism within their ranks, Americans cannot lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of Islam’s more than a billion followers are peaceful.
“We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam,” Obama said. “That, too, is what groups like Isil want. Isil does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers. Part of a cult of death. And they account for a tiny fraction of a more than a billion Muslims around the world, including millions of patriotic Muslim Americans who reject their hateful ideology.
“Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbors. Our co-workers. Our sports heroes. And, yes, they are our men and women in uniform who are willing to die in defense of our country,” he added. “We have to remember that.”
Trump’s threat was met with perplexed anger on the part of prominent Muslim American groups. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the largest such group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said on Twitter: “Where is there left for him to go? Are we talking internment camps? Are we talking the final solution?”
Obama condemned Islamophobia in America. It's time Republicans did, too | Nihad Awad Read more
Republican presidential rival Lindsey Graham, one of a number who have seen their prospects of making headway in the campaign subsumed by Trump’s dominance, said: “What has been in the past absurd and hateful has turned dangerous.”
He told the Guardian: “Donald Trump today took xenophobia and religious bigotry to a new level. His comments are hurting the war effort and putting our diplomats and soldiers serving in the Middle East at risk. The way to win this war is to reach to the vast majority of people in Islamic faith who reject Isil and provide them the capability to resist this ideology.
“Today’s statement embraces a ‘fortress America’ approach, is doomed to fail and shows a complete lack of understanding by Donald Trump as to what the war is all about. As to interpreters and others who have helped American military in Iraq and Afghanistan, this policy, if enacted, would be a death sentence.”
Trump’s choice of polling data to hold up his highly controversial views was in itself inflammatory. He cited data that purported to show that a quarter of those Muslims polled – Trump did not specify what the sample group was, nor even what part of the world he was referring to – “agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of global jihad”.
More than half of the unspecified sample group “agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah”.
The data was drawn from the Center for Security Policy, a neoconservative thinktank based in Washington DC whose founder and president, Frank Gaffney, is a prominent US Islamophobe. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate speech in the country, has described Gaffney as being “gripped by paranoid fantasies about Muslims destroying the west from within”.
The SPLC said that “Gaffney believes that ‘creeping Shariah’, or Islamic religious law, is a dire threat to American democracy”.
In 2011, Gaffney, a former Pentagon official in the Reagan administration, was barred from the influential Conservative Political Action Conference having suggested that two of its organizers had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Additional reporting by Ben Jacobs in WashingtonMagic Johnson says the first call he wants to make is to Kobe Bryant in hopes of having him join the Lakers' front office. (0:44)
Magic Johnson, who was hired earlier this month as an adviser to Los Angeles Lakers president and co-owner Jeanie Buss as she evaluates the direction of the franchise, said Tuesday that he would try to get Kobe Bryant to join him in the front office if Johnson's role evolves further.
"First call I make if I'm in charge? Kobe Bryant," Johnson said on ESPN's First Take. "Because Kobe understands winning. He understands, also, these players. I would call: 'What role you want?... If you've got a day, just give me that day.'
"I'll take that. Whatever time he has, I want him to come and be a part of it."
Johnson was scheduled to meet with Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak and co-owner and executive vice president of basketball operations Jim Buss on Monday to discuss the construction of the current team and the strategy heading into the Feb. 23 trade deadline.
The Lakers (19-37) have the second-worst record in the Western Conference.
Johnson has been vocal in saying that he'd like to "call the shots" and that the front office must work together.
"Everybody has to be on the same page right now," Johnson told ESPN on Monday. "What we should be concerned about is not just right now, but how it will affect the future of the Lakers. That's why we all have to be on the same page."
Johnson, 57, and Bryant, 38, each won five championship rings during their careers as Lakers players. Bryant retired after the 2015-16 season.* Brent turns positive ahead of settlement
* U.S. gasoline prices drop on Bayway refinery restart
* Brent premium to WTI near $17 a barrel (Recasts, changes throughout to reflect market action)
By Jeanine Prezioso
NEW YORK, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Brent crude settled slightly lower on Monday, paring losses as traders questioned how soon a nuclear deal between world powers and Iran could translate into higher supplies to global markets.
After trading down as much as $3 a barrel earlier in the session, the international benchmark swung higher in late activity, sending Brent’s premium to U.S. oil to fresh 8-month highs over $17 a barrel, before settling down just five cents.
Bearish sentiment following news of the weekend deal between the West and Tehran, which halts Iran’s most sensitive nuclear activity and suspends some sanctions by the United States and the European Union, was overcome late in the day by perceptions that it would not mean an immediate return of Iranian oil to markets.
Tough sanctions against Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program over the past two years have slashed exports from the OPEC member by more than half, keeping Brent above $100 a barrel.
“I think when people stepped back and looked at it, it doesn’t seem as if we’re on the verge of seeing Iranian supplies in the market,” said Gene McGillian, analyst, Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut, who noted support was also coming from ongoing supply outages from OPEC member Libya.
In the meantime, Iran is deploying more vessels to help store oil at sea and to enable it to conclude discreet sales by transferring cargoes to customers’ ships in mid-ocean without having to enter port, trade sources familiar with the matter said.
For full coverage of the accord click on
Brent fell 5 cents to settle at $111.00 a barrel, after dropping to as low as $108.05 earlier in the session.
U.S. crude gave up 75 cents to settle at $94.09 a barrel, with analysts noting that rising stockpiles of crude in the United States continued to weigh on the contract relative to Brent.
Brent’s premium to U.S. futures hit $17.41 a barrel in late activity, widest level since March, before settling at 16.91.
U.S. RBOB gasoline futures led the oil complex lower following news that Phillips 66’s Bayway refinery in New Jersey had returned from maintenance on a gasoline unit. The front-month RBOB contract traded down more than 1 percent in late activity.
Oil traders were also eyeing fresh violence in Libya, where exports have been running at a fraction of the levels seen earlier this year of more than 1 million barrels per day.
Libyan troops struggling to establish control across the country clashed with militants in the eastern city of Benghazi on Monday and at least nine people were killed in the fighting. (Additional reporting by Joshua Franklin in London and Sudip Kar-Gupta in London, Manash Goswami and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Singapore; Editing by James Jukwey, Jane Baird, Bob Burgdorfer and Chizu Nomiyama)Washington’s Blog
Sept 13, 2010 Sept 13, 2010
When stars use up their nuclear fuel, they turn into “white dwarf” stars. When white dwarf stars cool down, they crystallize.
In 2004, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovered a cooled white dwarf 50 light years away from Earth.
At the core of that cooling star is a diamond 2,500 miles across, which weighs 5 million trillion trillion pounds, or around 2 thousand trillion trillion tons, or approximately 10 billion trillion trillion carats.
As the Harvard-Smithsonian Center explained:
A white dwarf is the hot core of a star, left over after the star uses up its nuclear fuel and dies. It is made mostly of carbon. For more than four decades, astronomers have thought that the interiors of white dwarfs crystallized, but obtaining direct evidence became possible only recently. “The hunt for the crystal core of this white dwarf has been like the search for the Lost Dutchman’s Mine. It was thought to exist for decades, but only now has it been located,” says co-author Michael Montgomery (University of Cambridge). The white dwarf studied by Metcalfe, Montgomery, and Antonio Kanaan (UFSC Brazil), is not only radiant but also harmonious. It rings like a gigantic gong, undergoing constant pulsations. “By measuring those pulsations, we were able to study the hidden interior of the white dwarf, just like seismograph measurements of earthquakes allow geologists to study the interior of the Earth. We figured out that the carbon interior of this white dwarf has solidified to form the galaxy’s largest diamond,” says Metcalfe.
Having A Supply Of Healthy Foods That Last Just Makes Sense (AD)
Amazingly, according to the Harvard-Smithsonian team, our sun will also eventually become a giant diamond:
Our Sun will become a |
(EDUFI) recently renewed and expanded an existing partnership to support scholars, artists, and university students from conflict regions.
Nominations to the IIE Goldberg Prize Open Sep 28, 2018 IIE is pleased to announce the call for nominations for the annual Victor J. Goldberg IIE Prize for Peace in the Middle East. The Prize recognizes outstanding work being conducted jointly by two individuals working together to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East.
IIE Hosts Reception in Honor of United Nations General Assembly Sep 26, 2018 IIE President and CEO Allan E. Goodman hosted a reception, the Global Celebration of International Education and Engagement, at IIE's international headquarters in New York City to honor the opening of the United Nations General Assembly’s 73rd session.
IIE Releases Fourth IFP Report: Transformational Leaders and Social Change Sep 19, 2018 Investing in committed individuals from marginalized communities has a transformative effect on their lives, the communities in which they reside, and the organizations they are affiliated with, according the latest report from IIE's 10-year alumni tracking study of the Ford Foundation’s International Fellowships Program (IFP). Released today, Transformational Leaders and Social Change: IFP Impacts in Africa and the Middle East, provides important insights into the personal, organizational, community, and societal impacts of IFP alumni in Kenya, Nigeria, Palestine, and South Africa.
IIE Welcomes 2018 TechWomen Emerging Leaders to San Francisco Sep 17, 2018 Through TechWomen, a program that empowers emerging women leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to create positive impact in their fields and their communities, 100 emerging women leaders from 20 countries will visit the United States for five weeks of peer-to-peer networking and mentoring at Bay Area tech companies.
Brazilian University to Offer Fellowships for Interdisciplinary Research Sep 17, 2018 IIE will administer a fellowship program on behalf of the University of Fortaleza (UNIFOR) bringing North American and European researchers to the Brazilian institution to conduct collaborative research projects in high-priority disciplines.
Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program Marks 40th Anniversary With Alumni Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa Sep 6, 2018 The Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program will celebrate 40 years of bringing international professionals to the United States to engage in study and collaborate with U.S. counterparts at “African Humphrey Voices: Building a Better Future for Our Continent,” a Pan-African alumni conference Sept. 14–16, 2018, in Johannesburg, South Africa. The three-day event will focus on economic development and good governance and will acknowledge the legacy of the nearly 6,000 Fellows and Alumni and the communities enriched by them.
New USAID Partnership to Develop Global Research Network Aug 7, 2018 IIE will partner with USAID on the establishment of the Research Technical Assistance Center (RTAC) at the University of Chicago’s independent research organization, NORC.
University Alliance for Refugees and At-Risk Migrants Launches at Rutgers University Jul 23, 2018 A new alliance of universities, international organizations, migrants and refugees, local government, and private sector stakeholders convened for the first time on July 23rd to share best practices and forge strong relationships to support displaced students and scholars.
IIE Announces Winners of 2018 Goldberg Prize Jun 13, 2018 IIE today awarded the 14th annual IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East to three pairs of Jewish Israelis and Muslim Arabs working to advance peace and reduce tensions in the region. This year three separate initiatives were recognized. Roie Ravitsky and Raed Badir won for their Mosaica Religious Peace Initiative. Dor Dayan and Shadi Khatib won for Middle East Peace Players Tamra/Naharia's All-Star team. Harb Amara and Dr. Nava Sonnenschein won for Change Agents: Jewish and Palestinian Professionals.
IIE Releases Intensive English Program (IEP) Data on 2017 International Student Enrollments Jun 11, 2018 Overall, 86,786 international students participated in an intensive English program (IEP) in the United States in 2017, according to recently released IIE data. IEP programs in United States are offered by higher education institutions and independent providers, and are one way for international students to initiate their education in the United States.
IIE PEER Expands Higher Education Opportunities for Displaced Students Worldwide May 16, 2018 Displaced students from Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Ukraine, and Yemen will be able to find and apply for scholarships, language learning courses, and other post-secondary educational opportunities through the IIE Platform for Education in Emergencies Response (IIE PEER) starting on Monday, May 28.
Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program Announces 2018 Fellowship Recipients May 10, 2018 The Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program, now in its fifth year, has selected 43 African Universities in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda to host 55 African-born scholars to build partnerships between home and host universities and address priority needs at host universities and countries. The program is funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in collaboration with United States International University-Africa (USIU-Africa) in Nairobi, Kenya, which coordinates the activities of the Advisory Council.
Kazakhstani Education Leaders Participate in IIE-Hosted Talks to Create New University Partnerships Apr 23, 2018 H.E. Erlan Sagadiev, Minister of Education and Science of Kazakhstan, and H.E. Erzhan Kazyhanov, Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United States recently joined the Institute of International Education for high level discussions with senior experts from the higher education community and representatives of the U.S. Department of State.
IIE’s Work with Refugee Students Recognized by Portuguese Government Apr 17, 2018 The Institute of International Education was awarded the title of Honorary Member of the Order of Liberty by the President of Portugal, H.E. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the government of Portugal, in recognition of the institutions’ respective work helping displaced students worldwide access higher education and rescuing scholars at a dinner at the Palácio da Ajuda in Lisbon, Portugal, on April 5.
State Department Announces Gilman Top Producing Institutions Apr 9, 2018 The U.S. Department of State is pleased to announce the inaugural list of U.S. higher education institutions that sent the most students overseas on the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program in academic year 2016-2017.
Sixteen Scholars Announced for Second Fulbright Arctic Initiative Apr 3, 2018 Sixteen outstanding scholars from Arctic Council nations will engage in collaborative, multi-disciplinary research over the next 18 months through the U.S. Department of State’s Fulbright Arctic Initiative to advance Arctic nations’ shared interest in building resilient communities and sustainable economies.
Study Abroad Matters: A New White Paper by IIE and AIFS Links Higher Education to the Workforce Mar 19, 2018 IIE today announced the publication of a new white paper examining the link between employability and study abroad. Produced in conjunction with the American Institute for Foreign Study (AIFS) Foundation, the paper shows that in this globalized era, study abroad has become one of the most powerful ways to demonstrate to employers that graduates have in-demand skills for the contemporary workplace.
IIE Scholar Rescue Fund Presents Award to Canada For Its Role As A Safe Country Mar 9, 2018 At a ceremony at its New York City headquarters today, the Institute of International Education (IIE) presented Canada with an award for its leading role in the effort to save scholars from targeted persecution and conflict. Canada has worked with IIE’s Scholar Rescue Fund to host 22 scholars at 12 institutions of higher education across the country to date.
WeTech Qualcomm Global Scholars Program Kick Off Event in Taiwan and South Korea Mar 8, 2018 Qualcomm will welcome award recipients of the 2018 Women Enhancing Technology (WeTech®) Qualcomm Global Scholars Program at its global offices in Seoul and Taipei on March 8 and March 12 respectively. Award recipients will meet with their Qualcomm mentors, who they will work with for the six months of the mentorship program. IIE’s WeTech initiative supports corporate partners interested in advancing educational and professional opportunities for women and girls on a global scale.
Enter the 2018 IIE Impact Story Contest! Mar 5, 2018 The Institute of International Education (IIE) is seeking photos and stories that show the impact of the international exchange, scholarship, training, internships and other programs that it manages. The first prize winner will receive a $300 gift card, the second prize winner will receive a $200 gift card, and the third prize winner will receive a $100 gift card. Photo and story submissions will be featured on our websites, marketing materials and social media.
IAPP Concludes Higher Education Delegation to Cuba to Foster Academic Exchange Mar 5, 2018 The Institute of International Education (IIE) led a delegation of U.S. institutions to the biannual Congreso Universidad Cuban International Education Conference in Havana, Cuba from February 11 to 17.
Fulbright Top Producing Institutions for 2017-18 Feb 21, 2018 The U.S. Department of State has announced the U.S. colleges and universities that produced the most Fulbright U.S. Students (primarily recent graduates) and Fulbright U.S. Scholars (faculty, researchers and administrators) for the 2017-2018 academic year.
IIE Announces Third Round of Qualcomm Global Scholars Program Feb 16, 2018 The Institute of International Education (IIE) has selected 48 award recipients of the Women Enhancing Technology (WeTech®) Qualcomm Global Scholars Program. The awardees are all female students pursuing engineering, computer science, information and communication technology (ICT), or other science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) related field at eligible universities in India, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Heiskell Awards 2018 Winners and Honorable Mention Backgrounder Jan 31, 2018 IIE presents the annual Andrew Heiskell Awards to recognize and honor the most outstanding international higher education initiatives that are being conducted by universities and colleges among more than 1,300 member institutions in the IIENetwork. The backgrounder provides an overview of the programs who received awards and honorable mentions. You can see full profiles of this year’s winning initiatives and all 140 programs that have been recognized since the awards’ inception 2002 on IIE’s Best Practices Resource.
IIE Announces Winners of the 2018 Andrew Heiskell Awards Jan 31, 2018 The Institute of International Education (IIE) announced the 2018 winners of the annual IIE Andrew Heiskell Awards for Innovation in International Education. The awards showcase the most innovative and successful models for internationalizing the campus, study abroad, and international partnership programs.
IIE is Open for Business During U.S. Government Shutdown Jan 20, 2018 IIE’s offices will be open during the U.S. Government shutdown, and all IIE team members will conduct their normal work.
IIE Awards 50 Generation Study Abroad Travel Grants Jan 9, 2018 IIE announced the first round of Generation Study Abroad Travel Grants today. The funds will be disbursed to 50 U.S. students to participate in academic, internship or service-learning experiences abroad in 2018.
Stavros Niarchos Foundation and the Fulbright Foundation in Greece Receive IIE Europe Award Dec 15, 2017 IIE presented its 2017 IIE Europe Award for Excellence in International Education to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) and the Fulbright Foundation in Greece for their outstanding support for IIE’s Greek Diaspora Fellowship Program. The award was created in 2011 to recognize an individual or organization for furthering the mission of IIE and impacting higher education in Europe.
Schwarzman Scholars Announces Class of 2019 Dec 4, 2017 Schwarzman Scholars, the Master’s degree program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, today announced its third class. 142 Schwarzman Scholars were selected from over 4,000 applicants and were identified in partnership with IIE.
IIE Releases Third IFP Report: Leaders, Contexts, and Complexities Nov 16, 2017 Leaders, Contexts, and Complexities is the third report in a landmark 10-year study of the fellowships program. Drawing on discussions with 268 IFP alumni and other stakeholders, the report goes beneath the surface of conventional evaluation to reveal how political, economic, and social obstacles can limit opportunities to their ability to further social change.
IIE Awards 60 Grants to Students from Caribbean Nations Nov 15, 2017 The Institute of International Education (IIE) has selected 60 students from Caribbean nations to receive one-time grants through the Emergency Student Rescue Fund.
IIE Releases Open Doors 2017 Data Nov 13, 2017 According to the 2017 Open Doors® Report on International Educational Exchange data released today by IIE and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the number of international students in the United States increased by three percent over the prior year, and the number of American students studying abroad increased by four percent from the prior year.
Open Doors 2017 Executive Summary Nov 13, 2017 Open Doors is a comprehensive information resource on international students and scholars studying or teaching at higher education institutions in the United States, and U.S. students studying abroad for academic credit at their home colleges or universities. The research is supported by a grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
HIVE Program for Virtual Exchange Between Students in the U.S., Middle East and North Africa Nov 6, 2017 Under the Stevens Initiative, IIE’s Harnessing Innovation through Virtual Exchange (HIVE) program will use virtual exchange technology to form peer-to-peer relationships between university students in Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, the West Bank, and the United States who are enrolled in a diverse range of courses focused on science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math (STEAM).
IIE Delegation Explores Academic Partnerships with Sudanese Educational Institutions Nov 1, 2017 On October 22-26, an IIE delegation went to Sudan to explore the potential for partnerships between U.S. and Sudanese higher education institutions at a critical point in the bilateral relationship when Sudan is opening up due to the recent lifting of longstanding sanctions.
IIE Announces Martin Kriesberg Fellowship Oct 25, 2017 The Institute of International Education has announced a new Fellowship in honor and memory of the life and public service of international development pioneer Martin Kriesberg, to fund graduate education to help U.S. Fulbright alumni to build their skills to enter and succeed in public service careers.
Emergency Student Fund Announced for Citizens of Caribbean Nations Oct 18, 2017 The Institute of International Education (IIE) is issuing a call to U.S. campuses to nominate for emergency support up to 5 enrolled degree-seeking students who are citizens of Caribbean nations facing major financial difficulty as a result of the recent devastating hurricanes.
IIE Honors Santander US and Vartan Gregorian Oct 16, 2017 At the Institute of International Education's Gala on October 16 at The Pierre in New York City, more than 300 business, education, government, foundation and policy leaders joined IIE to recognize Santander US for its role in providing educational opportunities to students with financial need, and to pay tribute to Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York, for his lifelong commitment to philanthropy and education.
Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program Announces New Call for Applications and Innovations Oct 10, 2017 Universities in Africa and African-born academics in the United States and Canada can now apply for funding to take part in joint projects as part of the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program (CADFP)
Distinguished Humphrey Leadership Program Brings Leaders To U.S. Oct 5, 2017 Nine senior professionals from 9 countries recently completed a three-week program in the United States as recipients of the Distinguished Humphrey Leadership Award.
IIE Award Recognizes Fulbright Colombia and ICETEX Oct 3, 2017 The Generation Study Abroad award recognizes the outstanding contributions that they have made toward making study abroad opportunities in Colombia more accessible to students from the U.S.
IIE Study Shows That Studying Abroad Has a Direct Impact on Skills Needed for Career Success Oct 2, 2017 The study shows that studying abroad for longer periods of time has a high impact on subsequent job offers and career advancement as well as the development of foreign language and communication skills.
Winners of the 2017 Generation Study Abroad Video Voices Challenge Oct 1, 2017 Congratulations to Zac Wierschem and Shardae White, winners of the 2017 IIE and New York Times in Education Generation Study Abroad Video Contest!
Welcome Vivek Mansukhani New Head of IIE India Sep 27, 2017 Summary information for 2017-09-28 Welcome Vivek Mansukhani New Head of IIE India
Scholar Rescue Fund Fellows Begin New Semester Sep 21, 2017 As the new academic year begins, IIE-SRF celebrates the courageous and talented IIE-SRF fellows who are pursuing their academic work at host institutions across the globe.
WeTech and Juniper Networks Scholarship and Internship Application Now Open Sep 21, 2017 Four scholarships in the amount of $10,000 will be awarded to female university students at participating universities for the 2017-2018 school year.
2017 International Enrollment Hot Topics Survey Sep 19, 2017 IIE, in partnership with a group of higher education associations, is jointly surveying its members/member institutions to gather data regarding trends on U.S. campuses from the Fall 2017.
Leading Bay Area Tech Companies Host Emerging Women in STEM from 20 Countries Sep 18, 2017 This month, TechWomen participants will take part in an intensive program of mentoring and professional exchange at 30 leading tech companies in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley.
Launch of IIE Generation Study Abroad Travel Grants Sep 14, 2017 With support from generous donors and Santander Bank, IIE will make funds available for U.S. students to help them participate in academic, internship or service-learning experiences abroad.
IIE's Generation Study Abroad wins Championing Diversity Award Sep 13, 2017 The Award was one of twelve celebrated at the international education industry’s first ever PIEoneer Awards on Friday September 8 in London, England.
Fall 2017 Issue of the IIENetworkerMagazine Sep 11, 2017 Coming to America: Navigating International Education in These Uncertain Times
Nominate Your Program for the IIE Heiskell Award Sep 10, 2017 IIE's Heiskell Awards showcase the most innovative and successful models for internationalization of campuses, study abroad, and international partnership programs in practice today. Apply by October 13, 2017.
The Role of Higher Education in Fostering Civic Values Aug 24, 2017 Jonathan Lembright, Head of IIE's Southeast Asia Office, and IIE Director Jessica Loh published an article in the Handbook on Internationalisation of Higher Education on the role of higher education in fostering civic values and global citizens.
Women's Enterprise for Sustainability Opens WES-Up Application Aug 13, 2017 Applications open for new cohort of WES-Up, a competitive accelerator and business growth initiative for Tunisian women entrepreneurs
More International Students Seeking U.S. High School Diplomas Aug 7, 2017 New research shows that the number of international students who come to the United States for high school has more than tripled between 2004 and 2016 to nearly 82,000. California, New York and Texas are the top host states.
Greek Diaspora Fellowship Program Selects 30 Fellows Jul 18, 2017 This summer, thirty Greek- and Cypriot-born scholars hailing from a cross-section of twenty-eight prominent United States and Canadian universities are traveling to Greece to conduct academic projects with their peers at Greek universities as part of the Greek Diaspora Fellowship Program.
Fulbright Arctic Initiative Accepting Applications Jul 10, 2017 Scholars from the Arctic Council Countries are invited to apply for the Fulbright Arctic Initiative. This 18-month research program will expand collaborative networks and address shared priorities.
IIE Survey of College Admissions Jul 6, 2017 An IIE study of admissions officers concludes that international students are still interested in attending higher education institutions in the United States despite the current environment.
IIE Announces Winners of 2017 Goldberg Prize Jun 27, 2017 IIE presented Sarah Stone and Montaser Amro, Co-Directors of the new Pathways to Peace Program at Kids4Peace, with the 2017 IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East
Scholar Rescue Fund Partnership with Finnish Government Jun 19, 2017 IIE-SRF announced a new partnership with a Finnish government agency to provide safe places in Finland for Iraqi and Syrian threatened scholars.
Carnegie Program Connects Universities with Diaspora Scholars May 11, 2017 46 scholars were selected for collaborative work at African universities; Fields include health, environment, women’s leadership, and finance
IIE's HER Program Releases New Impact Report May 11, 2017 With less than 4% of Ethiopian girls staying in school through 11th grade and even fewer going on to higher education, there is a serious gender gap in Ethiopia. Two new reports from IIE suggest highly effective ways to change this trajectory.
IIE, Juniper Networks Select Scholarship Winners Apr 11, 2017 Fourteen outstanding students in India, U.K., and U.S. have been selected for the 2017 WeTech Scholarships & Internships for University Women in STEM
Take The Study Abroad Survey Apr 10, 2017 Did study abroad help you to get a job? Share your perspective in the new survey, brought to you by IIE’s Generation Study Abroad.
Introducing IIE's Brand New Voice Apr 3, 2017 As IIE approaches our Centennial, we have updated our identity to reflect the many ways we have evolved and expanded our work over the years.
Introducing WeTech Goldman Sachs Scholars Mar 27, 2017 Goldman Sachs Marks Women’s History Month by Preparing Young Women to Succeed in Global Careers
Persecuted Scholars Placed at German Universities Mar 15, 2017 New fund provides fellowships for persecuted Syrian and Iranian scholars at universities in Germany.
Introducing the IIE Platform for Education in Emergencies Response Mar 8, 2017 New clearinghouse connects displaced students with opportunities to continue their education.
IFP Impacts in Asia Report Released Mar 7, 2017 IIE released the second report in a 10-year study to analyze the impact of the Ford Foundation's International Fellowships Program (IFP).
Top Producers of Fulbright Scholars and Students Feb 21, 2017 The Fulbright Program Announces Top Producing Institutions of U.S. Student and Scholar Fulbright Grants.
TechWomen Delegation Trips to Kenya, Kyrgyzstan Feb 14, 2017 TechWomen mentors from Silicon Valley companies visit Kenya and Kyrgyzstan to encourage girls to pursue STEM careers
New State Department and Airbnb Study Abroad Partnership Jan 31, 2017 Nine Gilman scholars were sponsored by Airbnb to study China this academic year.
WeTech Qualcomm Global Scholars Program Celebration in South Korea & Taiwan Jan 26, 2017 More than 25 female university students in South Korea and Taiwan selected as WeTech Qualcomm Global Scholars.
IIE Announces Winners of the 2017 Andrew Heiskell Awards for Innovation in International Education Jan 23, 2017 Eight campuses recognized for outstanding international initiatives. IIE will present awards at Best Practices Conference.
First Cohort Selected for Greek Diaspora Fellowship Program Dec 14, 2016 Twenty-one Greek-Born academics at US and Canadian universities will collaborate with twelve universities in Greece
IIE Europe Announces Award for Excellence Dec 4, 2016 The Institute of International Education's European Office is pleased to award the 2015 IIE Europe Award for Excellence to Robert A. Stanley.
IIE Elects Three Outstanding Leaders to Board of Trustees Nov 30, 2016 IIE has elected Maxmillian Angerholzer III, Calvin G. Butler Jr., and Colleen Goggins to three-year terms as Trustees.
DAAD Awarded IIE Europe Award for Excellence Nov 23, 2016 IIE recognized DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service, for their accomplishments in internationalizing higher education.
In Memory of Ruth Gruber Nov 22, 2016 IIE mourns the passing of Ruth Gruber, whose rescue of 1,000 WWII refugees helped to inspire IIE's Scholar Rescue Fund.
IIE Releases Open Doors 2016 Data Nov 14, 2016 More than 1 million international students in the U.S. for the first time; study abroad continues to grow.
Open Doors 2016 Executive Summary Nov 14, 2016 More than 1 million international students in the U.S. for the first time; study abroad continues to grow.
Statement from IIE President Nov 9, 2016 As International Education Week begins, we remember that every week is about international education - and our work is needed now more than ever.
IIE Offers Scholarships for Syrian Students Nov 7, 2016 IIE will match qualified Syrian undergraduate and graduate students with academic programs at select U.S. higher education institutions.
Campaign Helps Colleges Boost Study Abroad Participation Oct 24, 2016 Twelve U.S. higher education institutions were recognized for meeting or exceeded their pledges to boost study abroad participation.
Applications Open for Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowships Oct 11, 2016 The 5th round of Carnegie Fellowships will enable 52 African-born Scholars conduct collaborative projects with African Universities.
Alcoa Foundation Global Internship Program Oct 7, 2016 500 students in eight communities across the globe received paid internships to find gainful employment.
Fellowship Program Supports Central American Leaders Oct 4, 2016 Seattle International Foundation (SIF) renews partnership with IIE to manage a prestigious leadership development program in Latin America
IIE Gala 2016 Sep 29, 2016 IIE Presents Corporate Leadership Award to Qualcomm; Celebrates Fulbright 70th Anniversary; Highlights Education in Crisis
IIE, IOHE to Expand Academic Collaboration Sep 28, 2016 The Institute of International Education is now an associated member of the Inter-American Organization for Higher Education (IOHE).
New Philanthropy Will Support Universal Education Sep 22, 2016 The Catalyst Trust will join with the Institute of International Education to create PEER - the Platform for Education in Emergencies Response
WeTech Qualcomm Global Scholars Program Expands to South Korea & Taiwan Sep 21, 2016 Female university students in South Korea and Taiwan may now apply to become a WeTech Qualcomm Global Scholar.
IIE, Qualcomm Celebrate Global Scholars Program Year 1 Sep 19, 2016 IIE and Qualcomm will celebrate Year 1 of the WeTech Qualcomm Global Scholars Program in Beijing on September 22.
Jusoor, IIE Launch Scholarships for Syrian University Women Sep 14, 2016 Jusoor and IIE launched a scholarship for female university students who face financial and educational need due to the on-going Syrian crisis.
TechWomen Empowers International Women Leaders Sep 8, 2016 Leading Bay Area and Silicon Valley companies to host technology program for emerging women leaders from 19 countries.
IIE's WeTech Afterschool Program to Hold Graduation Pitch Event Aug 16, 2016 Students will compete in the Women Enhancing Technology (WeTech) Graduation Pitch Event in Bengaluru, India, on August 20th.
Six Foreign Fulbright Students join 2016 Millennial Trains Project Aug 5, 2016 Six U.S. State Department sponsored Foreign Fulbright Students join young American entrepreneurs on cross-country train journey
IIE Elects Cathy Martine and Mahboob Mahmood to its Board of Trustees Jul 19, 2016 Executives from the telecommunications and education technology industries joined IIE's Board of Trustees.
Qualcomm, IIE Expand Summer Program to Build K-12 Pipeline of Girls in Tech Jul 12, 2016 Thirty middle school girls will graduate from Qcamp for Girls in STEM, developed and implemented by Qualcomm Incorporated and IIE.
IIE to Participate in Coursera for Refugees Jun 20, 2016 IIE will connect refugee students with online courses through Coursera's new program
Winners of WeTech Scholarships & Internships Announced Jun 9, 2016 Four U.S. university women studying STEM will receive Scholarships and Internships through the Women Enhancing Technology program.
IIE Awards 2016 Victor J. Goldberg Prize Winners Jun 2, 2016 Sarah Perle Benazera and Ohood Murqaten, Co-Chairs of the YaLa Young Leaders Core Leadership Group, received the 2016 IIE Goldberg Prize.
IIE Receives Innovation in Philanthropy Award Jun 2, 2016 IIE received the Go Abroad Foundation's Innovation in Philanthropy award for the IIE Emergency Student Fund and Scholar Rescue Fund.
French Embassy provides study abroad scholarship funding May 25, 2016 The Embassy of France will support new scholarships for U.S. students who wish to study in France.
HER Program Evaluation Report May 18, 2016 IIE released a new report to evaluate the Higher Education Readiness (HER) pilot program for girls in Ethiopia.
IIE Scholarships Help Diversify Study Abroad May 18, 2016 IIE's Generation Study Abroad initiative will have supported close to 300 underrepresented high school and college students.
15,000+ U.S. College Students Pledge to #GoStudyAbroad May 5, 2016 Generation Study Abroad's first alumni-to-student engagement campaign reached nearly 4 million people online.
Carnegie African Diaspora Fellows Selected May 3, 2016 The 4th round of Fellowships will bring 59 African-born scholars currently based in the U.S. and Canada together with host universities in Africa.
First Report Released in IFP Alumni Tracking Study Apr 27, 2016 IIE releases the first report in a 10-year study to analyze the impact of Ford Foundation International Fellowships program.
New IIE International Student Guide Apr 18, 2016 Preparing to Study in the USA helps international students understand and thrive on American campuses
Announcing $1M Donation in Honor of Beau Biden Apr 8, 2016 The chairman of IIE's Scholar Rescue Fund announced a $1 million gift in honor of Beau Biden, the former Attorney General of Delaware.
IIE Awards 91 Grants to Syrian & Yemeni Students Apr 7, 2016 IIE awards U.S.-based Syrian and Yemeni students who face urgent financial need due to the on-going crises in their home countries.
IIE Releases Non-Credit Education Abroad Report Mar 30, 2016 U.S. college students are pursuing a broader range of international educational activities despite not receiving academic credit for them
IIE DAAD Advancing Academic Partnerships Book Mar 11, 2016 IIE and DAAD publish a global guide on how to build and advance strategic institutional partnerships.
Niarchos Foundation Awards $1.25M to IIE to Launch Fellowship Mar 3, 2016 40 Greek-Born Academics at US and Canadian Universities Will Collaborate With Universities in Greece
EducationUSA Institutes Promote International Collaboration Mar 1, 2016 Program will Promote International Collaboration in Higher Education
IIE Awards $50,000 to Teachers to Globalize Classrooms Mar 1, 2016 IIE's Generation Study Abroad asks teachers to prepare their students to be global citizens and to inspire and encourage them to study abroad.
IIE, AASCU Explore Cuba-U.S. Academic Collaborations Feb 29, 2016 Co-Sponsored First U.S. Higher Education Delegation to 10th International Congress of Higher Education
Top Producing Fulbright Students and Scholars Feb 22, 2016 The Fulbright Program Announces Top Producing Institutions of U.S. Student and Scholar Fulbright Grants.
IIE Urges People to Inspire Students to #GoStudyAbroad Feb 16, 2016 New nationwide campaign asks everyone who has ever studied abroad to encourage college students to study abroad by the time they graduate
IIE's WeTech Consortium Launches 2016 Afterschool Program Feb 8, 2016 Ninety talented middle and high schools girls were matched with mentors from Goldman Sachs and Qualcomm at a January 23rd event in Bangalore.
Connecting International Education to the Global Workforce Feb 2, 2016 Invites alumni of IIE-managed programs to join GPS's network to connect with globally-minded employers by registering through a dedicated portal.
Emergency Student Fund Assists Syrian and Yemeni Students Feb 2, 2016 Grants from IIE's Emergency Student Fund will help students with urgent financial needs to continue their studies in the U.S.
IIE Announces Winners of the 2016 Andrew Heiskell Awards for Innovation in International Education Jan 26, 2016 Nine campuses recognized for outstanding international initiatives. IIE will present awards at Best Practices Conference.
IIE Joins Diplomatic Courier as a Thought Partner Jan 11, 2016 Joins Data Gurus, Innovators, Educators, and Industry Leaders to discuss The World in 2050
Schwarzman Scholars Announces Inaugural Class Jan 11, 2016 Schwarzman Scholars, the Master's degree program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, today announced its inaugural class.
IIE Relaunches Freeman-ASIA Program Jan 6, 2016 $2 Million Freeman Foundation Grant will Help 400 American Undergraduates Study in Asia.
Open Doors 2015 Report Nov 16, 2015 International students in the U.S. up ten percent. Study abroad by American students picks up momentum.
IIE Launches Online Application for the Artist Protection Fund Nov 11, 2015 Threatened artists around the world can now apply online to the Artist Protection Fund for fellowship support.
IIE Announces Call for Applications for Ph.D. in China Fellowships Nov 4, 2015 U.S.-based graduate students may apply to the Confucius China Studies Program Fellowships until February 15, 2016.
IIE Delegation to Cuba Explores Educational Partnership Opportunities Nov 4, 2015 Twelve U.S. university representatives visited Cuba to explore potential partnership opportunities through IIE's Cuba Higher Education Initiative.
IIE to Lead Historic U.S. Higher Education Delegation to Cuba Oct 20, 2015 Twelve U.S. university representatives will visit Cuba to explore potential partnership opportunities through IIE's Cuba Higher Education Initiative.
Bay Area Companies Mentor Emerging Women Tech Leaders Oct 14, 2015 Tech companies in the Bay Area host nearly 100 women tech leaders from Africa, Asia and Middle East for networking and mentoring program.
Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program Announces Call for Applications Oct 13, 2015 African universities and African-born academics in U.S. and Canada apply to take part in joint projects with Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program.
IIE Announces Impact of Generation Study Abroad Oct 1, 2015 More than 600 commitment partners have pledged to expand study abroad opportunities.
Guía Para Padres Sobre Estudios en el Extranjero Sep 14, 2015 A Parent Guide to Study Abroad is now available in Spanish, to encourage more students from Spanish -speaking families to consider study abroad.
Malaysian Students Sep 2, 2015 U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur to support advising and placement for MARA Scholars
QCamp for Girls in STEM Aug 10, 2015 Qualcomm and WeTech inspire and empower girls toward STEM careers
La SIF y El IIE Lanzan Un Nuevo Programa Para Líderes Jul 29, 2015 Seattle International Foundation (SIF) partners with IIE to create a prestigious new leadership development program to support leaders in Latin America.
New Program Supports Central American Leaders Jul 29, 2015 Seattle International Foundation (SIF) partners with IIE to create a prestigious new leadership development program in Latin America
Second EducationUSA Leadership Institutes Promote International Collaboration Jul 27, 2015 College and university administrators participate in the second round of the EducationUSA Leadership Institutes
Universities urged to support York Accord Jul 20, 2015 Universities and colleges around the world urged to support the York Accord to protect and rebuild higher education caught up in conflict
IIE’s WeTech Hosts Graduation Pitch Event in Bangalore Jul 17, 2015 Teenage girls in India will celebrate their achievements in technology, entrepreneurship and innovation at the WeTech Graduation Pitch Event in Bangalore.
HER Program Graduates 100 Ethiopian Girls Jun 27, 2015 HER program enables first cohort of 100 Ethiopian girls to finish high school and attend university
IIE Awards 2015 Victor J. Goldberg Prize Winners Jun 22, 2015 Yehuda Stolov and Salah Aladdin, two leaders of The Interfaith Encounter Association, received the 2015 IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize.
IIE Leads Historic U.S. University Delegation to Iran Jun 18, 2015 IIE leads historic U.S. Higher Education Delegation to Iran to expand and re-build educational and scientific dialogue between the two countries
IIE Passport Awards 2015 Jun 15, 2015 Thirteen high school juniors from five cities across the U.S. were awarded the IIE Passport Awards for Study Abroad.
IIE Awards 165 Grants to Nepalese Students Jun 12, 2015 IIE awards 165 grants to Nepalese students at 122 U.S. college and university campuses who face urgent financial after the earthquake.
IIE’s WeTech sends to World Pitch Event in San Francisco Jun 4, 2015 Two teams from WeTech's India Afterschool Program in Bengaluru have been selected as 2015 Technovation finalists.
IIE and Juniper Networks announce WeTech Scholarships Jun 2, 2015 IIE's WeTech and Juniper Network announce the inaugural Women Enhancing Technology (WeTech) Scholarship and Internship for Women in STEM programs
IIE Announces New Pilot Program to Assist Threatened Artists May 26, 2015 The new Artist Protection Fund (APF) is a three year pilot program supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
U.S. and UK Governments Create 14 University Partnerships May 22, 2015 Fourteen new multilateral university partnerships have been created by the Global Innovation Initiative, a program funded by the U |
. If you are using OS X or Windows, use the corresponding Gambit-C installers. Linux has no installer, but you can easily install Gambit-C from source: Now, you are ready for an introduction to Gambit-C Scheme, which covers just enough Scheme so that you can understand the two examples towards the end. For more in-depth coverage, see Sidebar 1. Scheme Learning Resources. The Interpreter ( gsi ) and Compiler ( gsc ) The examples use two command-line utilities: the Gambit Scheme interpreter ( gsi ) and the Gambit Scheme compiler ( gsc ). You can use the define Scheme special form to create both global variables and functions. Here are some examples in an interactive gsi session where I define a variable x, define a function double, and show how to recover from a runtime error: $ gsi Gambit v4.4.4 > (define x 123) > x 123 > (define (double x) (+ x x)) > (double 4) 8 > (double 3.14159) 6.28318 > (double "cat") *** ERROR IN (console)@8.1 -- (Argument 1) NUMBER expected (+ "cat" "cat") 1> > The examples use two command-line utilities: the Gambit Scheme interpreter () and the Gambit Scheme compiler (). You can use theScheme special form to create both global variables and functions. Here are some examples in an interactivesession where I define a variable, define a function, and show how to recover from a runtime error: The prompt 1> indicates that gsi recognized a runtime error and is now in a nested REPL. I recovered from this error by typing Ctrl-D, which brought back the usual > prompt. While you can experiment with Scheme and play with the examples in this article using the Gambit-C Scheme interpreter gsi, I recommend using Emacs with the Gambit-C Emacs support. If Statements The next example shows how to use if statements and illustrates that Scheme is a free-format languageyou could put an entire program on one very long line! > (if (equal? x 123) (display "OK
") (display "what?
")) OK > (if (equal? x 1567) (display "OK
") (display "what?
")) what? > The next example shows how to usestatements and illustrates that Scheme is a free-format languageyou could put an entire program on one very long line! Notice that it makes no difference whether you put the if statement all on one line or use three lines to make it more readable. If statements require two arguments and usually are called with three arguments. The first is a Boolean expression. If this expression has a true value at runtime, then the program executes the second argument (an expression). If the program evaluates the first argument to false and you supply a third argument, then the program evaluates the third argument. If you want multiple statements to be evaluated in an if expression, you can use a let block to group multiple expressions into a single expression (that is nested). Let Statement Next, let's look at using the let statement to define two local variables and print their sum: > (let ((i 1) (j 2)) (display (+ i j)) (newline)) 3 > Next, let's look at using thestatement to define two local variables and print their sum: Here, I and j are local variables that are defined only inside of the let statement. Notice the two statements after the two variables are defined. Let statements can contain any number of statements; it is not unusual to see nested let special forms and nested functions. The order in which I and j are defined in the previous example is undefined. If you want to both know the order in which variables are defined and use early variables to define variables declared later in the let special form, then use let*: > (let* ((x 1) (y (+ x 100))) (display (+ x y)) (newline) (set! y (+ y 1)) (display (+ x y)) (newline)) 102 103 > The above example uses set! to change the value of the local variable j. By convention in Scheme, functions that end with a! character modify the state of their first argument.
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Please enable Javascript in your browser, before you post the comment! Now Javascript is disabled.Former PM says Bill Heffernan told him to give back the cash and to ask the millionaire to make it out in a cheque to the Liberal party ‘for the campaign’
Tony Abbott was offered $5,000 cash in an envelope as he was leaving a drinks party hosted by a “well-known millionaire” when he was a “relatively” new member of parliament.
He made the claim in a speech to parliament on Wednesday. He implied he did not take the cash but was advised to get a cheque made out to the Liberal party as a donation.
Abbott also called on the mining industry to “acknowledge and demonstrate their gratitude” to his retiring former minister Ian Macfarlane, who was responsible for the industry portfolio when the mining tax was dumped.
His comments regarding Macfarlane sparked an immediate motion in the NSW Upper House by Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham calling for the establishment of a federal anti-corruption body.
Australian political donations 2014-15: search the data Read more
Buckingham flagged a motion to ask the parliament to agree “that the suggestion by the former prime minister, Tony Abbott, that a major beneficiary of his government’s decision should subsequently reward the responsible minister, Ian Macfarlane, for his work is potentially corrupt and certainly a corruption of the fundamental integrity of our democracy”.
Abbott had been paying tribute to his retiring ministers just before 8pm on Wednesday.
“The member from Groom, Ian Macfarlane, was the resources minister who scrapped the mining tax,” Abbott said.
“This was the job-destroying, investment-killing tax which did not raise any revenue. It was a magnificent achievement by the member for Groom in his time as minister reborn, as it were.
“I hope this sector will acknowledge and demonstrate their gratitude to him in his years of retirement from this place.”
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Abbott went on to tell an anecdote about being offered cash in an envelope at the drinks party of a “well-known millionaire”. Abbott entered the parliament in 1994.
“I recall quite some years ago, as a relatively new member of parliament, that a well-known millionaire invited me for a pre-Christmas drink,” Abbott said.
“As I was leaving he gave me an envelope and said, ‘That’s your Christmas present.’ When I opened it up it contained $5,000 in cash. I can tell you, the Abbott family in those days could have used that money, but it did not feel right.
“I rang Bill Heffernan for his advice and he said: ‘Once bought, always bought. Give it back and say to that person, ‘Please write out a cheque for the campaign’.”
Buckingham immediately introduced a motion noting Abbott’s comments and calling for “the establishment of a federal anti-corruption body who can investigate issues such as this”.
As prime minister, Abbott’s own code of conduct for his ministers said: “Ministers are required to undertake that, for an 18-month period after ceasing to be a minister, they will not lobby, advocate or have business meetings with members of the government, parliament, public service or defence force on any matters on which they have had official dealings as minister in their last 18 months in office.
“Ministers are also required to undertake that, on leaving office, they will not take personal advantage of information to which they have had access as a minister, where that information is not generally available to the public.”
Tony Abbott’s office was contacted for comment.A staircase spirals like a helter-skelter around the curving internal walls of this minimal white house in Tokyo by local office Atelier Norisada Maeda (+ slideshow).
The Orange house was designed by Atelier Norisada Maeda for a family with young children and its playful interior is intended to provide a stimulating space for the children to grow up in.
Related story Celluloid Jam by Norisada Maeda Atelier
Situated in the Meguro district of Tokyo, the building's simple white exterior is interrupted by a strip of glazing that wraps around three sides and follows the shape of the internal stair as it ascends along one facade.
A garage occupies a portion of the ground floor facing the street, while an entrance at the back corner leads into a bright family room with a glass ceiling that lets natural light flood into the space from windows on the level above.
The family room features a slightly lumpy floor that merges with a twisting wall, giving the space a cave-like appearance.
A short set of steps leads down to a small area where a curving shelf at desk height projects outwards from the wall, opposite an opening in the bulging surface that leads to a children's room.
To the right of the entrance, a flight of cantilevered stairs leads to an open dining platform that adjoins a kitchen carved out from the space beneath the continuing staircase.
The glass ceiling of the family room becomes the floor of a lounge area tucked around the corner from the dining room.
A minimal white metal rail filled in with netting provides a safety barrier around the top of the stairs.
An arching doorway located beneath the swooping curve of the ceiling leads to a hobby room at the rear of the house.
From the dining room, the stairs broaden as they curve around the outer wall, creating an area for sitting, reading or playing.
A warped opening in the wall at the top of the stairs provides access to the building's upper storey.
This level contains the master bedroom and a bathroom that looks out onto a narrow outdoor courtyard.
Photography is by Studio Dio.
Project credits:
Architect: Atelier Norisada Maeda
Principal Architects: Norisada Maeda
Person in charge: Ryuji Shiraishi
Structural Engineering: Ryozo Umezawa
Contractor: Shinozaki Building Contractor's OfficePopular furniture retailer Ikea is considering opening its first Wisconsin store in Oak Creek, according to numerous sources.
The Swedish retailer, which has been rumored to be coming to southeastern Wisconsin for more than a decade, would anchor a large mixed-use development on land owned by Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., on the northwest quadrant of West Drexel Avenue and I-94, according to sources.
An announcement about the development could be made as early as this week, sources say.
Oak Creek Mayor Steve Scaffidi would not comment.
Northwestern Mutual owns 128 acres of land at 1830 W. Drexel Avenue. In November, the city changed its land use plan so 60 of those acres could be developed.
Before anything moves forward, zoning for the property would still need to be changed. City Administrator Gerald Peterson said he expects Northwestern Mutual to submit zoning changes soon.
Joseph Roth, public affairs manager for Ikea, said the company has recognized customers have wanted a store in the Milwaukee area for a long time.
“We’re looking at land and evaluating our options throughout the Milwaukee area,” Roth said, adding that he is “very familiar with Oak Creek,” but would not confirm the city as a potential site.
One source said a deal for an Oak Creek store has not been finalized yet.
“Anywhere is a potential location for us,” Roth said. “At this point we do not own land in Wisconsin, but we are discussing potential land ownership.”
In January, Scaffidi said Northwestern Mutual was actively trying to find partners for the property and he expected an announcement this spring. Scaffidi said the development could include retail, office and residential.
The development will likely be done through Northwestern Mutual Real Estate, the Milwaukee-based company’s real estate arm, which is one of the largest investors in real estate in the country. Northwestern Mutual Real Estate has a $30 billion to $35 billion real estate investment portfolio composed of 85 percent fixed income and 15 percent equity investments, with investments in commercial mortgages and equity investments across all major property types, including apartments, office, retail and industrial.
During a speech in October, Tom Zale, vice president of real estate investment for Northwestern Mutual, said the company would love to do more retail development.
When asked in an email about Ikea anchoring the mixed-use Oak Creek development, Northwestern Mutual spokesperson, Betsy Hoylman did not directly respond about the store.
“Because our suburban campus straddles the borders of Franklin and Oak Creek, we support economic development in both locations,” she said. “We will continue to work with the local communities to identify the best use of the property we own.”
Ikea currently has 41 stores and sales of $4.6 billion in the United States. According to its website, Ikea is hoping to increase its presence in the Midwest with the opening of several stores in the summer of 2017. The company is expanding at a 12 percent rate through 2017, according to its site.
Ikea typically needs a population base of 2 million people to support a store in a major metropolitan area. Roth said the company also chooses locations 30-40 minutes away from existing stores.
The Schaumburg,, Ill., Ikea store is about 80 miles from Milwaukee. It is 71 miles from Drexel Avenue in Oak Creek. Many real estate sources have speculated that the Oak Creek location does not make sense for Ikea because it is too close to the Chicago area, but the city’s location along I-94 and its distance from Schaumburg, appear to fit the Ikea requirements.
Roth said the company has not yet approved a Wisconsin store. Once land is purchased, Ikea will submit an internal application for the store, he said.
Ikea will open its second store in Ohio next year and its first store in Indiana. The company plans to hire 250 people for its Fischers, Ind. store.
Ikea stores are between 250,000 to 350,000 square feet. The store in West Chester, Ohio is 344,000 square feet. The Schaumburg, Ill., store, which is closest to Milwaukee, is the largest in the U.S. at 450,000 square feet.
In April, Ikea announced it was building a 1.25-million-square-foot distribution center in Joliet, Ill. to serve its Midwest stores.The only thing that’ll get you high at a Weed World Candies wagon is the exhaust fumes.
A fleet of flashy green vans and Hummers with Alabama plates has invaded the city, with vendors hawking lollipops they claim are made with pot.
“Weed!” the peddlers shout, sometimes with megaphones. “Stop by to get high!”
But the lollipops — which sell for $5 each or five for $20 — suck.
Smoking out a scam, NYPD officers “field-tested” the candy and found it contained no marijuana, officials told The Post.
“Maybe we can slap them with a charge of lying to the public,” a law-enforcement source said.
The bogus-buzz traffickers haven’t been busted for drug pushing or consumer fraud, but cops are cracking down on aggressive sales tactics. The outfit recruits “street teams and candy girls” to draw customers.
The 5th Precinct cops in Soho arrested three Weed World employees on July 30 on misdemeanor charges of selling goods without a vendor’s license. Cops also impounded a Weed World van parked at Prince Street and Broadway, with boxes of lollipops as evidence.
The city Health Department is also investigating. “A permit is required to sell any kind of food or drink in NYC. This vendor does not have a Health Department permit,” a spokeswoman said.
Cops stopped at a Weed World Hummer on Broadway in Soho last week but left after a peddler showed a vendor’s permit issued by the city Department of Consumer Affairs. A DCA spokeswoman said no permit was granted under the company name.
Weed World salesmen — one wearing a shirt with McDonald’s-like arches and the words, “Over one billion stoned” — gave various answers when asked about the content of the lollipops, which have names like Herojuana, Blue Dream and Strawberry Cough.
One said the candy is made with “different strains of marijuana, different plants grown all over the world.”
Another said the candy contains “hemp oil.” Hemp, a variety of the cannabis plant, is a controlled substance and is illegal to grow in the United States.
“It mixes with your body and gives off a nice, natural buzz,” said a manager who identified himself as Gregory “Ghost” Ware.
Customers felt conned.
“I don’t feel nothing,” said Antoine Johnson, 25, of The Bronx, who paid $20 for five of the spurious suckers. “I don’t feel high yet.”
His pal, Mark Santana, 25, agreed. “I’ve smoked weed, and this isn’t the same. It’s too much money for five lollipops.”Psilocybin mushrooms are mushrooms which contain the hallucinogenic substances psilocybin, psilocin, baeocystin and norbaeocystin. The mushrooms are collected and grown as an entheogen and recreational drug, despite being illegal in many countries. Many psilocybin mushrooms are in the genus Psilocybe, but species across several other genera contain the drugs.
Genera [ edit ]
Conocybe [ edit ]
Copelandia [ edit ]
Galerina [ edit ]
Gymnopilus [ edit ]
Inocybe [ edit ]
Most species in this genus are poisonous.[7]
Mycena [ edit ]
Mycena cyanorrhiza (Allen et al., 1991)
Panaeolus [ edit ]
Pholiotina [ edit ]
Pholiotina cyanopus Stamets
Stamets Pholiotina smithii (Watling) Enderle (Galera cyanopes Kauffman, Conocybe smithii Watling)
Pluteus [ edit ]
Psilocybe [ edit ]
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A [ edit ]
B [ edit ]
C [ edit ]
D [ edit ]
Psilocybe dumontii Singer ex Guzmán
E [ edit ]
F [ edit ]
G [ edit ]
H [ edit ]
I [ edit ]
K [ edit ]
Psilocybe kumaenorum R. Heim
L [ edit ]
M [ edit ]
N [ edit ]
O [ edit ]
Psilocybe ovoideocystidiata Guzmán et Gaines
P [ edit ]
Q [ edit ]
Psilocybe quebecensis Ola'h & R. Heim
R [ edit ]
S [ edit ]
Psilocybe semilanceata, sometimes referred to as Liberty Caps. A handful of freshly picked, sometimes referred to as
T [ edit ]
U [ edit ]
Psilocybe uruguayensis Singer ex Guzmán
Singer ex Guzmán Psilocybe uxpanapensis Guzmán
V [ edit ]
Psilocybe venenata (S. Imai) Imaz. & Hongo (= Psilocybe fasciata Hongo; Stropharia caerulescens S. Imai)
(S. Imai) Imaz. & Hongo (= Hongo; S. Imai) Psilocybe villarrealiae Guzmán (photo)
W [ edit ]
X [ edit ]
Psilocybe xalapensis Guzmán & A. López
Y [ edit ]
Psilocybe yungensis Singer & A.H. Sm.
Z [ edit ]Arkansas’ Unconstitutional Collections Court
August 25, 2016 (Fault Lines) — Courts are not collection agencies. While states may have laws prohibiting writing bad checks, the criminal justice system isn’t structured for the purpose of helping businesses recover funds when a person bounces a check. Yet a class action lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas alleges Sherwood, Arkansas’ “Hot Check Court” acts as a “byzantine” debt collection service, leaving indigent defendants with thousands in fines and potential incarceration without due process or an inquiry into their ability to pay.
The fifty-eight page lawsuit, filed on behalf of four plaintiffs, details a bizarre procedure for Sherwood’s “Hot Check” proceedings, most of which only last “two to three minutes.” If a person is served with a notice to appear in Sherwood’s “Hot Check” division, they must wait in a line before seeing Judge Milas Hale in proceedings that are closed to the public. Before entering the courtroom, the suit alleges each defendant must sign a “Waiver of Counsel” form with their personal information and signature.
Once inside the Hot Check Court, Judge Hale presents each defendant with a copy of the alleged bad check and asks the party if they wrote it. An affirmative answer is treated as an admission of guilt and recorded as a guilty plea. If a party denies writing the check, the suit alleges, Judge Hale compares the signature on the “Waiver of Counsel” form to the signature on the check and attempts to elicit an admission of guilt.
Once a conviction is entered, the “guilty” party is placed on probation, ordered to pay restitution, and then assessed a total of $410 in fines, fees and court costs. Payment is due on the spot. If a defendant asserts an inability to pay, no inquiry is made into alleged indigency or alternative methods of restitution discussed. Parties are simply directed to the Hot Check Division Clerks to be placed on a “payment plan” determined by the court’s clerks without any inquiry into income, means, or ability to actually make the scheduled payments. Each defendant is also placed on the Hot Check docket one to three months down the road for a “review” hearing to determine if they are in compliance with the court’s orders.
These “review hearings,” according to the lawsuit, are treated as “a new, separate, stand-alone criminal case” allowing the court to impose new fines and fees if a defendant doesn’t make a payment on time or fails to show up for the hearing. Miss a payment or fail to show for your “review hearing” and an arrest warrant is issued.
Sherwood police, according to the suit, track individuals to their homes and tell them they will be arrested unless they can pony up some dough on the spot to the officer or make a payment with a credit card to the Hot Check Clerk over the telephone. If you make the payment, the “arresting officer” gives you a court date. Fail to provide the requested sum and you’re off to jail, pursuant to Arkansas Code Annotated § 5-4-203, the “Failure to Pay” statute repealed in 2009.
It is an unclassified misdemeanor in Arkansas to write a bad check, and the alleged $125 fine assessed against each party convicted of a hot check offense technically falls in the appropriate range for the first or second offense. If a party claims an inability to pay the fine, Arkansas law requires the court make an inquiry into the party’s ability to pay and then issue a finding on whether the fine can actually be paid. The suit alleges these inquiries don’t take place, violating a defendant’s due process rights, and that Sherwood’s Hot Check Court’s payments and collections scheme constitutes an “illegal exaction” under Article 16, Section 13 of the Arkansas Constitution.
Judge Hale doesn’t see his practices as violating any law or procedure. According to an email sent to ABC News when requesting comment, he’s actually quite lenient in his court when it comes to jailing people that can’t pay thousands in fines over a $15 check.
“We do not run a so called ‘debtor’s prison’ in Sherwood,” Hale said…”If a defendant pleads guilty, or is found guilty, of writing a hot check we set up a payment plan. It is only after the third or fourth time that they fail to comply with a court order that we incarcerate.”
Hopefully Judge Hale is actually making inquiries into whether jailed defendants in his court are willfully refusing to “comply,” or if they actually lack the funds to pay. The Supreme Court held in Bearden v. Georgia revoking probation and imposing a jail sentence was inappropriate if a party truly lacked the means to pay fines and restitution. If other methods were available to meet a State’s needs for punishment and deterrence, a sentencing court should consider those. The rule articulated back in 1983 was “the State cannot impos[e] a fine as a sentence and then automatically conver[t] it into a jail term solely because the defendant is indigent and cannot forthwith pay the fine in full.” That sounds suspiciously like what Judge Hale’s “Hot Check Court” in Sherwood is doing, if Tuesday’s filing is correct.
Jailing poor people for the sole offense of being poor flies in the face of federal law, the U.S. Constitution, and Arkansas’ Constitution. By rubber-stamping convictions and imposing jail sentences for people who even unknowingly write a bad check in Pulaski County, the Hot Check Court violates the rights of those who are without the funds to pay a $15 check to an egregious degree deserving of Federal scrutiny. No response has been filed by the defendants in the Federal suit as of publication, but Justice Black’s declaration in 1956’s Griffin v. Illinois applies to this case quite convincingly.
There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has.
Hopefully, in the near future, the Sherwood Hot Check Court’s website will no longer see a need to boast of their 85% collection rate service for their “clients” at “no cost,” and the defendants facing “hot check” charges will actually receive equal justice.
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TwitterFor this month’s “People of Bitcoin” column, we decided to turn our focus to a woman who has made the currency part of her professional and philanthropic mission. We’re interviewing Connie Gallippi, the Founder and Executive Director of BitGive.
As part of CheapAir’s commitment to bitcoin and philanthropy, we’re also putting our bitcoin money where our mouth is and offering a promotion that will directly support BitGive this month. If you’ve got travel plans in the works and would like to contribute to BitGive’s important work, book with CheapAir from October 10th through the 24th using bitcoin. We’ll donate $5 of every sale directly to BitGive. So let’s spend a few minutes with Connie Gallippi, the passionate professional behind BitGive.
Hi Connie! Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us. Can you share a bit of your personal backstory and how you came to found the world’s first Bitcoin nonprofit?
Thanks for this opportunity to talk about our work. My career prior to Bitcoin (and also my paying job during the first 1.5 years of running BitGive as a volunteer) was working with nonprofits in the environmental field in California. I worked in this realm for over 14 years and more than half of that time was been spent working on policy and funding strategies, from mostly public funding sources. Nonprofits are often very challenged financially to do the critical and important work they do.
The story of BitGive began when I attended the Bitcoin Foundation’s first conference in San Jose, CA in May of 2013 just for fun, with no intention of getting directly involved. I just wanted to visit my brother who is an early entrepreneur in the industry and learn more about Bitcoin. There was a lot of great energy and innovation at that event; and being immersed in it, there was a feeling that something very special was brewing. The conference was in the heart of Silicon Valley and full of enthusiastic entrepreneurs, brilliant computer programmers, finance professionals, and investors – from angel investors to venture capitalists.
I had already known the potential for bitcoin as a game changer on many levels; and with this level of energy, intelligence, and investment funds behind it, I knew it was going to take off. I saw the potential for bitcoin to be very significant – akin to the next.com boom – and wanted to find a way to capture the revolutionary technology and a portion of its anticipated profits and gains for charitable causes. The potential for this technology is huge. By leveraging the technology and capturing some of the industry’s success to put towards charitable causes, we have the potential to move the needle on some significant issues facing the world today.
As Founder & Executive Director, you’re the woman with the plan,” as it were, but in an arena with virtually no precedent. Can you tell us about the challenges you’ve faced as a trailblazer in the space? Do you find people are curious about Bitcoin or skeptical or a combination of the two?
Yes, it has been quite a journey, and trail blazing would be an accurate description! Starting the organization in mid-2013 was very early in the Bitcoin industry. One could say we are still very much in the industry’s early stages now in late-2015. It’s challenging to start any new business or nonprofit organization, even when there are precedents or trails blazed before you. But in Bitcoin, there were (and still are) so many questions. Understanding the regulatory environment is probably the most critical when establishing an organization. Our biggest hurdles so far were establishing a global entity, obtaining our 501c3 status as tax exempt from the IRS, and sorting through the accounting exercises for operating largely in Bitcoin.
My experience so far in working with nonprofits has been generally with the larger more well-known organizations, such as Save the Children, The Water Project, TECHO, and Medic Mobile. They are very curious and excited about Bitcoin. Of course they have many questions and some you could categorize as skeptical, but largely I think they see the advantages in both the short- and long- term. Most of the organizations we have worked with have questions about the legal and accounting aspects of accepting Bitcoin donations. As a 501(c)(3) ourselves, we are able to discuss these very issues and share with them how we have handled them. It’s been a wonderful experience.
Bitcoin would seem to offer an interesting and exciting way to get donations in the hands of the people who need it most internationally, with a minimum of red tape. Can you speak to this?
I think the most revolutionary aspect of Bitcoin’s technology allows funds to be sent securely to anyone anywhere at any time – safe, direct transactions without banks or government intervening. For nonprofits working overseas this is a tremendous revolution. We can move money to where the need is without getting bogged down in the many steps. Not only does the traditional system take a long time, but each step during the process takes a cut of the funds in fees and exposes the transaction to liabilities and potential fraud.
Peer-to-peer transactions anytime, anywhere allow us to access the most remote places of the world directly with aid and support. Of course the technology is still new and important pieces of the infrastructure are not yet in place in most of the developing world; however, in some key places where we do have liquidity today in the last mile, we will be able to reach the need – directly. As we build out this infrastructure, we blow open a global donor market in a single consistent currency to charitable organizations everywhere, yet likely most beneficial to those working in the most remote and impoverished parts of the world.
2015 has been a tough year for Bitcoin value so far. As an evangelist and a philanthropist, how do you respond to tough questions about Bitcoin’s volatility and sustainability?
Yes, the price has been down since late 2014, but it has actually stabilized, which is a good thing. It has been in the same general range for the past 8 months, and the value trend is still increasing over the long term when you look at the charts. Prior to this recent stabilization, the volatility was still typical for an early stage technology where speculation is largely driving the price. The big peaks and dips are also representative of a fairly narrow market given its nascent stage. When a market is narrow, small things can cause dramatic effects, but as we broaden adoption and use, these dramatic fluctuations are more easily absorbed by the market.
Can you talk a bit about the charity partners that you work with and some projects that are being funded right now/in the past?
Save the Children was our first campaign in 2013. We raised funds for their Philippines Typhoon Relief effort and built a relationship with them over time. Through this relationship, we ushered Save the Children into the Bitcoin community. They are now accepting bitcoin directly with BitPay and have run campaigns for Stop Ebola and Nepal Relief in bitcoin.
The Water Project is the nonprofit partner for our most recently completed campaign. We raised funds build a water well, which was completed in March of this year at a girls’ school in western Kenya. The well serves the Shisango Girls Secondary School, as well as the neighboring primary school and surrounding community of over 500 people.
Currently, we are raising funds for Medic Mobile, an organization working in 21 countries worldwide supporting volunteer health workers with mobile technology and open source tools. They have a team in Nepal who were unharmed in the earthquakes and have been working hard on relief efforts. Our funds are now going towards their efforts in Nepal.
We are developing some new projects as part of our Bitcoin Charity 2.0 Initiative that are focused on leveraging the technology more and building on the infrastructure that is in place in the developing world. Our first endeavor was recently announced in partnership with Factom, we are building a Transparency Platform for Donations to NGOs. The first pilot project is in partnership with The Water Project, BitPesa (who will provide the last-mile conversion of the funds), and the Plug and Play Tech Center, who is also supporting the project. There is much more to come on these efforts as they are further developed, but you can learn more here.
What challenges do you see ahead for Bitcoin? Do you believe it will become a revolutionary force across the world, or are your ambitions more modest?
The greatest challenge for Bitcoin right now is how to reach mass adoption. It needs to be much easier to understand and use, and I believe the industry should focus more on where there is need/demand/incentive, which is in the developing world. We have the Bitcoin technology and even the ability to transfer BTC via SMS to feature phones, but what’s lacking in the developing world is liquidity. Until there are more exchanges and remittance services like BitPesa that covert BTC to local fiat, the benefits of Bitcoin to these populations are limited.
I do believe Bitcoin and blockchain technology is a force that will revolutionize how we do business on a global scale and one with such monumental social impact that it will rival, if not surpass, the Internet. I founded the BitGive Foundation with a very long-term vision for the future that Bitcoin holds. We were established as a long-standing philanthropic arm for the industry, and I see our current efforts and successes as only the beginning. Because we are so young, as is the industry itself, our efforts are more small-scale charity projects and pilots that are pushing the envelope and creating new opportunities with this technology for the nonprofit sector.
Aside from your work, what are some of your personal passions? What do you do to unplug, relax, etc.?
These days I find it quite challenging to do much other than work, but I am very committed to having a healthy balance and have learned how important that truly is. In my personal time, I try to stay fit and enjoy running, cycling, and eating healthy. I am also quite the outdoor enthusiast and spend a lot of time hiking, backpacking, skiing, etc. Probably my greatest passion is to travel and explore. Of course I also spend time with my family and friends and am very fortunate to have many loved ones in my life.
Lastly, can you tell our customers/readers/BTC users a bit more about how they can get involved in this new movement of crypto-altruism?
Absolutely! There are a number of ways to support BitGive and our work around the world. Here are the ways we have outlined on BitGive’s Get Involved page.
1. Support our current charitable campaign.
2. Become a Member or Founding Donor.
3. Re-direct your tips to BitGive on ChangeTip.
4. Save on Amazon & donate to charity! First, sign up with Amazon Smile & they’ll donate 0.5% of the price of your purchases at no cost to you!
5. Use LibraTax to help optimize your taxable gains/losses and make your donations go further.
6. Make a one-time donation through the BitGive Foundation website.
7. Sign up for our newsletter, Follow us on Twitter @BitGiveOrg, Like us on Facebook.
8. Tell your friends and colleagues about BitGive!
Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us, Connie. And to our readers, don’t forget to book your bitcoin travel with us between October 10 and 24 to help contribute to BitGive!
Check out our other “People of Bitcoin” posts and let us know what you think in the comments section below. We’re always on the lookout for more interesting folks to profile who’ve traveled with us on Bitcoin. If you know of any Bitcoiner who we should interview, please tweet to us @CheapAir or email us at Ask@CheapAir.com.American Airlines will provide daily non-stop flights from Lansing to Washington, D.C. starting July 5. (Photo: SAUL LOEB, AFP/Getty Images)
LANSING - A direct flight to Washington, D.C. from the Capitol Region International Airport will resume this summer.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has granted American Airlines a slot exemption to provide the service after Sun Country Airlines stopped offering its Lansing-to-D.C. flight in October.
American Airlines could offer daily flights from Lansing to the Washington Reagan National Airport as soon as June 29, said Robert Selig, airport president and CEO. It's proposing a 7 a.m. flight from Lansing to Washington, D.C. and a 5:30 p.m. return flight daily. Flights can carry 76 passengers.
"People can really do a day's work there without having to stay another day," Selig said. "It's a great leap forward for us. This will make a big difference in the airport budget. It's been no secret that we've been struggling."
The airport was facing a $1.3 million deficit for its 2017 budget, which starts in July, due to the departure of Sun Country and Allegiant Air, which provided flights to Orlando and left in February 2015. American Airline's new D.C. route will help bridge that budget gap, bringing more passengers to the airport, Selig said.
The airport reached its peak traffic in 1997 with 720,365 total passengers. By 2009, the first full year of the recession, those numbers had plummeted to 265,967 but steadily crept back up to 418,850 in 2013. In 2014, the number dipped to 376,912 passengers and again in 2015 to 323,510.
"This will increase those numbers of passengers," said Chris Holman, chair of the |
restructuring process.
“If Telkom proceeds with this, it will mean that white employees will bear the brunt of the telecommunication giant’s retrenchment process,” it said.
Solidarity said it warned Telkom in a letter to withdraw the section 189 notice. “We believe that the application of affirmative action targets as selection criteria during retrenchment processes is contrary to the Employment Equity Act. Based on this, we requested Telkom to withdraw the notice,” said spokesperson, Marius Croucamp.
Telkom had wanted to use employment equity as selection criteria during a restructuring process in 2014, the union said, noting that the listed operator eventually backed down from the process.
Solidarity, along with two other trade unions, declared a dispute with Telkom on Friday, accusing the telco of failing to properly consult with trade unions and employees in accordance with its own restructuring forum.
“We believe the section 189 notice is premature and that Telkom should first provide for dispute resolution before the process can continue. In addition, the use of race as a selection criteria is not in the best interests of the company and it also contravenes the principles of Telkom’s restructuring forum,” Croucamp said.
Croucamp said it was worrying that Telkom wanted to enforce such a comprehensive process that would irrevocably change the lives of thousands of people without sufficient consultation.
“Our members do not have enough information to be able to take the necessary decisions. This process simply has to be halted until proper consultations with trade unions have taken place and all the information have been made available,” he said.
The trade union has threatened possible further legal action against Telkom if the company does not take heed of it’s objections.
Telkom is 39.76% owned by government, while the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) has a 13.25% stake in the company.
More on Telkom
Zuma unfazed by Telkom retrenchments: union
Telkom sending workers to their “economic death”
Telkom creates a website to update staff on retrenchments
Telkom retrenchments confirmed: 7,800 workers to be let go
Telkom jobs lotto gets colour-coded
Telkom dragged to court over race based retrenchments
Telkom race based retrenchment criteria illegal: reportKIEV, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Tuesday its forces had captured a group of Russian paratroopers who had crossed into Ukrainian territory on a "special mission" - but Moscow said they had ended up there by mistake.
The Ukrainian military meanwhile reported pro-Russian separatist forces were shelling the town of Novoazovsk and buildings there, including a hospital, were ablaze.
Twelve Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and 19 wounded in the past 24 hours, military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said.
Earlier, the security services released video footage purporting to show testimonies from Russian paratroopers who were detained by Ukrainian government forces while fighting alongside pro-Moscow rebels in Ukraine.
The videos, the strongest evidence yet to back up Kiev's claims of Russian involvement in the conflict, and the intensified fighting in the east overshadowed a meeting between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russia's Vladimir Putin in the Belarussian capital Minsk.
Russia denies giving military help to the separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine.
A Russian defense ministry source, quoted by RIA Novosti,
said the servicemen had strayed into Ukrainian territory by mistake during border patrol.
Ukraine rejected this.
"It wasn't a mistake, but a special mission they were carrying out," Lysenko said in a briefing.
In footage posted on Kiev's Anti-Terrorist Operation Facebook page, one of the detained soldiers, who identified himself as Ivan Milchakov, listed his personal details, including the name of the paratroop regiment he said is based in the Russian town of Kostroma.
"I did not see where we crossed the border. They just told us we were going on a 70-kilometer march over three days," he said.
"Everything is different here, not like they show it on television. We've come as cannon fodder," he said in the video.
Another man in the footage, who gave his name as Sergeant Aleksei Generalov, said: "Stop sending in our boys. Why? This is not our war. And if we weren't here, none of this would have happened. They would have sorted things out with the government themselves."
ON ASSIGNMENT
Social networking pages appear to corroborate the men's assertions they are actively serving in the Russian military.
Photographs posted by an Ivan Melchakov of himself on Russia social media site Vkontakte are recognizable as the same person who appears in the video released by Ukraine's SBU under the name Milchakov. His page is filled with pictures of soldiers in camouflage.
Aleksei Generalov's profile photo on the site Odnoklassniki shows him smiling into the camera in military fatigues, while the Vkontakte page of another detained soldier, named as Egor Pochtoev, shows him in paratrooper uniform and a post that he is "on assignment."
The Russian soldiers were detained with their personal documents and weapons, near the small town of Amvrosiyivka in Donetsk region, the Ukrainian state security service said.
Lysenko also said Russian Mi-24 helicopters had fired on a border post on Monday, killing four border guards, while rebel attacks on Novoazovsk were happening "at this very minute."
Rebel forces, backed by an armored column which the Ukrainian military said moved across the border from Russia, began attacking Novoazovsk on Monday aiming to open up a new front in the south.
Government forces in the five-month conflict have largely hemmed in separatist forces into the two main regional towns of Donetsk and Luhansk - a situation the separatist are trying to break out of.
Local resident Oleksiy said by phone on Sunday morning he saw a convoy of 18 armored vehicles without insignia on Ukrainian territory 15 km from the Russian border to the south of the village of Koloski, which is not far from where the paratroopers were detained.
This corresponds with the alleged route of the paratroopers captured in Ukraine. The soldiers departed from Russia's Rostov region on Sunday at 3 a.m., the Ukrainian security service said.
"Officially they are on military exercises in various corners of Russia. In reality they are involved in military aggression against Ukraine," Defense Minister Valeriy Heletey said in a Facebook post. (Reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev, Thomas Grove and Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow; Writing by Alessandra Prentice, Editing by Angus MacSwan)Colorado Rooftop Solar Under Threat
January 14th, 2014 by Guest Contributor
Originally published on Reviving Gaia
by Roy L. Hales
The relationship between Colorado’s rooftop solar industry and the state’s principal investor owned utility, Xcel, seemed good in 2012. Xcel had reason to be proud of the solar topped schools, homes and libraries that it had partnered with local installers on build. The utility’s annual reports mention being able to provide more electricity with a smaller carbon footprint.
Though it is not certain when the conflict began, Edison Electric Institute, which represents all U.S. investor- owned electric companies, published a booklet identifying “Distributed energy resources (DER) as (p 4) “the largest near-term threat to the utility model.” Soon there were reports of problems between investor owned utilities and the rooftop solar industry in several states.
(There have also been reports of utilities that have seen the opportunity to work with rooftop solar, but that is another story.)
One of the dirtiest campaigns was fought in Arizona, where EEI and the state’s principal utility spent millions of dollars on negative publicity against the rooftop solar business.
Meanwhile, back in Washington, DC, a company that Mother Jonescalled “one of the nation’s most powerful—and least known—corporate lobbies” in America, was preparing to attack solar’s development on another front.
Now, less than a month from the Colorado Public Utilities Commission hearing that could determine the fate of rooftop solar in that state, the Governor has appointed a high ranking member of that organization as Commissioner. Glen Vaad has been connected to the American Legislature Exchange Council (ALEC) since 2006. He has been appointed Commissioner just in time to decide if Xcel Energy can drop payments to rooftop solar from 11 to 4.6 cents.
The precise nature of the relationship between ALEC, Xcel and EEI uncertain. Xcel belonged to both organizations prior to 2012. Rick Tempchin of EEI was filmed admitting that the Vice President of his organization is working with ALEC. All three organizations have opposed rooftop solar.
At their In 2012 Annual Meeting, ALEC’s Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Task Force adopted the “Electricity Freedom Act” as a model for states to repeal “the renewable energy mandate and as such, no electric distribution utilities and electric services companies will be forced to procure renewable energy resources as defined by the State of {insert state}’s renewable energy mandate.”
Echoes of this resolution subsequently appeared throughout America. The following list of 13 states, reprinted from Think Progress is of particular interest:
“While other lobbyists focus on the federal government, ALEC gives business a direct hand in writing bills that are considered in state assemblies nationwide. Funded primarily by large corporations, industry groups, and conservative foundations—including R.J. Reynolds, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute—the group takes a chain-restaurant approach to public policy, supplying precooked McBills to state lawmakers.” – Mother Jones
An expose in Common Cause revealed that ALEC derives 98% of its funding from big corporations and foundadtions. The group is believed to have raised more than estimated $4 million, since 2006, for “scholarships” to send legislators on trips where policy is decided.
Around 800 state legislators and business, including one of the key Republicans behind the recent government shutdown, former Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, and the governors of Indiana and Wyoming, are believed to have attended the organization’s most recent conference.
Glen Vaad used to attend. He was one of the Colorado lawmakers whose name appears every year, in a list of ALEC’s “scholarships” from 2006-2008. Vaad spoke on “The Devolution of State Highway Systems Study Act” in an afternoon session of ALEC’s 2010 “States and Nation Policy Summit.” He was the Task Force Chair of the American Legislature Exchange Council’s (ALEC) “Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force” in 2011 and thePublic Sector Chair at the Spring Task Force Summit in 2012. Glen Vaad subsequently received an “ALEC State Legislator of the Year”award.
Though Vaad’s connection has only recently been disclosed, it did not stop Governor Hickenlooper from appointing him to the Public Utilities Commission on January 8.
If the Colorado Senate approves Hickenlooper’s choice, Vaad will be one of the three men who will decide whether Xcel Energy can reduce the amount being paid to rooftop solar owner’s who are feeding power to the grid.
Concerned Colorado residents have started an online petition asking the Senate to reject this appointment. There were 812 signatures when this article was written and you can add yours by clicking here.
“With the appointment of the fox to run the henhouse (ALEC’s Glen Vaad as a Colorado Public Utility Commissioner) the destruction of the Colorado’s legislators’ work goes out the window,” one of the petitioners wrote. “This is on par with the Federal government allowing poultry processing plants to monitor their own cleanliness practices. Witness recent Consumers Report showing that nearly all chicken that we can purchase in stores is contaminated with antibiotic resistant bacteria. These days there appears to be no protection for humans or the planet from the love of money.”
Another wrote, “Need to have some in the seat that doesn’t take a political stand. I’ve spoken with Glen Vaad on a few pending bills and I feel he is extremely partisan.”
Meanwhile, a week after informing customers that rates are about to increase, Xcel reported earnings of $905 million and stated 2012 was “the eighth consecutive year in which we have met or exceeded our earnings guidance and for the ninth consecutive year we increased our dividend.”
(Photo at top of page: Rooftop solar energy supporters rally in Denver, before marching to the offices of utility corporation Xcel.)Today is the start of Ramadan, and so to mark the event (as a non-believer), I’m posting a few stories from ex-Muslims who explain why, despite the deployment of intimidation, isolation, threats of potential violence and death threats, they have opted to courageously leave Islam.
For this I have dipped into the website of the Council of Ex-Muslims, and randomly selected the following …
sammyn, Sheffield
I’m 16. I have been an ex-muslim now for approximately 3 months. I’ve always known that Islam was not for me. As a second-generation British Pakistani it is relatively unheard of for British Pakistanis to have no religion. I was never brought up religious, but I was brought up to have faith, I never prayed as I’m not in one of those religious families. No one in my family acts muslim but I feel that someone in my family has to be open with their views, and I want that someone to be me.
Haroon, Birmingham
I was deeply religious up until a year ago when I found out the true teachings of my faith and the true teachings of the prophet, countless killings of innocent men, women and children this I could not bare by my nature I rejected this barbaric religion and soon could not pray, coming from an Afghan background from Birmingham I’m looking to meet like minded people.
abdirhaman abdullahi, bristol
i left Islam and i am 14 but i need help because there are so many things i disagree with and i dont know how to tell my perants
Zeeshan Arshed, London
Born and raised in a Muslim family I’ve always adhered to what was expected of me but in my mind I was relentlessly questioning and eventually it all became sense that one does not need religion to be happy in life.
You can cherry-pick every aspect of every culture and religion as you see fit, to live the life you see fit.
I had a rather peaceful transition to Atheism but I know of many who have suffered immensely and because of that I’ve strived to offer my support and guidance to those who may want it. At the same time I have been relentless in my criticism of the issues within Islam and religions themselves with the aim of improving them.
Now after my university experience and a professional career ahead of me I feel I have the opportunity to offer reinforcement and the courage to help others pursue the life they want.
Shy Faro, London
I just want to say thank you for representing us. Leaving Islam changed my life dramatically for the better and a part of me will always try to dedicate my life to removing the cloud of religious fanaticism from the lives of young women (and men) like myself who find themselves trapped into a faith they cannot reconcile with reality.
Z G, London
Born in the UK, into an Asian-East African Shia household, I was taught the Quran from an early age, made to attend the Mosque on Saturdays for “education”. It was at age 15 when my views changed, it was around the time of the “graphic” cartoons of Muhammed, when I questioned my faith. For a long period of time I’d only accepted Islam, given that it was hard to believe over a billion people being wrong.
I then questioned many of my madressah school teachers, and recieved inadequate responses. Often, they accused me of disbelief – to avoid answering my questions.
In my experience, heavy anti-jewish sentiment is rife in my community; ignorant “aunts and uncles” accusing Jews of the worlds woes.
The activities of many “religious” muslims in my community further seperated me from believing in Islam. Many would have girlfriends, drink, smoke etc. I found hypocrisy common.
The hypocrisy of hearing “muslim” voices about UK foreign policy. But not wanting to hear freedom of speech when it suits them. The habit of picking and choosing aspects of Islam is idiocy.
By 16, I’d stopped praying, fasting and only attended mosque if there was a wedding or death. I find it hard to be friends with Muslims, due to my apostacy; very few are accepting. My sister has also abandonded the religon, which is interesting given we both disbeliebed in private, and have only openly done so whilst at University.
I have also faced discrimination, my current girlfriend’s mother (of Hindu-Indian heritage ), believes that I will try to convert her, and that I haven’t really left the religion – and to never trust a muslim boy. It angers me that people still associate me with a religion, any religion for that matter – and discriminate. I’d rather be discriminated for what I am ( an atheist ), than what I’m not, a muslim.
A M, birmingham
Hi.my name is ….i lived in birmingham for almost 4 years.i was a muslim.when i came to uk my thoughts start changing.i m atheist.i been married with non muslim girl..recently my younger brother he been living in uk. told my family back in pak about me nd my thought.drinking nd eating non halal food.and they didnt like it.my family is strict muslims.my dad nd my brothers threat me to deth.my dad refused me as son.i dont tell my friends or other peoples becuse most of them r muslims.
Mohamed Hegazy, Bradford
I was forced and to have beliefs and practices against my will, like practicing a religion I never believed in let alone the fact of believing itself, I am also being prepared for a forced marriage in few years, my only escape was fleeing the country I lived in; convincing my parents that I am going as a student and it will just an education phase of my life; In my society back home I am the only one who knows about my atheism, none of my family and friends know as I can predict the consequences and it will basically ruin my life both emotionally and financially.
JMS, London
I was raised in a fairly strict Muslim family and ‘community’, but I’ve always been an independent thinker with an enquiring mind. Religion didn’t make sense to me. It took many years of mental struggle with myself, my supposed ‘beliefs’, and my background to finally break free from the shackles. Since I have limited social contact, this group gives me an opportunity to join a new community of people like me that I can relate to and not hide from.
Danny Afzal, London
I was born into a Muslim family in a Muslim commuity here in the UK. As a boy I was schooled at the mosque with the teachings of the Quran and the Sufi would beat it into us with a chair leg with a nail in the end of it. It was then as a young boy that I began to question the teachings of Islam. Needless to say, me and my two younger brothers were banned from the mosque and eventually we were not allowed to attened any mosques in our community.
As a teenager I spent two years travelling accross Pakistan and I saw Christians and Hindus persecuted by Muslims because of their religions. They had no legal rights and were abused incessantly and I was dismayed by this and I tried to help them and was admonished for doing so. I did not see religious boundries: I saw human beings.
I studied the Hadiths and the Koran further, I studied the Biblical texts, the Torah and the Bhagvad Gita and other religious texts and scholars looking for answers and for a forgiving, helpful and loving God but found only division and hatred between religious peoples.
As an history acadmic, I went back to the origins of religious belief, looking for answers in ancient Eygptian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Native American and Aborigional texts and found striking similarities and clear connections to Abrahamic religions and practices, again looking for answers to a higer power which could unite human kind as one in life and death as some of these pre-Abrahamic faiths practiced and still practice today.
Suprisingly, I actually found something I could beleive in and an un-shakable faith…IN ME! Yes, I know it sounds selfish and my ideas have caused me much pain from others but I have never lost faith in myself to be a good human being to other human beings and I do not need a book, a prophet, a building or a doctrine to tell me that.
The universe is not as big as you think and if you wanted to, and you can think it, you can travel to places you can only imagine but that doesn’t mean its not real.
Peace be with you (in the name of humanityand huwomanty).
Danny.
Farhan, London
Hi I am 30 year old Ex-Muslim.I find Islam very difficult to believe and follow in this modern age.I felt stranded by Islam.I could not fulfill my dream of being an artist due to Islam.so I finally decided to leave this religion and free my mind.There are too many contradictions in Islam too many sects its very hard to understand.I am free now and happy.
ESMAIL, Bolton
hi i was a muslim but i always think about the behaviour of islam against non muslim which always teach me to hate but when i came here and see the behaviour of non muslims then i realised that non muslims are not bad so i have left islam and now i believe in humanity that all human are equal and the only atheist have respect for all other human?
LS, UK
I am an 18 year old apostate of Islam. Islam was something that I was extremely passionate about and would even try and convey its message to friends and not so religious family members. Being a science lover I was particularly interested in the so called scientific miracles of the Quran which I later discovered were not as impressive as I once thought. The more I looked into Islam from a less biased viewpoint I realised it was no more special than all the other religions of the world except maybe a little more cruel than some. I began to realise that it is a religion which favours men and treats women like second class citizens. I always believed Islam was the religion that truly liberated women and that is what i used to constantly remind my non Muslim and even my less religious Muslim friends who were having doubts. However over time I realised that I would never be able to OBEY a man and isolate myself from the rest of society. I want to be able to achieve great things and I realised Islam is what is holding me back from achieving my dreams. I remember growing up I would constantly pray for my non Muslim friends as I feared they would go to hell. I could never understand why a merciful and compassionate god would create someone he knew would disobey him only to punish them for eternity.The whole concept of hell seemed cruel and unfair. Although I am still in the closet I hope one day I will have the courage to tell more people about my atheism.
Sonia Wahab, UK
This is Sonia Wahab. The current statement is my testimony that I am now an atheist and an apostate of Islam. I am from Pakistan which claims to be an Islamic republic state but really struggling hard to fit the frame of democracy in Islam. I have seen horrors of religion from a closer eye because Jihad is the main spirit behind suicide bombing which takes tolls on life of thousands every year. Islam is a religion of submission and those who do not submit against the power are subject to killing. I testify here that Islam has damaged the core of my being and have taken away some real opportunities to experience the life in free and secure environment. Wherever Islam is there is fear and deadly silence. Although I have left Islam but I think Islam will never leave me. My fight against Islam will never end.I appreciate networking through social media and share my experiences of leaving Islam with other Ex-Muslims, otherwise, it is impossible for me to be my real self in a sick and decayed Islamic system. Islam is a monster of 21st Century and we all have to resist its violence under any fear or threat.
Maham
I would love to know more about people who are thinking to leave islam or already have left it. I am 26 now in an arranged marriage and have a son who is 3 years old. I have always been around people from my islamic community and I know of some people who have left the community and people (even close family) talk soo bad about them. That they will die in hell and that they are rubbish and so on and on. I know if I leave my religion my family will hate me. However I cannot wait to leave it. I want my feeedom, for which I have been dreaming alll my life. My husband is very controlling in regards to religious stuff and about what I wear and where I go and what I do. I am sickkkk of it. I hate him for that. I want to leave my religion with my son. But I am just sooooo scared of being isolated, specially because I need to consider my son too.
I’ve barely scratched the surface there, because the above is simply a random sampling from the first couple of many many pages of similar stories, and that is just from those that live in the UK. You can also be certain that for each and every story from somebody who had the courage to reach out, there will be many many more who opted to remain hidden and instead embrace their disbelief in secret.
There is much pain and sorrow that in the past would have remained hidden and buried and left many of these people isolated and alone. That is no longer the case because the internet now breaks down such barriers and enables like-minded people to reach out and find each other.
Further Information
Councils of Ex-Muslims
If you are a Muslim that is having serious doubts, don’t know who to turn to for help, and are afraid of what might happen if you expressed your doubts, then be assured that there are ex-Muslims that you can reach out to for help:
Council of ex-Muslims of Britain: http://ex-muslim.org.uk/
Council of ex-Muslims of Germany: http://www.ex-muslime.de/indexAktuell.html
Council of ex-Muslims of France: https://www.facebook.com/Exmuslims.of.France
Council of ex-Muslims of North America: http://www.exmna.org/
Council of ex-Muslims of Morocco: http://www.facebook.com/Exmuslims.ma
On the UK site you will find the following resources that may be of help:
Covering your Internet Tracks
Apostasy and Asylum in the UK
Guidelines for Ex-Muslims and UK Practitioners
WikiIslam – Online criticism of Islam
The primary goal of WikiIslam is to collect facts relating to the criticism of Islam from valid Islamic sources.
WikiIslam is not an Islamophobic, racist or a hate site, many of the site’s administrators and editors are from a Muslim background and/or are skeptics from Muslim majority nations.
Recommended Reading – The Islamist Delusion by Saif Rahman
“The Islamist Delusion – From Islamist to Cultural Muslim Humanist” is a well-researched and highly recommended book by Saif Rahman who is the Founder of HMCA (Humanist & Cultural Muslim & Assoc).
It was written by Mr Rahman over the course of 8 years and details his reasons for leaving Islam & becoming an agnostic humanist, and is a comprehensive and objective study for Muslims seeking a fair & balanced analysis of traditionalist Islam; and for non-Muslims interested in gaining rarely found insights.
Available from the Amazon UK Kindle store here:
Available from the Amazon US Kindle store here:
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Like this: Like Loading...Last year, DC changed their comic continuity with Rebirth. The one-shot issue brought the characters back to their core, while alluding that something or someone more powerful was behind the alteration to the universe: Doctor Manhattan from the critically acclaimed book Watchmen.
Now, DC is giving readers some answers to the questions that have been plaguing their minds since last May. The Batman/Flash crossover story The Button kicks off in Batman #21.
Batman and The Flash team up to learn more about the mysterious button--once owned by The Comedian--which is embedded in the walls of the Batcave. However, Reverse Flash is also a part of this mystery, as seen in the preview above.
DC has been tight-lipped about the four-part crossover, which will take place in Batman #21-22 and Flash #21-22. The publisher released a solicitation for the story but nothing else: "What starts as a simple investigation turns deadly when the secrets of the button prove irresistible to an unwelcome third party—and it's not who anyone suspects. It's a mystery woven through time, and the ticking clock starts here!"
Writer Tom King will continue his run on Batman with artist Jason Fabok and colorist Brad Anderson for the upcoming story. Batman #21 will go on sale on Wednesday, April 19 available at comic shops and digitally.Ford killing Mercury brand, boosting Lincoln
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Ford Motor Co. announced Wednesday it is killing off the slow-selling Mercury car brand after 71 years. The move had been widely expected as Ford has revealed few new products for the brand in recent years.
Winding down Mercury will allow the automaker to focus more attention on its mainstream Ford brand and especially its luxury Lincoln brand, Ford executives said.
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2010 Mercury Milan
"We decided we're going to focus our efforts and resources on continuing to grow the Ford brand and accelerate Lincoln," said Mark Fields, Ford's president of the Americas, in a press conference at Ford's Dearborn, Mich., headquarters.
Ford will end production of Mercury products by the end of this year.
Over the next several years, Lincoln will get seven all-new or drastically changed vehicles, Derrick Kuzak, Group Vice President, Product Development, said.
No jobs will be lost at Ford (F, Fortune 500) because of the brand's closing, Fields said. He would not say how much the brand closure will cost, but that it will not change the carmaker's financial projections. Ford has said it expects to make a substantial profit this year.
What's a Mercury?
Henry Ford's son, Edsel, started the Mercury brand in 1939 when he was president of the company. Mercury was seen as a way to fill the pricing gap between the inexpensive Ford brand and the luxury Lincoln brand.
Unlike his father, Edsel believed in the importance of design in automobiles, and Mercury offered customers something a little more stylish than a Ford, often with a little more performance too.
Sometimes Mercury sold truly distinct models that weren't otherwise available in U.S. showrooms, but in most cases, Mercury cars were slightly upgraded versions of Ford models with more fashion-oriented color and trim choices.
While Ford brand market share grew 2.2 percentage points this year, Fields said, Mercury market share declined to just 0.8% of the overall market.
"We've seen a migration of Mercury customers coming over to Ford," Fields said.
Most Mercury sales are to fleet buyers and customers purchasing through employee, retiree and other company-related discount programs, Fields added.
Dealer impact
1,712 dealers in the U.S. sell Mercury cars, but all of them also sell other Ford products.
The loss of Mercury will pose no problem for dealers who also sell Ford brand cars, since the vehicles are very similar, said Bob Tasca, who chairs the Lincoln Mercury dealer council. It will be a problem for those who sell only Lincoln, as it will leave them without the smaller, less expensive vehicles Mercury offered, he said.
Among the vehicles Lincoln will offer in the future will be a compact car, Kusak said.
Ford will offer assistance to Lincoln-Mercury dealers in areas that won't support a luxury-only dealership, Fields said. Those dealers will be offered the opportunity to sell Fords, if that can be done, or their dealerships will be consolidated with an existing nearby Ford dealership and they will be financially compensated.
"If we can get great products from Ford and we can get throughput, I don't care what they call the vehicles," said Tasca "A sale is a sale."
Ford-Mercury dealers are excited about the change, Tasca said.
"When you've got Fords and Mercurys on the same lot, and they look kind of the same, that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense," he said.
An increasingly irrelevant brand
At one point, Ford might have saved the Mercury brand and put it to good use, but making the brand meaningful was something the automaker should have started years, if not decades, ago, said Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive of the auto Web site Edmunds.com.
"Through lack of attention the brand has lost relevance in the marketplace," he said, "and you can change that, but it's not cheap."
A good, strong Mercury brand could have added sales and value, according to Anwyl, but it's too late now.
Mercury might have had some meaning to customers long ago, agreed Jesse Toprak, an analyst with the auto Web site Truecar.com, but not anymore.
"I don't think anyone under the age of 50 even understands what the heritage is," he said.
Killing the brand now follows Ford chief executive Alan Mulally's strategy of focusing the company's resources on its core "Blue Oval" Ford brand. Ford has already sold off luxury car brands like Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin. It is in the final stages of selling off Volvo.
General Motors has had success by trimming what had been eight brands in the U.S. down to just four. GM sales were up 17% in May compared to last year, despite the contraction in brands.
"We saw with GM what Ford can create by contracting to two core brands," said Toprak.
Ford Motor reported a 23% rise in May sales at the three brands it retains.
In contrast to Mercury, Lincoln will get more new products, some with engines and transmissions exclusive to the luxury brand. Ford also promised "fuel economy leadership" for each of the Lincoln products. With its new line-up, Lincoln will be squarely targeted at luxury competitors such as Lexus and Cadillac, Fields said.Multiple experts are calling into question the validity of the World Health Organization’s proposed revisions classifying gaming behaviors as a mental disorder.
The International Classification of Diseases, published by the World Health Organization, would define “Gaming Disorder” as a “persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour (i.e., ‘digital gaming’ or ‘video-gaming’) characterised by an impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities and continuation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.” In other words, a lack of self-control regarding video games is being legitimized as a specific mental illness.
This isn’t anything new. According to comment provided to Breitbart Tech by Dr. Christopher J. Ferguson of the Department of Psychology at Stetson University, “scholars have been investigating the concept of ‘video game addiction’ for probably over 2 decades now.” Despite all efforts, Dr. Ferguson points out that we still lack “any real clarity” about “how to define the concept, assess it, or whether it even is a ‘real’ thing in the sense of it being unique to video games.”
But that hasn’t stopped anyone from trying. According to Dr. Ferguson:
Despite [the lack of clarity] we’ve seen some pushes to institutionalize video game addiction as “internet gaming disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (published by the American Psychiatric Association) and, now as “gaming disorder” in the International [Classification] of Diseases (published by the World Health Organization.) The concerns among some scholars are manifest. It’s not clear why video games are being singled out as compared to many other behaviors that can become addictive (sex, food, work, exercise, etc.)
That’s why Ferguson and a number of his colleagues have published an open letter to the WHO regarding this classification:
Concerns about problematic gaming behaviors deserve our full attention. However, we claim that it is far from clear that these problems can or should be attributed to a new disorder. The empirical basis for a Gaming Disorder proposal, such as in the new ICD-11, suffers from fundamental issues. Our main concerns are the low quality of the research base, the fact that the current operationalization leans too heavily on substance use and gambling criteria, and the lack of consensus on symptomatology and assessment of problematic gaming.
And this isn’t a simple matter of semantics. The ramifications of haphazardly diagnosing people with a mental illness are enormous:
The act of formalizing this disorder, even as a proposal, has negative medical, scientific, public-health, societal, and human rights fallout that should be considered. Of particular concern are moral panics around the harm of video gaming. They might result in premature application of diagnosis in the medical community and the treatment of abundant false-positive cases, especially for children and adolescents. Second, research will be locked into a confirmatory approach, rather than an exploration of the boundaries of normal versus pathological. Third, the healthy majority of gamers will be affected negatively.
In addition to public panic, premature diagnoses, and the tendency to approach further study with the assumption that the disorder is real — the bias of the aforementioned “confirmatory approach” — there are even more serious issues at hand. First, that “the premature inclusion of Gaming Disorder as a diagnosis in ICD-11 will cause significant stigma to the millions of children who play video games as a part of a normal, healthy life.”
The most serious implications of this study, Dr. Ferguson points out, are that the classification could very easily “end up as an excuse to put some kids in harsh ‘treatment’ camps or perhaps be used as an excuse for media regulation/censorship,” especially in “non-Democratic countries.”
That conclusion might be seen as mere conjecture if not for correspondence between Dr. Ferguson and Drs. Geoffrey Reed and Vladimir Poznyak, both involved in the drafting of ICD-11, specifically noting “enormous pressure, especially from Asian countries” and “strong request from [WHO] stakeholders” to include this definition of Gaming Disorder.
Drs. Reed and Poznyak did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Breitbart Tech.
The classification could have negative effects across the world, especially where labels of mental illness could rob someone of their rights. Imagine if having Angry Birds installed on your smartphone was enough of an excuse to mandate attendance at a “treatment camp,” and you’re starting to get an idea of how this could go very wrong, very quickly.
But even aside from all of that, Dr. Ferguson argues the science just doesn’t back up the WHO’s conclusion:
Many of the “symptoms” proposed (particularly for the DSM version) are kind of normal stuff that many studies suggest aren’t really good predictors of problems. There’s also data suggesting the whole concept of “video game addiction” isn’t really stable and tends to go away by itself over time without |
able death. Turns out, people with two copies of the gene were 40 percent more likely to have diabetes and 60 percent more likely to be obese than those without it. Those with only one copy of the gene weighed more too.
Scientists now suspect that there are lots of fat genes. “There could be as many as 100 of them,
As much as 16 percent of the population has two copies of the FTO gene, and half of us have one copy. A genetic predisposition isn’t necessarily a life sentence,” says Bouchard. Exercising regularly can offset the risk. And the range is enormous, with some people having twice as many fat cells as others have, says Kirsty Spalding, PhD, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Even if you’ve lost a few pounds (or gained some), your fat-cell count remains, holding tight to the fat already inside and forever thirsting to be filled up with more. (To add insult to injury, the fat cells of overweight and obese people hold more fat too.)
New fat cells emerge during childhood but seem to stop by adolescence. Those of us destined to have a lot of these cells probably start producing them as young as age two. The cells’ rate of growth may be faster, too—even if kids cut way back on calories.
Strangers have written to Spalding, telling her how depressed they are by her research. But she says her news isn’t all bleak. You’re better off with more fat cells, she says, than with fewer fat cells that become overstuffed and enlarged. (New research suggests that the overstuffed group are more vulnerable to obesity-related health complications.) So while you can’t reduce your total number of fat cells, there are things you can do to keep them small. (See next point.) Another Scandinavian team looked into what happens at the cellular level when you gain weight. Kirsi Pietiläinen, PhD, an assistant professor of nutrition at Helsinki University Central Hospital, studied sets of twins where one was fat and the other thin, and learned that fat cells in heavier twins underwent metabolic changes that make it more difficult to burn fat. Pietiläinen’s team suspects that gaining as little as 11 pounds can slow metabolism and send you spiraling into a vicious cycle: As you gain more fat, it becomes harder to lose it. Stress hormones also ramp up fat storage. For our prehistoric ancestors, stress meant drought or approaching tigers, and a rapid-storage process made sense; we needed the extra energy to survive food shortages or do battle. Today we take our stress sitting down—and the unused calories accumulate in our midsection. A mother’s cigarettes increase the risk of low birth weight, and alcohol can damage her baby’s brain. So why wouldn’t unhealthy foods wreak similar havoc? A growing body of science suggests that sugary and fatty foods, consumed even before you’re born, do exactly that. A Pennington study on rodents reports that overweight females have higher levels of glucose and free fatty acids floating around in the womb than normal-weight ones do. These molecules trigger the release of proteins that can upset the appetite-control and metabolic systems in the developing brain.
What’s true for mice is often true for humans too. Doctors from State University of New York Downstate Medical Center compared children born before their mothers had gastric bypass surgery with siblings born later. Women weighed less after the surgery, as expected, but their children were also half as likely to be obese. Because siblings have such similar genetic profiles, the researchers attributed the weight differences to changes in the womb environment. Moms-to-be, take note: You can give your kids a head start by eating well before they’re born. When patients see Louis Aronne, MD, past president of the Obesity Society and author of the forthcoming book The Skinny, they’re as likely to have their sleep assessed as their eating habits. If patients are getting less than seven to eight hours, Dr. Aronne may prescribe more shut-eye rather than the latest diet or drug. With more sleep, he says, “they have a greater sense of fullness, and they’ll spontaneously lose weight.” When Jodi Dixon’s six-foot-two, 360-pound husband lost 125 pounds, she had mixed feelings. She was the one who always watched her weight and exercised; she was always the one trying to get her husband to be more active. Mort, a medical sales rep, was always the life of the party, says his wife, a 43-year-old mother of two in Freehold, New Jersey. But when he lost the weight, it was different. Predictions suggesting that large changes in weight will accumulate indefinitely in response to small sustained lifestyle modifications rely on the half-century-old 3500-kcal rule, which equates a weight alteration of 1 lb (0.45 kg) to a 3500-kcal cumulative difference in consumed energy. However, recent studies have shown that individual variability affects changes in body composition in response to changes in energy intake and expenditure, and in reality, the changes in weight that do occur across extended periods are substantially smaller than the 3500-kcal rule would predict. For example, this rule suggests that a person who increases daily energy expenditure by 100 kcal by walking 1 mile (1.6 km) per day will lose more than 50 lb (22.7 kg) over a period of 5 years, but the true weight loss is only about 10 lb (4.5 kg), assuming no compensatory increase in caloric intake.
Although this is a reasonable hypothesis, empirical data indicate no consistent negative association between ambitious goals and program completion or weight loss. Indeed, several studies have shown that more ambitious goals regarding weight loss are sometimes associated with better outcomes.
Large, rapid weight loss is associated with poorer long-term weight loss outcomes, as compared with slow, gradual weight loss.
Within weight loss trials, more rapid and greater initial weight loss has been associated with lower body weight at the end of long-term follow-up. Although it is not clear why some obese persons have a greater initial weight loss than others do, a recommendation to lose weight more slowly might interfere with the ultimate success of weight loss efforts.
It is important to assess the stage of change or diet readiness in order to help patients who request weight loss treatment.
Readiness does not predict the magnitude of weight loss or treatment adherence among persons who sign up for behavioral programs or who undergo obesity surgery. The explanation may be simple - people voluntarily choosing to enter weight loss programs are, by definition, at least minimally ready to engage in the behaviors required to lose weight. Physical education, as typically provided, has not been shown to reduce or prevent obesity. Two meta-analyses showed that even specialized school-based programs that promoted physical activity were ineffective in reducing the incidence or prevalence of obesity. Studies with good controls for confounding (e.g., studies including within-family sibling analyses) and a randomized, controlled trial involving more than 13,000 children who were followed for more than 6 years provided no compelling evidence of an effect of breastfeeding on obesity. However, breastfeeding does have other important potential benefits for the infant and mother and should be encouraged.
A man weighing 154 lb (70 kg) expends approximately 3.5 kcal per minute (210 kcal per hour) during a stimulation and orgasm session. This level of expenditure is similar to that achieved by walking at a moderate pace. Given that the average bout of sexual activity lasts about 6 minutes, a man in his early-to-mid-30s might expend approximately 21 kcal during sexual intercourse.
Loaded gun diet >> TOS and privacy policy Links are placed for promotional purposesThis photo provided by the Alachua County Sheriffs Office shows William Fears. Police say three men, Fears, Colton Fears and Tyler Tenbrink were arrested after a shot was fired after an argument with a group of people following the appearance of white nationalist Richard Spencer, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017, at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The Gainesville Police Department said in a news release Friday, Oct. 20, the three men were arrested on charges of attempted homicide. (Alachua County Sheriffs Office via AP)
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A man who fired a shot at anti-Nazi protesters following a speech at the University of Florida by a white nationalist has been charged with attempted murder, police in Gainesville said Friday. Two men who allegedly urged him to shoot face the same charge.
A Gainesville Police Department report released on Friday said that Tyler Tenbrink, 28; William Fears, 30; and his brother, 28-year-old Colton Fears, all from Texas, were arrested on attempted homicide charges following an appearance on campus by white nationalist Richard Spencer.
Hours before the shooting, all three men had spoken with the media in support of Spencer’s speech and white nationalism.
The three were in a vehicle Thursday immediately after Spencer’s speech and began making Nazi salutes and shouting Hitler chants at a group of people holding anti-Nazi signs near a bus stop, Gainesville Police Officer Ben Tobias said.
One person in the group of about six people struck the back window of the men’s vehicle with a baton, police said.
Tenbrink, a convicted felon, showed a handgun after exiting the car while the Fears brothers encouraged him to shoot, police said.
“Colton Fears and William Fears were also yelling, ‘Kill them’ and ‘Shoot them,’” the police report stated.
Tenbrink fired a single shot, police said, missing the group and striking a nearby building. He is also being charged as a felon in possession of a firearm, police said.
The men fled the scene and headed north on Highway 75, police said.
Just before 9 p.m. an off-duty Alachua County Sheriff’s deputy who had worked the Spencer event earlier saw the men’s vehicle. A group of officers called in stopped the vehicle and took the men into custody.
Tenbrink admitted that he was the shooter, according to the police report.
Police say two of the three have connections to “extremist groups.”
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Follow Jason Dearen on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/JHDearen'Miracle treatment": Larisa Rule with her parents Jaylene Siery and Peter Rule. Photo: Marina Neil. Photo: Marina Neil
She is blind, partially deaf, has cerebral palsy and can suffer up to 60 epileptic seizures a day. To say 23-month-old Larisa Rule's life so far has been a heart-breaking struggle is an understatement.
Now, after watching her daughter suffer since she was a newborn, Jaylene Siery has finally found something which eases the number and the severity of the little girl's seizures and gives her some much needed relief.
There's just one catch - the "miracle treatment" is illegal. In administering cannabis tincture oil to her daughter three times a day Ms Siery is breaking the law and risking prosecution.
Jaylene noticed an almost immediate improvement in Larisa's condition after administering the cannabis tincture. Photo: Marina Neil.
But the desperate mother is unapologetic.
"We tried 18 different combinations of anti-convulsant treatments before this, and she would still be having dozens of seizures every day,'' Ms Siery says. "Also the side effects of those drugs are severe. She can get a really bad rash and they effect her breathing and heart rate. She is sedated by them, tired and unable to eat.
"Since starting the tincture in December she went from having 60 seizures a day to about five and now they only last about one minute each instead of as long as five minutes. She is also more alert, has more movement, is aware of her body and is eating again.''
Larisa's battles began almost from the moment she was born at Gosford Hospital on the NSW Central Coast on March 30, 2012.
Like most newborns, Larisa's first day of life was filled with feeding, sleeping and cuddles with mum and dad. However things quickly went downhill and Ms Siery and partner Peter Rule now remember those blissful 24 hours with their first baby as the calm before the storm.
At just two days old Larisa's tiny body began suffering uncontrollable seizures which led to her being transferred by helicopter to the Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney where she remained hooked up to monitors for weeks.
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Larisa underwent countless medical tests in her first months of life which resulted in her being diagnosed with panhypopituitarism - due to an absent pituitary stalk - which means her body is unable to make essential hormones.
It was also discovered seizures during the first days of life left Larisa with brain damage which left her blind partially deaf. She has since been diagnosed with both epilepsy and cerebral palsy.
Ms Siery says her daughter has spent much of her short life in and out of hospital. In that time her seizures have worsened and late last year neurologists spoke to Larisa's parents about the possibility of palliative brain surgery in order to bring her condition under control. Although it is believed Larisa's seizures will eventually cause her brain to stop growing, surgery is not something her parents want to subject their little girl to.
Larisa Rule with her brother Eli. Photo: supplied.
In desperation Ms Siery asked doctors whether they thought medical cannabis could help her daughter and if they knew where she could source it.
"They basically just laughed at me,'' Ms Siery remembers. "But I had read about so many other kids being helped by it and we were at a stage where we would try anything to help Larisa."
Ms Siery's research led her to get in contact with Nimbin man Tony Bower who, as the director of his registered company Mullaways Medical Cannabis, is one of very few people in Australia who is open about the fact he produces medical marijuana products.
Mr Bower says his cannabis tincture oil "medicine" is low in THC, the compound which gives recreational marijuana users their high.
He says his oil, which is administered orally through drops under the tongue, is currently being used to treat seizures in about 200 children across Australia.
Mr Bower was imprisoned and sentenced to 12 months jail last year when police found him in possession of 200 cannabis plants. But his conviction was overturned on appeal and he was released after six weeks.
"I get hundreds of emails from parents each week asking if I can help them treat their children but I am unable to take many new patients on as I am limited in the amount of medicine I can produce,'' he says.
While Larisa is the youngest child in Australia whose parents have spoken about her taking cannabis tincture oil, Mr Bower says he has treated much younger babies.
"A lot of the damage which is done to the brain is done during seizures when they are only a few months old, so the younger they are treated the better the outcome,'' he says.
Larisa's family is thankful Mr Bower agreed to add her to his client list after he read a detailed description of the little girl's suffering.
"The results were almost immediate, we noticed an improvement on the second day we gave the cannabis tincture to Larisa,'' Ms Siery said.
Ms Siery and Mr Rule are now parents of two children following the birth of son Eli in November last year.
"Larisa is getting bigger now and her seizures can are harder to handle, and we have to look after our baby son too. Without the cannabis tincture our family life would become very difficult.''
Little Larisa's story is heart-breaking, but sadly it is not unique.
Thousands of parents across the country are constantly searching for new medications to help reduce the number and severity of seizures their epileptic children suffer on a daily basis.
They are calling on state and federal governments to support regulated clinical trials of cannabis oil and medical marijuana products in the hope they will one day be able to treat their children with it under a doctor's supervision.
Their calls are backed by the Epilepsy Foundation with the organisation's Client Manager Wayne Pfeiffer saying anecdotally cannabis tincture was effective in reducing the number of seizures experienced by some epilepsy sufferers.
"About 70 percent of people with epilepsy can control their seizures through the use of medication,'' Mr Pfeiffer said. "But for the other 30 percent who have tried as many as 12 different drugs and are still having uncontrolled seizures, I can see why they would be keen to try anything that may work.
"I particularly understand why parents would want to help their children get the best quality of life possible. We would support more regulated clinical trials of medical cannabis.''
However Australian Medical Association President Dr Steve Hambleton is adamant there is no scientific evidence which proves the benefits of cannabis products to treat epileptic seizures and that the well documented negative effects of long term marijuana use outweigh any benefits.
"A testimonial is not evidence. Because one person thinks it did or didn't work for them, that doesn't mean it does work or that it will have the desired effect for all people,'' he said.
"While it's illegal and highly likely cause more harm than good, parents should stick with known medicines and seek the advice of medical professionals."
Dr Hambleton said that given there are hundreds of chemicals in cannabis, there is a chance that one of them is beneficial in reducing the seizures suffered by epileptic children.
"If one of these chemicals is beneficial let's find out what it is,'' he said. "There are universities doing studies into that, and we are fine with those studies being done."
The concerns of long term effects of marijuana products to treat medical conditions was also noted by NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner last year when the state government rejected a report calling for small amounts of cannabis use be decriminalised so it could be used as pain relief for people dying of cancer and AIDS.
"The government does not support the use of unregulated crude cannabis products for medical purposes as the potency and safety of these products cannot be guaranteed," Ms Skinner said. "The NSW government believes this will not prevent access to appropriate medical treatment for any patient in NSW, given the availability of safe and effective alternative medications".
Despite the fact there are no plans to make medical marijuana legal in Australia any time soon, in America a number of states have recently done just that.
In September last year New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a bill allowing sick children greater access to medical marijuana. The revisions to the bill, nicknamed "pot for tots," require that at least two doctors, including a pediatrician, approve the treatment and tightened the language to ensure that only minors could get access to edible forms of marijuana besides lozenges.
A Perth mother whose three-year-old daughter suffers up to 20 seizures a day due to a rare genetic condition says she would welcome a move to legalise medical marijuana in Australia.
"My daughter is on three anti-convulsant medications a day, plus a back up medication for abnormal or prolonged seizures, and she can still have anywhere from five to 20 seizures in a normal day.
"We have tried everything, she has been prescribed every type of medicine that she could be and nothing has worked. She is on the last three medications that might possibly work for her."
Due to her condition the little girl has developmental delays and can't walk or talk. Her desperate parents, who don't want to be named for fear of prosecution, are currently researching how to access medical cannabis.
"We are not expecting a miracle, we would just like our daughter to have some kind of quality of life. We would love for her to just have a break from the seizures,'' the mother said.
Queensland mother Christine McKay has been giving her six-year-old daughter Casey cannabis tincture oil since the middle of January and says it has made a dramatic difference to the quality of her daughter's life.
The family's decision to try the controversial treatment followed four years of trial and error with anti-epileptic medication and side effects which robbed the little girl, who began having epileptic seizures when she was two, of her quality of life.
Some medications left Casey unable to speak, walk or feed herself. Others controlled her seizures but led to extreme behaviour problems which meant the family was often unable to leave the house with her.
Ms Mackay hit breaking point at Christmas and told doctors she needed a sedative to control Casey's behaviour in order to make life bearable for her two younger children. But since starting the cannabis tincture oil treatment four weeks ago the family's life has improved significantly.
"We are seeing a happy Casey we haven't seen for a very long time,'' Ms MacKay said. "She is playing with her brother and telling us what she did at school when she gets home each day. We haven't seen her like this for a very long time."
Although Ms Mackay agrees it is too early to be certain the improvement in her daughter's condition is entirely due to the cannabis tincture, she said she would be devastated if she was no longer able to access it.
"The idea that we might not always be able to access it is a major concern. I don't know what we would do if we couldn't get it. We would be right back to square one again."
Larisa's family is equally fearful of losing access to cannabis tincture to treat their daughter.
"It would be terrible,'' Ms Siery says. "If we can't keep accessing cannabis tincture it would probably mean that Larisa's seizures would kill her."Facing a(nother) looming budget showdown, conservatives in Congress wasted no time in steering negotiations toward conservative goals, like so-called “pro-life policy” such as focusing on abortion coverage and promoting abstinence-only sex ed.
Nevermind that abstinence-only ed is a monumental failure; nevermind that abstinence educators often mislead and degrade students. It’s part of the Christian conservative social agenda, and legislators are (predictably) pursuing it.
Under a provision added in 1996 to the Social Security Act, Congress allocates $50 million annually in matching funds to states that provide abstinence-only education. Each year, some states reject that money, either because they don’t want to match the funds or because they only want to teach comprehensive sex ed. The leftover money has, until now, gone back to the U.S. Treasury to be spent on other things.
Conservatives propose changing that, however, to allow states that do not implement comprehensive sex education to receive the unclaimed funds — usually between twelve and fifteen million dollars a year. The conditions? States have to implement the entire abstinence education standards, which includes stipulations that a program must, for instance
teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity;
And
Teach that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.
Now, to be clear, we’re not talking about ensuring that information about abstinence is included with other medically accurate information; this money is available only for those programs where abstinence is all young people learn. This is $50 million we set aside each year to provide incomplete sex education; and conservatives in Congress want to ensure that every penny goes toward that worthy goal this year.
Which is terrible sex ed, but, you know, it apparently makes Jesus happy.
The bill passed through the House 219-206 last night.
(Image via Ekaterina_Minaeva / Shutterstock.com)The drivers of some of the busiest bus routes in Phoenix will no longer strike at 12 a.m. Tuesday.
Union officials announced Monday afternoon that the strike would begin at midnight, but just before 10 p.m. they said the strike will be postponed pending the outcome of further talks with Transdev. The city pays Transdev to operate nearly 40 routes in the city; the union's conflict is with Transdev, not the city.
Encouraged to hear that a bus strike has been put on hold. Regular bus service in #Phx on Tuesday as talks continue. Stay at the table! — Greg Stanton (@MayorStanton) January 5, 2016
The looming strike comes one week before the College Football National Championship, which will be held in Glendale next Monday.
The bus drivers' union and Transdev had failed to reach an agreement in contract talks that have stretched since April, according to the union. Sticking points include bathroom breaks, a tiered wage and benefit system, and disciplinary procedures.
The strike was a last resort, according to union's negotiator Michael Cornelius. A comment from Transdev was not immediately available.
Phoenix pays Transev to operate the routes, and Transdev pays the drivers who drive the routes.
Union officials said the strike could go into effect Tuesday morning if they cannot come to a compromise with Transdev overnight.
"As of Monday night, an agreement has not been reached, but with talks continuing all bus service continues to operate normally at this time," the Phoenix Public Transit Department said.
The union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1433, represents approximately 650 bus drivers in Phoenix, according to Bob Bean, the union president.
Dozens of routes could be impacted by the strike, including ones along Central Avenue, Camelback Road, 7th Street, and 7th Avenue. Click here for more information on possible service disruptions.
See map below of routes that could be affected:Airline company Ethiopian highly values the role women play in our society. The organization stands by the “Women Empowerment for a Sustainable Growth” core value. The airline company will do something it has never done before. On November 19th, 2015 an all-women crew will operate the Addis Ababa – Bangkok route. Ethiopia ranked 174th out of 184 countries in the United Nations 2011 Gender Development Index consequently, initiatives such as this one are welcomed with open arms.
Celebrating women’s achievements
This historical flight will be operated by females only. And by females only, we mean female deck members as well as female cabin crew members. On the ground, all operations from ticketing to ramp operations and traffic control will be carried out by women. Ethiopian’s CEO, Tewolde GebreMariam, said:
“Above all, this is an ample opportunity to inspire young African female students to believe in their dreams and embark to fill the skill gap for Aviation professionals. Women are the continent’s greatest untapped resources, and hereby fully dedicated to ensure the increase number of women in decision making positions on top of key operational areas by consistently grooming and mentoring successor female employees for top managerial, technical and operational positions. We invite the whole world to watch our all-female operated long haul flight to and from Bangkok.”
{adinserter CNP5}
Taking care of women
30% of Ethiopian employees are women but they are misrepresented in positions such as pilots and technicians. Haymanot Endale, a 22-year-old cabin technician who has worked with the airline for two years is one of few female technicians. She is encouraging women to join the airline:
“I think that outside of the Ethiopian Airlines, girls think that the work is very difficult, so they did not enter [come work for] this company. But we enter and we see that it is very easy,” she told the press.
Africa’s most profitable airline is pursuing its underlying stance of being an equal opportunity employer. The company put in place a service targeted at new mothers. The company launched a nursing room equipped with modern amenities, comfortable reclining chairs, and refrigerators to store breast milk. Way to go Ethiopian!
A similar initiative was accomplished in Southern Africa not too long ago. Air Zimbabwe made history when an all-women operated flight, commanded by co-pilots Chipo M. Matimba and Elizabeth Simbi Petros, carried passengers from Harare to Victoria Falls.
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SEE ALSO: She Is Fighting Violence Against Women In The Democratic Republic Of The Congo.Catherine Dunphy was trained as a Roman Catholic Chaplain before becoming an atheist, and she is now a graduate and board member of The Clergy Project. On May 6th, she delivered the following sermon about her deconversion at West Hill United Church (a relatively Humanistic church) in Toronto, Ontario.
***
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for inviting me to spend this Sunday at West Hill — and for graciously welcoming me. The theme for today’s service is about awakening and new birth, but I am also going to speak about values, as well as a project that is very special to me.
A bit about me — I am a graduate of a Christian seminary and it was during my studies that I began to question my belief in god. It is a bit of a conundrum, that despite the obvious goals of educating religious leaders, most seminaries allow for diversity of theological perspectives; many radically unorthodox.
It should be no surprise then, that by the time I graduated I had let go of god and all the theistic concepts that go along with it. It has only been since about November 2011 that I knew there were other people like me. People who were once ardent believers and now have embraced an atheistic or humanistic worldview. This group that I speak of is called the Clergy Project.
The Clergy Project provides an online safe house for unbelieving religious leaders of every persuasion. Inside the virtual walls of our site we are free to interact, to share our stories, to find community, and to marvel at the charade of traditional religions that have so successfully bullied and dictated the functioning of humanity.
When I first became a member of this community, the most amazing thing was to know that I was not the only one. For many years after completing my degree I felt like I was somehow “defective,” as I had to be the only person who went through seminary and came out an atheist. I now know better.
Knowing that the Clergy Project and its members exist may be unsettling to some believers. We may be seen as leaders who have lost their way, or as trouble makers — whatever the opinion, it was the ability to reason that led each of our members to this community. Now we’re working together to create awareness of our existence, to communicate our values and to support our members who need our help in getting out of active ministry.
When it comes to the Clergy Project, we are witnessing the birth of a new grassroots community, which fits in well with the change in season and the theme of rebirth and awakening.
I am always excited this time of year as I see the world once again in bloom, hear the birds chattering and smell that first spring rain. Everything seems so ripe of possibilities and optimism.

I searched a while for a reading that spoke to this feeling, but that also took into account my position as an atheist. Though I have come to accept that our existence is fortuitous I do believe that we are instrumental in creating well-being for ourselves, our families, and our communities.
The reading that I chose for today by Salman Rushdie, I think speaks well to this dichotomy. Despite, its apparent lack of “warm fuzzies” it does inspire and challenge me. When he asks how do we live? And what is right action, and what is wrong? He masterfully calls us to think for ourselves and embrace the articulation of life in all its diversity and see it as it is: A responsibility.
His words challenge me to marvel in the reality of our existence, to know that nothing is ever easy and that we should cherish our opportunity to cross the stage of life!
Physicist Lawrence Krauss said, “Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements — the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life — weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode.”
Life is not a story of the mundane; it is a radically challenging opportunity for awareness. In this awareness, we learn not only about the nature of our universe and the truly cosmic events that got this billion year old journey on a roll — but also, we learn about ourselves by narrowing our focus to the tangible relationships and life experiences that we each encounter.
… Speaking of which, I want to tell you a little bit more about my friends in the Clergy Project.
The Clergy Project has existed for just over a year and in that short time we have done what has come natural. We have reached out to one another, embracing our diversity and sameness. Because of this support our members who have recently come out have been doing some tremendous things.
My good friend Jerry DeWitt is a former Pentecostal Minister, who not only left the atheist closet, but flung the door wide. Jerry details how his thinking about god changed;
Jerry DeWitt’s 5 Stages (MP3):
God Loves everybody God Saves everybody God is in everybody God is everyone’s internal dialogue God is a delusion
Now that Jerry is out, he has become one of the most vocal members of the Clergy Project. His gregarious nature and his optimism speak to the potential that non-believing clergy have, as well as the opportunity that this community has for impacting the status quo.
There is also Teresa MacBain, a newly minted former minister, and Clergy Project Executive Director, who is working hard to promote our group and to draw attention to the unique challenges that unbelieving clergy face when they leave active ministry.
We also have our supporters, who have, through their efforts, made the Clergy Project possible. Specifically, Dan Dennett and Linda LaScola, who published the ground breaking Tufts study, “Preachers who are Not Believers” (PDF). As well, we owe a great debt to Richard Dawkins and Dan Barker, who have both championed the Clergy Project.
Given this convergence of people and values, it is not surprising that I keep hearing from the members of the Clergy Project that “the time is ripe” for taking a stand, for building a community! It is hard work to cultivate something new, but when you’re inspired it makes the work invigorating!
During this time of year, when new growth is erupting all around us, I think it is only normal that we feel summoned into action. As the Earth tilts and the northern hemisphere once again emerges from hibernation awakened by the sun, it is time to get our hands dirty! Whatever our passion or motivation, now is the time to cultivate it!
A wise old nun from the 12th century once wrote, “Human beings cannot live without the rest of nature; they must care for all natural things.”
Our species are caretakers. That is how we survived and how we thrive, whether that be as gardeners, parents, students, or former clergy — each of us playing a part in this our human story.Secret internal reports and memos by one of George Soros’s left-wing front groups reveals the socialist billionaire’s subversive reach within the Obama administration, the United Nations, and the governing structures European Union, especially as it relates to the manufactured refugee/migration crisis.
Among the many noteworthy points made by Soros activists in one report is the assertion that the migrant/refugee tsunami that has already swamped Europe with 1-2 million Muslim migrants should be accepted as “the new normal.” This is not surprising, but it is alarming. It is not surprising because for many years Soros and his minions have been in the vanguard of the Open Borders/Migration Lobby. It is alarming because the radical “migration rights” agenda of the Soros network is being translated into official policy, nationally and globally.
A May 12, 2016 report of the International Migration Institute (IMI), an official project of Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF), provides an important window to view the working relationships among the IMI refugee activists and their allies inside the Obama administration and the United Nations. The nine-page report, by top IMI staffers Anna Crowley and Kate Rosin, entitled “Migration Governance and Enforcement Portfolio Review,” is one of many Soros/OSF documents released this week by DCLeaks.com, which describes itself as a project “launched by the American hacktivists” who “believe U.S. citizens have the right to know how domestic and foreign policies of the United States are shaped and who the real policy maker is.”
Quite clearly, when it comes to migrant/refugee policy, Soros and his fellow globalists are the real policy makers. Soros staffers Crowley and Rosin call for “accepting the current crisis as the new normal and moving beyond the need to react.”
Their report also provides revealing details on the Soros/IMI/OSF relationship to Goldman Sachs titan Peter Sutherland, the UN’s top globalist agent in charge of designing and implementing the UN’s chaos-producing migration programs.
“The Columbia Global Policy Initiative (CGPI), which hosts the secretariat for Peter Sutherland, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative on International Migration, has been able to take advantage of momentum created by the current crisis to shape conversations about rethinking migration governance,” write Crowley and Rosin in the leaked report. The Soros staffers continue, noting the key role played by their IMI “think tank”: “IMI provided project support for the drafting of The Sutherland Report, which aims to set the stage for institutional reforms to global migration governance, and to break new ground on protections for migrants outside the asylum system.”
The Soros/IMI report continues:
When we made the CGPI grant, even we were somewhat skeptical about the appetite for reform of the institutions that govern elements of migration at the international level, and the pace at which it might proceed. Nonetheless, we recognized the importance of starting this discussion, and the political capital Sutherland could leverage to bring high-level attention to the issue. This gamble has arguably paid off: as the September UN and President Obama’s summits on migrants and refugees have taken shape, Sutherland’s team has effectively drawn on work and thinking it had already done to influence the scope and deliverables of these two meetings.
How effective has the Soros-Sutherland tag team been? Crowley and Rosin say:
IMI’s access to the Sutherland team’s discussions has allowed us to keep civil society partners up-to-date on the latest developments, in order to inform advocacy and campaigning strategies prior to the events and to plan follow up actions.
CGPI’s elite-level behind the scenes advocacy through Peter Sutherland, has positioned its team of experts to influence policy and practical follow-up to global events. This has been complemented by MPI’s [Migration Policy Institute’s] neutral voice and ability to generate the policy-relevant research and evidence base needed to shape migration debates. This pairing has worked well and there is a natural collaboration between the experts that both centers engage.
First, a few important notes about the above-mentioned Peter Sutherland. While not a household name, he is very well known in the corridors of power, and he is having an impact on almost every household on the planet. As we reported here last October (Insider Peter Sutherland: EU-U.S. Must Take More Refugees, Get Rid of Sovereignty), Peter Sutherland is an insider’s insider; he epitomizes the uber-rich, globalist-corporatist elite. Here is a partial listing of his internationalist credentials:
• Until this past June, Sutherland was chairman of Goldman Sachs International, |
clustering result.
Summary
From my testing, I can’t say that one of the three approaches is a clear winner. The best algorithm seems to depend highly on the input image. Most of the time I have found that the median cut approach produces the best looking palette. For certain input images, though, I have preferred the simple histogram, or k-means approaches.
While I didn’t get a chance to do so in this post, I suspect that density based clustering approaches may be another good option for color palette extraction. It would be interesting to compare the above approaches to something like mean-shift clustering. The challenge with mean-shift is that is runs so slowly.
I encourage you to play around with these three approaches using the web app I wrote (source code can be found here). If you have any feedback, or alternative approaches to extract color palettes I’d love to hear about them.Add Chip Hale to the list of managerial candidates for the Philadelphia Phillies.
Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports reports that Hale, the former manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, has interviewed for the vacancy in Philadelphia.
The 52-year-old Hale posted a 148-176 record in two seasons as Diamondbacks manager before being fired last October. He spent the 2017 season as third-base coach of the Oakland Athletics. “I don’t understand why he wouldn’t be a candidate everywhere,” an unidentified general manager told Heyman.
Matt Gelb of Philly.com wrote last week that Phillies general manager Matt Klentak is looking for a younger, analytically-driven successor to 66-year-old Pete Mackanin. Hale would not appear to fit that profile.
Heyman lists Indians pitching coach Mickey Callaway and Red Sox bench coach Gary DiSarcina as other external candidates. Jorge Velandia, a special assistant to Klentak, is among the internal candidates who reportedly made a strong impression.
- Doug MittlerFor many years during the Cold War, Finland wished to be part of the EU and to be seen as a truly Western country, but the difficult situation of having the Soviet Union next door prevented its accession to the Union until a referendum in 1994. Now, the Nordic country flourishes inside the EU where it plays the role of an arbitrator, Finnish experts say.
20 years ago, 56.9% of Finnish citizens voted in favour of the country becoming an EU member state and it effectively joined on 1 January 1995.
While the Finns had wanted to be be put at the centre of Western politics and European institutions, this had been unthinkable due to the Cold War and Finland's relationship with the Soviet Union, including its close economic ties.
Teija Tiilikainen, director for the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki, said that the Cold War was a very negative and difficult situation for the small country of around 5.5 million people, where it was caught between East and West and had to walk on tip toes so as to not upset its giant Soviet neighbour to the East.
When the iron curtain fell, Finland seized the opportunity for comprehensive change.
"Finland perceived itself as a small player and therefore we wanted to be part of something bigger. That’s why the membership, when it turned out to be possible, was something that a major part of the country wanted," Tiilikainen said.
Finland's minister for European affairs and foreign trade, Alexander Stubb, stresses that Sweden, which applied for EU membership at the same time, had an impact on Helsinki's decision.
“Actually, the Swedes took us by surprise when then-prime minister Ingvar Carlsson announced the Swedish application [for] membership. Usually, we consulted each other on these types of issues, but in this particular case, for one reason or another, Sweden didn’t do that,” Stubb told EURACTIV in an interview.
He added that in the end, Finnish EU membership had not had an impact on the country’s relationship with Russia.
Top 3 country
Finland's European affairs minister emphasised that his country had benefitted tremendously from being an EU member state, not least economically, and was punching above its weight.
A combination of membership of the EU and a deep recession in the early 1990s, helped the Finnish economy to grow. Stubb said Finland went from being a ‘Top 30’ country to a ‘Top 3’ country over the span of 25 years in key areas such as education, innovation and competitiveness.
As well as the positive development of the Finnish economy, Tiilikainen said that Finland now had a stronger voice internationally.
Finland is a visible EU member, Teiilikainen said, and played the typical role of a small member, 'the arbitrator', which is keen on having joint solutions.
"The EU is in need of these kinds of arbitrators and mediators that are constructive with respect to the common solutions. Here I think a country such as Finland is valued and becomes much more visible because they are so essential for the system. Without those countries that are more conciliatory, the EU would not have a common policy in many fields," the director said.
The sudden Eurosceptisism
Like other EU countries in recent years, Finland has witnessed rising Eurosceptisism following the eurozone crisis. Finnish Green MEP Satu Hassi said that the crisis had had a bigger and longer lasting impact on the Finnish economy than on the eurozone as a whole.
Suddenly, the protest party the True Finns, now known as 'The Finns', suddenly gained 19.1% of the votes In the Finnish parliamentary elections in 2011.
According to Tiilikainen, a party with a real Eurosceptic agenda did not exist in Finland until then and that the country's Eurosceptics had been ideologically fragmented. The other parties in the Finnish parliament were caught by surprise and reacted by appearing less pro-European, at least rhetorically.
"They became a bit more cautious. Now I think there’s not much left of that," the international affairs expert said.
Hassi stressed that today the True Finn's policy agenda was "rather unclear" as the party did not want Finland out of the euro or the EU.
"They say EU takes the money from the poor and pours it to the rich – but in the European Parliament votes they have not, at least not consistently, supported tighter rules for the financial sector," Hassi said.
"They are opposing supporting the problem countries – but what they would do if they really had to take responsibility of the policy, is completely unclear," the MEP continued.
Tillikainen explained that euroscepticism within the eurozone has at least two common features; first of all the notion that EU politicians did not do enough to prevent the eurozone crisis; secondly, that in both the countries that were forced to support other countries, and in the countries which received support, citizens were unhappy with the way decisions were taken, citing lack of democracy in the processes.
While Finland opposed a second bailout to Greece, unless the country gained more favourable loan terms, Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen said in October that his country would be ready to support a third bailout for Greece.
Rules to follow
In the future, the EU can expect that Finland will continue to stress the important role of norms and rules, the Finnish experts said. Tiilikainen said that for the Finns it's important that what has been agreed, is something which everybody respects. Here, Finland tries to be a good example.
Stubb added that Finland believed in strong institutions and in a rule-based EU.
"So ‘you shouldn’t blame the machine if you haven’t read the instructions’, as one could put it. It’s very important that we stick to the rules and regulations that we have set amongst ourselves inside the EU," he stated.
While it has been apparent that the key EU policy areas for Finland over the past few years have been the European economy, the internal market, especially the digital internal market, and trade, Tiilikainen said that many were unaware of how important the EU's External Action Service was for the Finns.
"We are a small country in the North and the surroundings are quite turbulent. There’s the Arctic agenda on the rise, Russia which is very unpredictable, there are changes in the US policies with a direction from Europe towards Asia Pacific … Finland is in a challenging situation. Finland would like the EU to take firm responsibility for security and have a common security policy," she said.
20 years ago in 1994, four European countries; Austria, Finland, Norway and Sweden had referendums on EU membership. EURACTIV is marking the anniversary this year with a series of feature articles focusing on these four countries' relationship with the EU.Could Chicago be getting a new mayor?
Controversial rapper Chief Keef took to Twitter on Tuesday to say he’s out for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s job. “Vote for me!!!! … Yall gonna love me in the Office,” the 19-year-old tweeted.
He followed up the tweets with an Instagram post, captioned “Sosa 4 Mayor.”
The social media posts are all part of the teenage rapper’s beef with Emanuel, whose office canceled a benefit concert that Chief Keef had been due to headline in July out of concerns for public safety, NBC reports.
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The rapper, who has a long history of run-ins with the law, had planned to perform via hologram as he is unable to appear in person in Chicago, where there is an outstanding warrant for his arrest on charges related to child support. On Monday, Keef encouraged his Twitter followers to call Emanuel and “tell him to stay the f— off the people’s music,” providing them with a phone number to the city directory.
Keef may have to wait a while for his mayoral dreams to become reality, however. Emanuel was sworn in for his second term in May after winning a runoff mayoral election with 56 percent of the vote, and the next election is due in 2019.
Contact us at editors@time.com.The boss of a successful US hedge fund has quit the industry with an extraordinary farewell letter dismissing his rivals as over-privileged "idiots" and thanking "stupid" traders for making him rich.
Andrew Lahde's $80m Los Angeles-based firm Lahde Capital Management made a huge return last year by betting against subprime mortgages.
Yesterday the 37-year-old told his clients that he had hated the business and had only been in it for the money. And after declaring he would no longer manage money for other people, because he had enough of his own, Lahde said that instead he intended to repair his stress-damaged health; he made it clear he would not miss the financial world.
"The low-hanging fruit, ie idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking," he wrote. "These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government," he said.
"All of this behaviour supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America."
Lahde became one of the biggest names in the investment industry when one of his funds produced a return of 866% last year, largely by forecasting the US home loans industry would collapse.
In his farewell letter, which concluded with an appeal for the legalisation of marijuana, Lahde said he was happy with his rewards and did not envy those who had made even more money.
"I will let others try to amass nine, 10 or 11 figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck," he wrote, citing a life of back-to-back business appointments relieved only by a two-week annual holiday in which financiers are still "glued to their Blackberries".
Lahde's retirement came amid an implosion among the hedge fund industry - some 350 of the funds have liquidated this year, according to Hedge Fund Research.
His final words of advice? "Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life."Player visits are a huge deal when it comes to Draft season. Most teams, the Bengals included, want to at least have a feel for players they're selecting in the Draft. In the case of the Bengals, it's relatively rare for the team to select a player in the first two rounds without having met face-to-face with the prospect. Based on their draft history, the Bengals are very likely to select a first or second round prospect they've visited with or met prior to the Draft.
In 2015, Cincinnati selected Cedric Ogbuehi and Jake Fisher in the first and second rounds, respectively. Prior to the Draft, the Bengals had expressed growing interest in both prospects, and they ended up being able to land both players in the first two rounds of the draft. They also had visits with Marcus Hardison, who the team selected at the end of the fourth round, as well as Jake Kumerow, Tom Obarski and Terrell Watson, who all landed on the practice squad.
In 2014, the Bengals took Darqueze Dennard in the first round and Jeremy Hill in the second round. And to no surprise, Cincinnati had met both players prior to the draft. The Bengals also had a visit with AJ McCarron, who the team selected in the fifth round.
2013 was an interesting year for the Bengals. Prior to one of the most exciting seasons in the Dalton era, the team shocked everyone with the selection of tight end Tyler Eifert, despite having selected tight end Jermaine Gresham in the first round of the 2010 Draft. What was more surprising about the selection was that Cincinnati hadn't even visited with the tight end prior to the Draft. In the second round, the Bengals selected Giovani Bernard, and to no surprise, they'd visited with him prior to taking him off the board. The Bengals also visited Sam Montgomery, who was eventually drafted by the Texans. But after Montgomery was released from two teams, Cincinnati eventually signed him to a contract in 2014, eventually placing him on the practice squad. Montgomery was later released, but the Bengals' signing of Montgomery just goes to show how the team constantly has its eyes on players it has visited with in the past.
In 2012, the Bengals selected Dre Kirkpatrick, Kevin Zeitler and Devon Still in the first two rounds of the Draft. Of the three players, the Bengals had only visited with Kirkpatrick prior to picking him. However, the team visited with Mohamed Sanu and eventually selected him in the third round. Though, the Bengals may have met with some of these players, the meetings were simply not reported.
The Dalton era started in 2011, when the Bengals selected A.J. Green and Andy Dalton in the first two rounds of the Draft. And of course, Cincinnati met with both players prior to selecting the two guys who would eventually help turn around the franchise.
So what does all of this mean? Barring a top-10 prospect falling into the Bengals' clutches, the team will more than likely select a player in the first round who they have previously met with. The Bengals have met with dozens of players so far, but here's a list of the players they could be more likely to select in the first round:
Cornerback
Mackensie Alexander
William Jackson III
Defensive End
Defensive Tackle
Safety
Wide Receiver
There's always a chance the Bengals could surprise, and I'd expect them to surprise if a guy like Joey Bosa, DeForest Buckner, Vernon Hargreaves III, Myles Jack or Jalen Ramsey falls to pick 24. And there's still a decent chance the Bengals pick someone who hasn't officially visited with the team. Ultimately, this is just a warning that Cincinnati will not select a prospect that 100 percent of its fanbase agrees with, and that's okay. Because more often than not, the Bengals do a great job finding players who fit their system well and stay out of trouble off the field.
To me, the most important aspect to take out of this is that if a prospect who the Bengals have visited with, and see as a first or second round prospect, falls to the second round, there's a high chance the team takes that player in the second round, perhaps even if it means double-dipping. Cincinnati has taken a player it has visited with in the second round in each of the past three drafts. Knowing how intelligent the Bengals' front office is, there's a good chance one of these aforementioned players falls to the Bengals in Round 2, or that the Bengals swing some sort of trade to land a prospect they like.
But at the end of the day, the Draft is the Draft, and to me, the Bengals are the most unpredictable team in football when April comes around. Whatever the Bengals end up doing in the Draft, I'll remain optimistic about the players they select.ABC's decision to cancel Tim Allen's hit sitcom "Last Man Standing" as it closes its sixth season resulted in the network being accused of playing politics.
Only "Modern Family" beat "Last Man Standing" in the ratings for ABC programming.
Allen, whose previous ABC hit "Home Improvement" ran from 1991-1999, has been vocal in his criticism of Hollywood's leftist culture and said he attended President Trump's inauguration.
According to Heat Street, many viewers believe Allen's refusal to remain silent about politics in heavily Democratic Hollywood led ABC to cancel "Last Man Standing" despite drawing 8.1 million viewers this season.
Allen supported Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) in the presidential primaries, and said being a conservative in Hollywood was akin to living in Nazi Germany.
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He also called out Hollywood for "bullying" Trump while criticizing the president for being a bully at the same time.
On the show, Allen played Mike Baxter, a conservative father who worked at a Cabela's-type outdoors emporium.
Critics of the decision also pointed out that ABC's parent, the Walt Disney Company, is headed by Bob Iger, who is reportedly mulling a 2020 run against Trump as a Democrat.
UPDATE: Channing Dungey, ABC Entertainment President, said Tuesday the decision was part of a strategic shift away from comedy and not based on Allen's political views.
Meantime, Allen said on Twitter he was "stunned and blindsided" by the news.
Stunned and blindsided by the network I called home for the last six years. #lastmanstanding — Tim Allen (@ofctimallen) May 16, 2017
An online petition to "save" the show has garnered more than 100,000 signatures.
"Last Man Standing is one of the only shows on broadcast television, and the only sitcom, that is not constantly shoving liberal ideals down the throats of the viewers. And sadly, that is likely the real reason the show has been cancelled," the petition states.
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Trump to Pirro: I'm 'Surprised' At 'Hypocrite' Dems For Blasting Comey FiringThe newly filed suit by Democratic appointee Leandra English for the right to serve as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is not helping the cause.
It's based on a highly technical statutory provision, not the Constitution, which instead would tend to support Trump's authority to choose an acting director while he waits for the Senate to confirm a new head he's appointed. The suit is a partisan maneuver that will detract from the seriousness of the effort to keep executive power in check where it matters.
The background to the suit should already make you suspicious of it. English's claim to be acting director of the bank-watchdog agency is based on a clever sleight of hand by the CFPB's outgoing director, Obama appointee Richard Cordray.
As he left office, Cordray appointed English to be deputy director of the bureau. A provision of the law creating the CFPB says that, if there is no director available, the deputy director "shall" serve as the acting director until a new one is confirmed. Technically, Cordray was making English into the deputy director, which was within his power. And technically, that would put English into a role that would let her serve as acting director. But English had never held the position of deputy director before Cordray's last day in office.
Cordray was exploiting a loophole. He was intentionally trying to create a legal crisis by appointing English, aiming to extend his legacy or to make Trump fire English to get his own person into office.
Trump, for his part, had long chafed at the idea that he could only fire the bureau's politically appointed director for good cause. As soon as Cordray was out the door, he named Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to be acting director of the CFPB. Mulvaney shares Trump's strongly anti-CFPB views.
There were now two competing acting directors. That led to a hastily written opinion by the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice, the office that is supposed to give the president advice about how to follow the law.
That opinion relied on a different statutory provision, the Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, to conclude that while English could serve as acting director, Trump had the legal authority to name a different acting director instead, so long as that person was already in a post that required Senate confirmation, as Mulvaney is.
Trust me, you don't need to know the arcane statutory interpretation arguments set forth by Office of Legal Counsel or the equally arcane arguments English will use in her suit.
What you do need to know is that, as a general matter, the Constitution expects the president to be able to appoint the heads of agencies in the executive branch. Some agencies designated as "independent," like the CFPB or the Federal Reserve, insulate existing leadership from firing to some extent. Yet even these entities allow the president to make appointments to vacancies when they arise.
There's a good reason. The agencies that make up the bureaucratic state need to have some degree of responsibility to the electorate. The way to make sure they do in our constitutional system is by making the agency heads responsible to the president who picks them. Otherwise, the agencies would truly become the headless fourth branch of government that their critics accuse them of being.
The idea that Trump wouldn't be able to name his own acting director of the CFPB therefore contradicts basic principles of democratic legitimacy. It's at best a bug in a complex statutory scheme, not a feature. There is simply no good structural, logical, or constitutional reason why the dead hand of President Barack Obama's administration should continue to guide the CFPB once Cordray is gone.
The courts may decide English's suit on statutory grounds, without directly invoking the Constitution. Trump is acting within constitutional norms.
Comment by clicking here.
Noah Feldman, a Bloomberg View columnist, is a professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard University and the author of six books, most recently "Cool War: The Future of Global Competition."22-year-old KARA (Youngji) is now the proud owner of the soul of 33-year-old actor Heo Jung Min, as she ended his life in public on ‘Happy Together 3‘.
Heo Young Ji reveals, “During the staff dinner, [Huh Jung Min] oppa after drinking alcohol got up in front of everyone and confessed that he likes me … He told me, ‘I’ve got money that I’ve saved up,’ and things like that,” Heo Young Ji says. Huh Jung Min reacts with shock and says he doesn’t remember. “I said that I’ve saved up money?” Heo Young Ji responds, “Yea, you said ‘Oppa has saved up about 30 million won (approximately $26,900 USD).”
Huh Jung Min face palms in response, and Heo Young Ji adds, “And Eric oppa and everyone else told me to say yes to him … I said, ‘I don’t want to,’” Heo Young Ji reveals. “And [Huh Jung Min] said he’ll act as if he forgot tomorrow.”
Look at this murder face.
The “now I know how OJ felt” stare of death.
—–
We always talk about/admire “savage” idols and all that, but Youngji seriously just blasted this dude’s sloppy-drunk-at-a-company-outing confession to her on television and revealed she rejected not only him but made sure to mention that she even resisted the peer pressure of seniors to reinforce that she wasn’t with the thirstiness.
Good god.
Youngji is the best, and if there’s a netizen reaction where they complain about what she said, they can go fuck themselves.A group of 60 scientists and independent offshore drilling experts has challenged a major conclusion by the national Oil Spill Commission, saying that BP did indeed compromise safety in the name of profits when it made certain decisions that precipitated the disastrous BP oil well blowout in April.
The Deepwater Horizon Study Group, led by noted University of California at Berkeley professor Bob Bea, largely agreed with the recent findings of President Barack Obama's commission regarding the root causes of the explosions that set off an 87-day oil spill off the Louisiana coast. The experts seconded the idea that the cement that was supposed to seal the well from oil and natural gas failed, most likely at the very bottom, and that rig officials misinterpreted a key pressure test that should have warned them of impending danger.
But Bea and his colleagues took exception with the way the spill commission's lead investigator, Fred Bartlit Jr., declined to tie BP's management decisions to an effort to save time and money. During his Nov. 8 presentation of the commission's preliminary findings, Bartlit repeatedly said there is no "evidence" that anyone on the rig or at BP explicitly made a decision to "do it the cheap way instead of the safe way."
Bea's group counters that, even if nobody made that decision consciously, BP has a corporate culture that "was embedded in risk-taking and cost-cutting," and that played a role in the disaster.
Various investigations of the incident have found that BP was more than a month behind schedule and more than $40 million over budget on the drilling project, and that in the final days the company chose cheaper, faster ways to try to complete the project -- by skipping key tests, by changing final steps to close off the well and by using a single tube to line the center of the well instead of a interconnecting series.
Bea and his colleagues said everyone involved in the project could easily see the time and money savings and used a "deeply deficient and pervasively flawed" risk assessment system to justify the shortcuts.
"Perhaps there is no clear-cut 'evidence' that someone in BP or in the other organizations in the Macondo well project made a conscious decision to put costs before safety; nevertheless, that misses the point. It is the underlying unconscious mind that governs the actions of an organization and its personnel," the experts' report says.
In an interview with The Times-Picayune, Bea said that everyone involved in offshore drilling is susceptible to the unconscious desire to defend the industry. He said that includes Bartlit, who has been criticized for representing Amoco, which later merged into BP, and Bea himself, who started as a roughneck on a Shell rig near New Iberia in 1960 and still professes his love for the oil giant.
But Bea said his position on the risks of offshore drilling has evolved during his seven months leading the study group.
He was upset in early June when Interior Secretary Ken Salazar misused a peer review by him and other engineers to justify a deepwater drilling moratorium that the scientists actually opposed. Bea said he still believes a moratorium could have been targeted to more dangerous projects and to companies with the most troubled safety records, but he now is concerned about a rush to renewed drilling, especially in high-pressure, high-temperature oil fields akin to Macondo.
"You know, I look at my son; he's in his 50s but I look at him and think of him as still 16," Bea said. "In the same way, I see the computer screens and mechanized equipment on the rigs and I realize, my God, my son's not 16, my son's 55.... We've gone through this tremendous technological warp and the industry and government didn't want to recognize it. We've taken on this challenge without really understanding the depth of the challenge."
The moratorium was lifted Oct. 12, but the federal government has yet to issue a permit to drill a new deepwater well that would have been prohibited by the moratorium. Drilling contractors are concerned that their rigs are under contract for only a few more months; they say major layoffs will be necessary if they can't get back to deepwater exploration.
Bea said he is worried that the mentality in the industry, even after the BP disaster, assumes a very low failure rate in which only one in 10,000 wells suffers a blowout each year. But failures that fall just short of a massive blowout have been far more prevalent in certain sections of the Gulf where the channels of safe drilling are narrow but the reservoirs of oil are massive, Bea said.
"We've got these high-activity reservoirs and, man, have the stakes gone up," Bea said. "But (oil companies) are still using the reliability calculus that they've always been using."
In its letter to the Oil Spill Commission this week, the Deepwater Horizon Study Group makes some aggressive recommendations for how to move forward with drilling in the Gulf. It suggests that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement should regulate contracts between oil companies and their contractors to ensure that any incentives for reduced time and costs don't compromise safety. It also recommends that every rig owner be required to appoint a worker safety representative with the authority to stop work if he or she sees any dangers.
The study group also says BOEMRE's current process of giving "relatively inexperienced inspectors" checklists to police rigs is not sufficient for monitoring the government's new safety management system, implemented in the wake of the BP disaster.
David Hammer can be reached at dhammer@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3322.Gov. Jay Nixon waited five days after a black teen was shot dead to visit the area. The Late Show with Jay Nixon
Sometimes a politician’s biggest sin is failing to show up.
Gov. Jay Nixon waited five days after a black teen was shot dead by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, to visit the scene. By then, protesters had been marching for days, police had rolled in military-grade equipment, the president was calling for calm and the national media were all over the story.
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Meanwhile, on Twitter and on the ground, people were asking: “Where is Jay Nixon?”
In an age of 24-hour news cycles and 140-character tweets, Nixon’s late arrival felt like an eternity. Voters expect to have executive boots on the ground, and quickly, in times of crisis. Some observers, including fellow Democrats, said Nixon had dealt a significant blow to his career — the same way poor timing had hurt other politicians in crises past.
( Also on POLITICO: Paul, Cruz weigh in on Ferguson)
“His political deafness is staggering — he came, he came late,” said Chris King, the managing editor of the St. Louis American, an influential African American newspaper. Up to this point, “I think he did almost everything wrong.”
After announcing Wednesday night that he was cancelling his scheduled appearance at the state fair, Nixon traveled Thursday to Ferguson and other areas near St. Louis to defend the rights of protesters and media covering the events, while also warning against against “lawlessness.” He announced later in the day that Missouri Highway Patrol would be taking over security from local officials.
“This is a place where people work, go to school, raise their families, and go to church. A diverse community. A Missouri community,” he said. “But lately it’s looked a little bit more like a war zone and that’s unacceptable,”
In describing his visit to the scene of the shooting, Nixon noted that the dead teen, Michael Brown, was “a young man, a man not much younger than my own sons.”
( PHOTOS: Images from unrest in Ferguson)
The governor’s spokesman stressed that Nixon has been deeply involved in responding to the restlessness in Ferguson in a variety of capacities all week.
“It’s important to note that on Monday morning, the governor requested the independent investigation by [the Justice Department] and issued a public statement on the situation; that he spoke at a community forum to a standing room only crowd at a church in [nearby] north St. Louis on Tuesday; and that he’s been in frequent communication with local leaders from the start,” press secretary Scott Holste said in an email.
But in politics, nothing beats being there.
The coverage in recent days has been dominated by images of heavily armed police complete with tanks, protesters dodging billowing smoke and tear gas and reports of journalists being arrested. There have been few counterbalancing images of a governor taking visible action to bring the situation under control.
Other pols have also learned the lesson the hard way.
A slow response to a 1969 snowstorm nearly derailed the administration of New York City Mayor John Lindsay, an oft-repeated case study in municipal circles; more recently, and perhaps most prominently, there was the case of former President George W. Bush and his slow response to Hurricane Katrina.
( Also on POLITICO: Obama on Ferguson: 'Now is the time for peace')
Meanwhile, a proactive handling of a crisis can boost a politician tremendously, as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie saw after he took decisive action during Superstorm Sandy (though he had plenty of warning about the storm). Nixon himself has earned plaudits in the past for his handling of a tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri.
Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat who is now president of the liberal Center for American Progress Action, said it’s not always helpful to be hyper-critical in these cases, but that “it’s important to act quickly in such a situation to try to reassure people, to try to calm the situation, to try to prevent an escalation of tensions.”
“Some may think that’s not the governor’s responsibility,” he said “…but it seemed obvious rather early on that, at least in my judgment, these local leaders were not providing the kind of reassuring leadership that was needed given the death of this young man and the understandable reaction that followed.”
This article tagged under: Missouri
Jay Nixon
FergusonThe Samsung Galaxy Apps Store is the underdog when it comes to competing with the iOS and Google Play app stores. But the company does have the advantage of being the world’s biggest smartphone maker, and it embeds its app store on every smartphone it ships.
As a result, the Galaxy Apps Store is slowly gaining ground. It has grown to 24 million monthly active users (MAU) in the U.S., about four times the 6 million MAU it had in 2015. That’s not a bad result. And it’s good for developers, as Samsung curates its store so that only high-potential apps are available on the store, said Ravi Belwal, head strategic partner manager for games at Samsung, in an interview with GamesBeat.
While the other app stores have millions of apps, Samsung is focused on a much smaller number — in the hundreds of thousands. With that smaller number, it can make it easier for users to discover content and for developers to monetize their games and apps.
Among the leaders in the Samsung Galaxy Apps Store are Supercell, JamCity, Diandian Interactive, DoubleDown, Zynga, Game Insight, Playtika, GoodGame Studios, Kama Games, and Halfbrick.
“We go with hand-picked partners and we feature them,” Belwal said.
Image Credit: Samsung
Over time, Belwal said Samsung wants to increase its traffic from 24 million MAU to 50 million, and it also wants to improve its revenues. Since Samsung just launched its Samsung Galaxy S8 on March 29, it can help boost its MAU numbers again.
“Whenever there is a new device, there is a spike in both revenues and downloads,” Belwal said. “We’ve got a way to go, but this is a good start, and we have strong momentum.”
Samsung isn’t focused on every market in the world. But it is investing heavily with the Galaxy Apps store in China, and it is pushing its Tizen-based smartphones in the Southeast Asian market. The company is focusing on high-growth markets like India, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Big hits such as Temple Run 2 and Fruit Ninja have been ported to Tizen, and Samsung is also offering $9 million in app incentives on Tizen.
The Tizen Mobile App Incentive Program offers monetary rewards for developers who launch their apps in Southeast Asia. If a developer’s app is selected as one of the monthly Top 100 apps, that developer can win $10,000. And Samsung will have a new Tizen device launching soon in India.
“The India market is exactly like China was in 2011, when nobody was buying but downloads were high,” Belwal said. “Users don’t want to buy anything, but they will watch a video ad. The growth in ads has convinced some companies, like Imanji (maker of Temple Run) and Halfbrick (maker of Fruit Ninja), to come on the Tizen store with their games.”
Belwal said that by 2020, the Southeast Asian region could be much bigger. He will be talking more about that at our upcoming GamesBeat Summit event.My cardiologist has made it very clear to me that although I’ve had to retire, most athletes with my condition never actually find out.
He’s usually talking to the grieving parents of an athlete who has passed away.
It’s scary stuff. I’m sure if you research Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy you will find many sportspeople who have been affected by the condition.
HCM is a thickening of one of the internal walls in the heart. Unfortunately, it’s a leading cause of death in athletes because often there are no symptoms associated with the condition.
If I’m pushed to my limits, there’s a risk of me having a heart attack and, without playing the blame game, I have to be honest: this should have been found earlier.
That’s frustrating for me, and even more so for my family and the people who are close to me. Without knowing, I had most likely been at risk of something horrible happening for quite a few years.
In saying that, I had many great experiences. Especially while playing for Sydney FC in the 2015-16 season. I scored in the semi-final against Adelaide, I started in a Grand Final at 19 years of age. That was a great achievement for me, something that I’d really worked hard for. Then I played against Tottenham and Chelsea in front of 85,000 fans.
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coins are also given out occasionally to civilians. For that reason, you end up finding coins in places where you would not expect to find a connection to the military, such as in the hands of anti-war academics or journalists. When these coins get given out, they are a physical reminder of the fact that the military is not some faceless monolithic structure. The coins show that the military is an organization made of human beings.
Those bottle opener challenge coins could come in handy, because challenge coins are often used to play a drinking game. Different branches of the military have different rules for the game, but the gist of it is this: you can throw down your coin, and perhaps holler out “coin check!”; everyone else in the group must pull out their challenge coins, and whoever doesn’t have one buys a round of drinks.
But—if everyone has their coin on them, the person who initiated the coin check is liable for the tab.
Not all of the branches of the military are into the drinking game, but those who play are in it to win it. Some have their coin on them at all times, even when they’re sleeping, running, or showering. You just never know when you could get checked.
As far as the history of challenge coins goes, there’s a sort of apocryphal story that traces them back to World War I. According to the story, an American army officer had some special coins minted for his men on whim. Later one of these men was captured by French soldiers and he used his coin to prove he was an American and not a German. But that’s just one version of the origin story.
However they came about, the coins have always been about identity. Each unit designs their coin to tell a story about how they want to be perceived. Since identity in the military has a lot to do with hierarchy, there is also a hierarchy with challenge coins. As you move up through the ranks, challenge coins become more essentially valuable because they’re harder to get. It’s difficult to get a Chief of Naval Operations coin. It’s exceptionally rare to find a presidential coin—but they do exist.
The president’s coin is the rarest there is. This is a video of Obama giving his coin to a woman who lost her brother in Afghanistan:
The military isn’t the only institution to use challenge coins, although they were the first. Now some police and fire departments make coins, along with NASA, sports teams, and even performers and musicians who tend to perform for soldiers on USO tours.
Really anyone can design a coin and then just go online and order it. That’s basically what the military does, since these coins are manufactured with by private mints with private funds.
Because the coins are not in any sort of budget, there’s no set procedure or rules for making them. This means the design process is very informal. Usually, after a unit raises the fund to order some coins, they find a design by just sitting down and talking about what they want on their coin.
Then someone in the group will make a sketch or a rough mock-up, which they then send to the manufacturer.
The individual coins take on a whole new meaning when a whole collection is displayed together.
A lot of active and former military members have displays (or even build custom furniture) to show off the coins they’ve acquired over the years.
Actually, in Bill Clinton’s presidential portrait, he’s posing in front of his collection of challenge coins.
But these coins displays are not a flashy show of achievement. Quite the opposite. The coins are physical proof of hard fought relationships.At her 1993 confirmation hearing, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, invoking her ethical obligation as a judge to maintain both the fact and the appearance of impartiality, steadfastly declined to answer any questions about her current views on issues that might come before the Court. As she explained the Ginsburg Standard in answering a question about “sexual orientation”: “I cannot say one word on that subject that would not violate what I said had to be my rule about no hints, no forecasts, no previews.” On issue after issue after issue, Ginsburg applied this standard in not answering questions.
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee — both Republicans and Democrats — respected the line that Ginsburg drew. Senate Republicans, embracing the principle that President Clinton’s nominee was entitled to substantial deference, joined Senate Democrats in expeditiously confirming Ginsburg by a 96-3 vote.
Republicans’ respect for the Ginsburg Standard is all the more notable in light of the fact that Ginsburg, at the time she was nominated, had a record of extremist constitutional and policy views that placed her on the far left fringes of American society. I have documented aspects of that record at length and in detail. But in light of the renewed focus on the Court and some efforts to apply a different standard — a double standard — to a nominee who (like all the other candidates President Bush considered) is by any measure far more “mainstream” than Ginsburg was, I believe it appropriate and useful to do so here again. So here are some examples:
1. Protecting Prostitution. Ginsburg had opined that several federal laws against prostitution “are subject to several constitutional and policy objections. Prostitution, as a consensual act between adults, is arguably within the zone of privacy protected by recent constitutional decisions.” In support of this proposition, Ginsburg cited only two cases involving contraception (Griswold and Eisenstadt) and one involving abortion (Roe). She further recommended that the federal laws against prostitution be repealed.
The right to contraception for married persons in Griswold was based squarely on the marital relationship — not something that prostitution is generally thought to promote. The extension of that right to unmarried persons in Eisenstadt invoked the right “to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child” — again, not something generally thought to be involved in prostitution. And while the “right of privacy” that Roe relies on is entirely amorphous, there is nothing in its discussion that would appear to extend that right to include prostitution. Thus, the most natural reading of Ginsburg’s proposition that prostitution is arguably constitutionally protected is that Ginsburg had strong sympathy for that proposition.
2. Protecting Bigamy. Ginsburg had opined that a law restricting the rights of bigamists “is of questionable constitutionality since it appears to encroach impermissibly upon private relationships.” Ginsburg offered only a weak “Cf.” cite to Griswold and Eisenstadt in support of this proposition. But the marital relationship that Griswold celebrates is plainly the traditional one-husband, one-wife version: marriage is “an intimate relation of husband and wife” and a “bilateral loyalty.” And Eisenstadt speaks of the “right of the individual, married or single,” not of the bigamist. Again, Ginsburg’s constitutional argument is an extreme one that makes it most reasonable to conclude that Ginsburg had strong sympathy for that argument.
3. Abolishing Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Ginsburg had stated, “Replacing ‘Mother’s Day’ and ‘Father’s Day’ with a ‘Parent’s Day’ should be considered, as an observance more consistent with a policy of minimizing traditional sex-based differences in parental roles.” I have previously parsed the question whether Ginsburg was proposing to abolish Mother’s Day and Father’s Day or was instead merely proposing that abolition “be considered.” Suffice it to say that, either way, hers is not a mainstream position.
4. Criticizing the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. According to Ginsburg: “The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, while ostensibly providing ‘separate but equal’ benefits to both sexes, perpetuate stereotyped sex roles to the extent that they carry out congressionally-mandated purposes.”
5. Urging Co-Ed Prisons. This one may be my favorite, as it starkly illustrates how far removed Ginsburg was from the real world: “Sex-segregated adult or juvenile institutions are obviously separate and in a variety of ways, unequal.… If the grand design of such institutions is to prepare inmates for return to the community as persons equipped to benefit from and contribute to civil society, then perpetuation of single-sex institutions should be rejected.”
6. Reducing the Age of Consent to 12. Ginsburg had recommended legislative changes that would reduce the age of consent for statutory rape under federal law from 16 to 12. [See here.]
(The documentation for items 1 through 5 is provided here. See pages 69-71 and the specific recommendation regarding 18 U.S.C. § 2032 on page 76 for item 6.)
7. Requiring Taxpayer Funding of Abortion. Ginsburg strongly criticized the Court’s ruling that taxpayers are not constitutionally required to subsidize non-therapeutic abortions. (See Ginsburg’s chapter on the 1976 Term of the Supreme Court in a book titled Constitutional Government in America.)
8. Practicing “Limousine Liberalism.” Ginsburg had opined that an employer who had a manifest racial imbalance in the composition of his work force could be subjected to court-ordered quotas even in the absence of any intentional discrimination on his part. But Ginsburg herself, at the time of her Supreme Court nomination, had operated her own judicial office for over a decade in a city that was majority black, but had never had a single black person among her more than 50 hires. (Senator Hatch established this glaring inconsistency at the outset of Ginsburg’s confirmation hearing.)
I am, of course, not claiming that this mix of constitutional and policy views provides a full account of Ginsburg’s record at the time of her nomination. But no one has alleged anything in John Roberts’s record that remotely compares to the established extremist aspects of Ginsburg’s. Senate Democrats, having recognized the legitimacy of the Ginsburg Standard when applied to Ginsburg’s nomination, are obligated to respect Judge Roberts’s invocation of that same standard.
— Edward Whelan is president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and is a regular contributor to NRO’s “Bench Memos” blog on judicial nominations.Quote from: Vector of Infection on May 05, 2016, 11:28:54 AM I am willing to pay up to 40$ for this game but don't get me wrong Zack, if other people get it for 15$ and I have to pay 40$ I might take it a little hard. I'd still pay the $40 but probably grumble angrily while I enter my payment info. Anyway great chat guys. Keep up the good fight, I'm glad to see such swift progress.
Agreed! Siralm 2 definitely has more entertainment values (i.e., provides more hours of quality entertainment) than many games with a sticker price of $40 (or more).
I wouldn't hesitate to pay $40 for Siralim 2. (Not that I am recommending that price point, but based on the quality of Siralim 1 and the information in the Devlogs, it is clearly worth $40.)
That price might scare away people who are not familiar with the siralim games.I myself only have like $24...I've been ignoring sales of other games I have been just as eager to get in favor of this, this is the closest it will get for me to replacing the dragon quest monsters games (joker 3, terry's wonderland and monsters 2 remake for the 3ds... not coming to the US at all...)Now that the Timbers are second in the allocation order thanks to last Wednesday's trade with Chivas USA they have clearly signaled their intent to bring in a big name player. Mix Diskerud was first and foremost in people's minds but he has options in Europe and if he ends up back on the continent there are still a number of possibly returning US internationals that the Timbers could bring on board.
Likely
Steve Cherundolo: A longtime fixture on the USMNT at right back, 'Dolo would be a big get for the Timbers. A team leader and a consistent defender who can still get forward effectively, Cherundolo also has ties to the area having spent two years at the University of Portland before heading off to Europe. Cherundolo's contract runs out at the end of the European season and would be available on a free transfer.
Frank Simek: Another American right back who has seen less success during him time in Europe than Cherundolo, Simek's contract is also up this summer and could be ready for a return to the states after ten years spent in the lower leagues of England. Simek is only 28 and has been a consistant performer with both Sheffield Wednesday, where he was the team captain, and Carlisle United.
Jonathan Spector: The right back bonanza continues with Spector, a player who has been plying his trade in England for the last nine years, mostly in the Championship but with several stints in the Premier League as well during his time with West Ham (as well as three first team appearance for Manchester United, the team that first brought him to Europe). Spector is a versatile player, having lined up at fullback on both sides of the pitch and in several positions throughout the midfield, and is still in the prime of his career although rumors have been circulating for a long time that Spector could be looking at a move back to the US.
Unlikely
Alejandro Bedoya: Bedoya is in a similar situation to Mix Diskerud: he is a young, attacking midfielder whose contract is up in January. Like Diskerud he has seen some interest from Europe but has yet to decide on his next destination, although according to MLSSoccer.com he has been approached by Elfsborg in Sweden where he currently plays for Helsingborg.
Carlos Bocanegra: One of the most well known faces in US Soccer, Captain America has been rumored to be returning to MLS for a long time now. Unfortunately for those of us eagerly waiting to see him play here, each time the Rumor pops up he goes and catches on with another team in Europe. Currently on loan to Racing Santander in the Spanish second division, Bocanegra is still under contract to financially challenged Scottish side Glasgow Rangers through 2014. Although Rangers could probably be enticed into selling him, it is not looking likely that he will be allowed to go on a free transfer.
Herculez Gomez: A good striker in MLS, Gomez has flourished since heading south of the boarder to Mexico three years ago. In that time he has played for four different teams, scoring thirty one goals in the process. Gomez is on the outside of the starting eleven at Santos Laguna where he has been relegated to a super sub role, and could leave the club if tempted. However, if Gomez were to make the move back to MLS it would likely involve a transfer fee and designated player wages, both things that MLS has been historically unwilling to give up for American players.
Who would you like to see join the Timbers through the allocation rankings this season? Is there someone that we missed? Let us know in the comments.A Brooklyn teacher enacted a controversial bathroom break policy inside her fifth-grade class, one that if followed could result in rewards for students. (Photo: CBS 2)
— A Brooklyn elementary school teacher has come up with a controversial idea to get her children to hold it in.
She’s trying to keep them at their desks and off the toilet, but some say it goes too far.
Denisse Corona is a fifth grader at P.S. 90 in Coney Island. She said her teacher, Stephanie Warner, decided to hand out prizes to students who didn’t use their bathroom passes.
“They’re just little tiny toys, like erasers, pencils, rulers,” Denisse said.
The little girl said she and her classmates would get three passes at the beginning of the week to use the bathroom. Her teacher then laid out rules on a sign at the front of the classroom. If they still had passes at the end of the week, the students were rewarded.
“Lots of kids are holding because they want to get a prize,” Denisse said.
But holding it can lead to medical problems, according to one parent, who has an autistic son in the class.
“It’s not fair to the children. Mine has a bladder problem so three times a week is not cutting it,” Sandra Leon said.
The idea for the plan was to get students to voluntarily take fewer bathroom breaks.
“Because some kids just go for fun. They just want to skip class,” Denisse said.
Another teacher at the school said the plan stinks.
“They want to discourage the children from missing instruction for whatever reason, but if you have to go, you have to go. I have to go to the bathroom,” said Vicky Giasemis, who is also a union representative.
Giasemis also teaches fifth grade at P.S. 90. She said last year she had three students urinate on themselves.
And the Department of Education issued a statement late Wednesday saying: “There is no school policy. Apparently, one teacher took it upon herself to enact a limit. The principal says she has put a stop to this.”
One parent told CBS 2 the principal is doing the right thing by reversing the policy.
“Believe me, if you mistreat my child, you mistreat me. If my child came home and told me he had to go to the bathroom and he was not allowed, trust me, it wouldn’t go well,” Delores Vann said.
The Department of Education said individual teachers in classrooms decide who goes to the bathroom and when.
Do you agree with the teacher’s policy? Please offer your thoughts in the comments section below.Image caption The new ad features a young woman struggling to attract her man's attention - until she uses the shower gel
For centuries Indian women have been raised to believe that fairness is beauty, and this has given rise to a vast and ever-growing skin-whitening industry - which is now encouraging women to bleach far beyond their hands and face.
It all began with a YouTube video a friend sent me. You need to see this, she said, trying to contain her shock and laughter. And so I pressed play.
It was an advert. A couple sits on a sofa. The husband reads a paper ignoring his beautiful wife: her face, a picture of rejection.
What could this be selling? I wondered, as I watched.
Moments later, this scene of spurned love turned soapy when the leading lady was seen taking a shower.
But - she wasn't using any ordinary shower gel. No, she was using a skin lightening wash, which, as the graphic which then popped up on screen informed the viewer, would lighten her genitals.
An argument in favour... Lipstick is used to make your lips redder, fairness cream is used to make you fairer - so what's the problem? I don't think any Youngistani today thinks the British Raj/White man is superior to us Brown folk. That's all 1947 thinking! The only reason I can offer for why people like fairness, is this: if you have two beautiful girls, one of them fair and the other dark, you see the fair girl's features more clearly. This is because her complexion reflects more light. Alyque Padamsee, advertising executive Read more on Open The Magazine website
After an application of said fairness cream, rose petals appear on the screen, and just like the ending of a good old Bollywood film, the couple are seen happily embracing.
The moral of this story - true love will conquer if your nether regions are a few tones fairer.
That a skin lightening product should exist for such a private area has attracted criticism, shock, and disgust from some quarters of the media.
The desire for lighter skin is nothing new in India. For centuries women in South Asia have been raised with the belief that a fairer complexion equates to beauty.
But this latest development in a new area has reopened the age-old fairness debate.
Image caption Model Lakshmi Menon's dark skin makes her more sought-after abroad, while actress Sonam Kapoor's pale complexion endears her to Indian advertisers
Should such products be on sale? Is applying bleach to your skin healthy, and what are the psychological effects on girls who are told they're only pretty if they're paler?
... And an argument against Tapping into, and leeching onto the fear Indian women have of being ostracized because of their skin-colour, advertisers do what they do best: create a solution to an artificial problem. How do we empower our women if they're constantly being undermined by their own culture? Ads like this only serve to make them feel dirty and undesirable and for impressionable youngsters, can have lasting negative effects. Mallika Goel, designer Read more on Non-Resident Indian website
It even reached the highest level with one government minister writing to the advertising standards body calling for the product to be withdrawn.
But, despite repeated concerns, the lightening industry is booming, and diversifying. One market research firm even reported that more skin lightening creams are sold in India than Coca Cola.
The market, which initially focused on beauty conscious women, is now pitching to men too.
"The first fairness cream that fights sweat" read the large white letters on a bus stop billboard I passed.
It was accompanied by a photo of one of Bollywood's actors of the moment, John Abraham, his chiselled face promising fragrant fairness to all who buy the product.
If those variants weren't considered enough, you can also find deodorants for fairer underarms and talcum powders for whiter skin.
Advertisers specialising in this field, must spend hours devising new campaigns for their products.
"Do you think twice before wearing certain clothes because they don't seem to suit your body's uneven skin tone?" asked one half-page advert in a respected newspaper.
"Notice how the colour of your hands is different to the colour of your face?" asked another.
Money and glamour In 2010 India's whitening cream market was worth $432m and growing at 18% per year, according to ACNielsen
Stars who have promoted the products include: John Abraham, Shah Rukh Khan, Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone, Preity Zinta, Sonam Kapoor
It seems illogical that such prejudices should continue to exist in modern day India, but they do.
One wannabe actress told me she failed to get parts in films because directors bluntly told her she was too black.
You only have to look at posters and ads in India to see glamorous Bollywood stars who, thanks to a bit of graphics software, have dramatically lighter skin tones - with others going the whole hog and endorsing the products.
These are the stars who are worshipped by so many in India, and if many of them are complicit too, then it's fair to assume that this industry will only continue to grow.
How to listen to From Our Own Correspondent:
BBC Radio 4: A 30-minute programme on Saturdays, 11:30 BST.
Second 30-minute programme on Thursdays, 11:00 BST (some weeks only).
Listen online or download the podcast
BBC World Service:
Hear daily 10-minute editions Monday to Friday, repeated through the day, also available to listen online.
Read more or explore the archive at the programme website.The next time you find yourself participating in a corporate training session, glance around the room. Chances are, you won’t have to look too hard to find someone who is more interested in their phone, than they are in the training.
"Only 34% of trainees apply what they've learned to the workplace one year after a training intervention." Saks & Belcourt, 2006
This isn't the fault of corporate trainers, because in today's digital age it is extremely difficult to hold an audience’s attention over a longer span of time. Just ask the middle and high school teachers that endure the daily battle of vying for their students attention over their phones.
The challenge that businesses face is delivering compelling, relevant content in a manner that is able to grab hold and maintain the attention of the trainees. If you subscribe to the old “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” school of thought, perhaps it makes sense to consider delivering the training material directly to the exact place that has the trainees so captivated: their phones.
Americans spend an average of 4.7 hours a day on their smart phones. Mobile Intelligence
The evolution of smartphones and mobile devices have had a profound impact on the way we consume information. We communicate with friends and family through text, keep up with classmates and co-workers on social media and get most of our news and information through apps and other mobile-friendly outlets. Thanks to smartphones, we are in complete control of how we stay connected and informed. We control what information we receive, as well as when and where we choose to consume it — typically on our phones and virtually 24/7.
Not to say there’s anything wrong with this, but it is important to make the obvious distinction that as mobile technology has evolved, our collective ability to pay attention has devolved. As a matter of fact, the average attention span for humans has decreased 33% to an average of 8 seconds since 2000 according to this Microsoft Study. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s one second less than a goldfish. Again, this is not an indictment on mobile technology and the legitimate effect the digitalized world has had on our brain functions, but rather a rallying cry to embrace the change and continue to adapt.
Why not make training content available to the audience in the exact same manner they are accustomed to consuming most other media? On their mobile device and on demand. It’s extremely unlikely that any group in a corporate environment will have an identical set of characteristics: skills, experience, job responsibilities, geographic location, etc. so why not leverage technology to customize the training experience for the trainees?
Just as the technologies have evolved to make this concept possible, Retrieve Technologies has built an innovative platform that leverages mobile and video content via corporate training apps to help organizations share information with employees, customers, and partners more effectively and affordably than ever.
The Retrieve Technologies platform consists of Knowledge Apps (kApps) that, simply put, are a method of delivering knowledge. Knowledge apps are:
Optimized for video content, but support most file types as attachments.
Customized with any type of information.
Organized in a personalized digital library.
Include features such as notifications, certifications and support.
Knowledge apps are not only a great alternative or supplement to traditional training programs, but they can also be used for onboarding, and product support.In memory of Dr. John Nowik z"l who has initiated this web site and who translated Szlengel's poems straight from his bleeding heart, but didn't live to see it on-line...
We thank Sebastian Angres, Edyta Gawron, Josef Holender and Jan Jagelski for their help in this project.
Halina Birenbaum & Ada Holtzman Israel, Spring 2003, 60 Years to the Ghetto Warszawa Uprising.
...These poems-documents I was supposed to read to human beings who believed they will survive, I was supposed to review with them this volume as a diary of a dreadful period, which has passed to our joy, memories from the bottom of hell - but comrades to my wanderings disappeared and the poems became in one hour the poems which I read to the dead... Władysław Szlengel
Władysław Szlengel
1914-Ghetto Warszawa 1943
The photo has the dedication of the poet to a friend date: 11.9.1939
Web Site initiated by Halina Birenbaum and Ada Holtzman April 2003
Selected Poems I (Polish & English & Hebrew)
Selected Poems II (Polish & Hebrew)
Selected Poems III (Polish & Hebrew)
Selected Poems IV (Polish & Hebrew)
Ce que j’ai lu aux morts… Szlengel Poetry Translated from Polish to French by Jean-Yves Potel
Clarifications
What I Read to the Dead (Polish)
What I Read to the Dead (Hebrew)
What I Read to the Dead (English)
What I Read to the Dead (English - in Kobos Web Site "SHOAH")
Aftermath (Hebrew) | Note to the Pedantics (Hebrew) | To the Polish Reader (Hebrew)
An Account with God | A Talk with a Child | The Monument | Nihil Nivi |
Kobos' Web Site with Szlengel's Poems in English | Kobos' Web Site with Szlengel's Poems in Polish
Władysław Szlengel Mała Stacja Treblinki Na szlaku Tłuszcz-Warszawa,
z dworca Warschau-Ost
wyjeżdża się szynami
i jedzie sie na wprost... I podróż trwa czasami
pięć godzin i trzy ćwierci,
a czasami trwa ta jazda
całe życie aż do śmierci... A stacja jest maleńka
i rosną trzy choinki,
i napis jest zwyczajny:
tu stacja Treblinki. I nie ma nawet kasy
ani bagażowego,
za milion nie dostaniesz
biletu powrotnego... Nie czeka nikt na stacji
i nikt nie mach chustką,
i cisza tylko wisi,
i wita głuchą pustką. I milczy słup stacyjny,
i milczą trzy choinki,
i milczy czarny napis,
że... stacja Treblinki. I tylko wisi z dawna
(reklama w każdym razie)
zniszczony stary napis:
"Gotujcie na gazie."
*** Władysław Szlengel A Small Station Called Treblinka* On the line between Tluszcz and Warsaw
From the railway station Warsaw - East
You get out of the station
and travel straight… The journey lasts
sometimes 5 hours and 45 minutes more
and sometimes the same journey lasts
a whole life until your death …
And the station is very small
three fir trees grow there
and a regular signboard saying
here is the small station of Treblinka...
here is the small station of Treblinka...
And not even a cashier
gone is the cargo man
and for a million zloty
you will not get a return ticket
And nobody waits for you in the station
and nobody waves a handkerchief towards you
only silence hung there in the air
to welcome you in the blind wilderness. And silent are the three fir trees
and silent is the black board
because here is the small station of Treblinka...
here is the small station of Treblinka...
And only a commercial board
stands still:
"Cook only by gas"
* Translated from Polish to Hebrew by Halina Birenbaum and from Hebrew to English by Ada Holtzman. Yehuda Poliker, son of an Auschwitz Holocaust survivor from Thessaloniki wrote music to the poem and it is in his album: "Ashes and Dust". ולאדיסלאב שלנגל כאן התחנה טרבלינקה בקו שבין טלושץ – ורשה מתחנת הרכבת ורשה אוסט יוצאים ברכבת ונוסעים ישר... הנסיעה נמשכת לפעמים חמש שעות ועוד 45 דקות ולפעמים נמשכת אותה נסיעה חיים שלמים עד מותך... והתחנה היא קטנטונת שלושה אשוחים גדלים בה וכתובת רגילה אומרת: כאן התחנה טרבלינקה… כאן התחנה טרבלינקה... ואין אפילו קופה גם איש המטענים איננו ובעבור מיליון לא תקבל כרטיס חזור... ואיש לא מחכה בתחנה ואף אחד לא מנפנף שם המטפחת רק באוויר תלויה דממה לקדם פניך בשממה אטומה. ושותקים שלושת האשוחים שותקת הכתובת השחורה כי כאן התחנה טרבלינקה... כאן התחנה טרבלינקה... ורק תלויה עוד מאז סיסמה ישנה ובלויה האומרת "בשלו בגז".
Yankel Wiernik: A Year in Treblinka, New York 1945
Treblinka
Am I allowed to tell Szlengel? Am I allowed to tell Szlengel
the poet of Ghetto Warszawa
to wait more and more with his poems
in the drawer Endless ruins cover him
and his creations
he cannot request or he cannot protest
or he cannot complain Is it fair to postpone him
because he is silent
silence of eternity And who will listen to the dead
buried in a foreign land
under clods of earth I have many comforts
I have life and children and memories
and his poems from there Am I allowed to be silent
and not transmit them onward?! Halina Birenbaum 7.5.1985
Translated by Ada Holtzman
Władysław Szlengel in the School of Commerce, Warsaw before 1930 (first row, first to the left)
Source: Jewish Historical Institute ref 263/a,b
The first collection of Szlengel poems was published by Michal M. Borwicz: Piesn Ujdzie Calo, Antologia Wierszy o Zydach Pod Okupacja Niemiecka, Lodz 1947
A comprehensive collection of Szlengel's poetry was edited by Irena Maciejewska and was published in Warsaw Poland in 1977 "What I Read to the Dead":
Szlengel's book "What I read to the Dead" was translated to Hebrew by Halina Birenbaum and published by the translator in 1987.
Halina Birenbaum dedicated the book "to all those with whom I read Szlengel poems at the threshold of the total destruction of the Warszawa Ghetto"
Władysław Szlengel Kronikarz Tonacych - Andrzej Kobos's web Site (Polish)
Selected Poems
Władysław Szlengel Kartka z Dziennika Akcji
A Page from the Diary of the Actions - 10 August 1942. A Firsthand Testimony about the Deportation of Janusz Korczak and his Orphan Children to Treblinka Published in "Mosty" the Newspaper of "HaShomer Hatzair" nr. 4(12), Published after the War
Click to enlarge (Polish)
Hebrew, translated by Halina Birenbaum
Click to enlarge (Hebrew)
A Page from the Diary of the Actions
Translated by Dr. John Nowik and edited by Ada Holtzman
Today I have seen Janusz Korczak,
as he walked with the children on their last procession
and the children wear civil and clean clothes
as though on Saturday walk going to the park
They wore clean aprons of the holidays
but today they could dirty them
Five by five the Home of the Orphans went across the town
through bushes of pursued people
The city had a frightened face
a mass of naked and stripped crowd
the streets were watched by empty windows
like skeletal orbits of the dead
Occasionally a cry of a lost bird demented
a death knell rung without reason
while indifferent Messieurs rode in hand driven carts
the Messieurs masters of the situation.
Sometimes footsteps, scraping and then a silence
someone in the flight spoke in a hurry
frightened and speechless in its prayer
stood in the church on Leszno Street.
And here the children five by five, peacefully,
no one was pulling anyone from the rank,
these are the orphans, no one was offering bribes
into the hands of blue policemen.
There were no interventions on the Umschlagplatz
no one whispered into the ear of Szmerling 1)
no one collected family watches
for the drunken Lithuanians
Janusz Korczak walked with a straight head
with bare head -
by his pocket held him a little chi
and two small ones he held them in his arms.
Someone
Someone rushed exp
"you can return this a paper from Brandt"
Korczak silently shook his head refusing.
He did not even tried to explain
to those who came with the German offers
how would one put into those soulless heads
what it means---to leave a child in such an hour all alone....
So many years.... in this road so steep,
to give in the children's palms the sun's sp,
how would he leave the frightened one,
he would go with them... further... till the end of all the roads...
And then he thought about King Matthew,
that the fortune has deprived him of the same fate.
That King Matthew on the island among the wild ones
also would act the same.
The children were went into the cattle trains
as though on a trip on "Lag Ba'omer"2)
and the little one with the look of the brave
Felt completely like "Hashomer"3).
I thought in this so ordinary moment
for Europe nothing had a value
that he for us all was writing history
the most beautiful of pages.
That in this Jewish cursed War,
in the endless humiliation without an end,
in the helpless chaos |
profits overseas -- a policy that costs taxpayers billions of dollars every year. That doesn't make a lot sense. It doesn't make sense for American workers, American businesses, or America's economy. A lot of companies that do business internationally make an important contribution to our economy here at home. That's a good thing. But there is no reason why our tax code should actively reward them for creating jobs overseas. Instead, we should be using our tax dollars to reward companies that create jobs and businesses within our borders.
What's Good for the Big Companies Ain't So Good for America
We've all been taught "What's good for [the big company] is good for America".
But as Jim Quinn writes:
As a percentage of national income, corporate profits are 9.5%. They have only topped 9% twice in history – in 2006 and 1929. When you see the paid Wall Street shills parade on CNBC every day proclaiming the huge corporate profit growth ahead, keep these data points in mind. Do profits generally rise dramatically from all time peaks? You might ask yourself, if corporations are doing so well how come real unemployment exceeds 20%? The answer lies in who is generating the profits and how they are doing it. It seems that the fantastic profits are not being generated by domestic non-financial companies employing middle class Americans producing goods. Pre-tax domestic nonfinancial corporate profits are not close to record levels as a share of national income. They exceeded 15% of national income once in the late 1940s, and repeatedly topped 12% in the 1950s and 1960s; in the third quarter of this year, they were 7.03% of national income. I wonder who is making the profits.
According to BEA data, financial industry profits and “rest of world” profits — that is, the money U.S.-based corporations make overseas — are relatively much higher now than they were in the 1950s or 1960s. And the taxes paid by corporations are much lower now than they were then, as a share of national income. The reason that corporate profits are near their all-time highs is that Wall Street corporations and mega multinational corporations are making gobs of loot and paying less of it out in taxes.
And as I noted last year - paraphrasing President Obama - companies that do business internationally do not make nearly as much of a contribution to our economy here at home as they should:
Daniel Gross points out that part of the reason that the American stock markets are going up even though unemployment is rising and the real economy suffering is because multinational corporations headquartered in the U.S. are experiencing strong sales abroad.... The fact that companies based in America are raking in profits from sales abroad is good for American workers, right? No. Gross points out that American workers don't benefit because a lot of the goods sold abroad by American multinationals are made abroad: If companies participated in foreign markets primarily by exporting U.S.-made goods, this shift would be good news for the U.S. economy and workers. But that's not how it works. In fact, in the months after the global credit meltdown, U.S. exports plummeted. They bottomed in April, at $120.6 billion, and though they have been rising, the August 2009 total is still 20 percent below the August 2008 total. Globalization is changing the way we do business. It's not a matter of U.S. companies exporting goods—burgers, soda, cars, software—made in the United States to Beijing but rather, making goods overseas and selling them overseas... "Based on a Russian fairy tale and produced in Russia using local talent, the film is the latest step in Disney's broad push into local language production," the FT reports. As Disney CEO Robert Iger put it: "We would not be able to grow the Disney brand … if we just created product in the US and exported it to the rest of the world." If Book of Masters succeeds, it will be good for Disney's American shareholders but won't do a whole lot of good for its U.S.-based employees. Or consider American icon General Motors. GM's sales in China are rocking. In the first nine months, the company sold 1.3 million cars in China, including more than 181,000 in September. By contrast, GM in the United States in the first nine months sold 1.5 million cars in the United States, down 36.4 percent from the year before. And in September, GM sold just 156,673 cars in the United States. That growth in China is good for GM's shareholders and for some of its executives. But since most of the cars sold in China are produced there, with parts produced by suppliers in China, rising sales in the Middle Kingdom won't translate into jobs for unionized workers in the Middle West. The rising U.S. stock market and a weak, slow-growing U.S. consumer sector aren't really in contradiction. Given the large-scale trends transforming the global economy—and the role of large U.S. companies in it—it may be possible to have a sustainable rally in American stocks without a sustainable rally by American consumers. Don't Multinationals Pay A Lot in Taxes?
Well, at least the multinationals are paying a good chunk of taxes into the American economy, right? Not exactly. The Washington Post notes: About two-thirds of corporations operating in the United States did not pay taxes annually from 1998 to 2005, according to a new report scheduled to be made public today from the U.S. Government Accountability Office... In 2005, about 28 percent of large corporations paid no taxes... Dorgan and Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) requested the report out of concern that some corporations were using "transfer pricing" to reduce their tax bills. The practice allows multi-national companies to transfer goods and assets between internal divisions so they can record income in a jurisdiction with low tax rates... [Senator] Levin said: "This report makes clear that too many corporations are using tax trickery to send their profits overseas and avoid paying their fair share in the United States." Indeed, as Pulitzer prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston documents, American multinationals pay much less in taxes than they should because they use a widespread variety of tax-avoidance scams and schemes, including: Selling valuable assets of the American companies to foreign subsidiaries based in tax havens for next to nothing, so that those valuable assets can be taxed at much lower foreign rates Pretending that costs were spent in the United States, so that the companies can count them as costs or deductions in the U.S. and pay less taxes to the American government Booking profits as if they occurred in the subsidiary's tax haven countries, so that taxes paid on profits are at the much lower safe haven rate Working out sweetheart deals with certain foreign governments, so that the companies can pretend they paid more in foreign taxes than they actually did, to obtain higher U.S. tax credits than are warranted Pretending they are headquartered in tax havens like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands or Panama, so that they can enjoy all of the benefits of actually being based in America (including the use of American law and the court system, listing on the Dow, etc.), with the tax benefits associated with having a principal address in a sunny tax haven. And myriad other scams As Johnston documents, the American economy is hurt by the massive underpayment of taxes by the huge multinationals.
But at least the stock market helps the average American, right?
Well, as I pointed out in March:
Even Alan Greenspan recently called the recovery "extremely unbalanced," driven largely by high earners benefiting from recovering stock markets and large corporations.
***
As economics professor and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich writes today in an outstanding piece:
Some cheerleaders say rising stock prices make consumers feel wealthier and therefore readier to spend. But to the extent most Americans have any assets at all their net worth is mostly in their homes, and those homes are still worth less than they were in 2007. The "wealth effect" is relevant mainly to the richest 10 percent of Americans, most of whose net worth is in stocks and bonds.
As I noted in May:
As of 2007, the bottom 50% of the U.S. population owned only one-half of one percent of all stocks, bonds and mutual funds in the U.S. On the other hand, the top 1% owned owned 50.9 %.
***
(Of course, the divergence between the wealthiest and the rest has only increased since 2007.)
And professor G. William Domhoff just updated his "Who Rules America" study, showing that the richest 10% own 98.5% of all financial securities, and that:
The top 10% have 80% to 90% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America.Jack Lemmon interviewed by Chet Cooper
( This may be the last interview Jack Lemmon granted. As you will see, he was in good spirits although at the time he was battling cancer. He lived his life to the fullest up to the very end; transforming his passion for acting into enduring gems of entertainment.) He is recognized as one of the greatest comedy actors in motion picture history, yet Jack Lemmon has been awarded a Best Actor Oscar and an Emmy for his dramatic work. As the scheming Ensign Pulver in Mr. Roberts, his first major film role, Lemmon stole scene after scene from Hollywood legends Henry Fonda, James Cagney and William Powell, and he has continued to delight moviegoers ever since. His performance in Mr. Roberts earned the Harvard graduate the 1955 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and launched what has become an extraordinary career. Some Like It Hot, the Billy Wilder-directed classic he starred in along with Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe, was recently selected as the greatest comedy of all time by the American Film Institute (AFI). And, who can forget his teaming with the late Walter Matthau in such hilarious romps as The Odd Couple, The Fortune Cookie and, more recently, Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men? Lemmon grew up as an only child in a well-to-do Boston family, and attended exclusive prep schools, where he frequently acted in school productions. At Harvard, he served in the Navy ROTC, did more stage work and graduated with a degree in War Service Sciences. A hitch in the Navy--where he served as an ensign--followed. Later, he would draw on that experience when bringing life to the character of Pulver. When Lemmon completed his patriotic obligation he moved to New York City to begin his professional acting career. He managed to find work on radio, television and Broadway, and also performed as a beer hall pianist between roles. A part in a 1954 movie with Judy Holiday led to the career-making opportunity in Mr. Roberts. With the overwhelming critical and box office success of Mr. Roberts, Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960) Lemmon established himself as a highly bankable comedy actor. Many in Hollywood therefore questioned his judgment to star in The Days of Wine And Roses, a decidedly unfunny 1962 drama about the disintegrating life of an alcoholic. The actor quieted all his detractors, however, with a riveting performance that earned him an Academy Award nomination. He would win the Oscar for another heavy dramatic role in Save The Tiger (1973), and receive nominations for The China Syndrome, Tribute and Missing, none of which can be classified as comedies. AFI presented Lemmon with its Life Achievement Award in 1988, but his career has continued to roll along in high gear with acclaimed roles in the movie version of Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) and the made-for-television movies Twelve Angry Men (1997), Inherit The Wind (1998) and Oprah Winfrey Presents Tuesdays with Morrie (1999). All three TV performances earned Emmy nominations, with the latter--where he played a beloved professor battling Lou Gehrig's Disease--winning the prestigious Best Actor in a Made for Television Movie or Miniseries Award. Lemmon has been married to actress Felicia Farr since 1962. The couple have a daughter, Courtney. He also has a son, Christopher, from a previous marriage. A talented pianist who still loves to "tickle the ivories," the actor composed the theme music for Tribute and wrote a song for his 1957 movie, Fire Down Below. He also enjoys golf, and has played in numerous celebrity pro-am tournaments. ABILITY's Chet Cooper had an opportunity to talk with Lemmon shortly after PBS Television announced it would be airing The Living Century, a TV series about active Americans who are over 100 years of age. Lemmon serves as on-air host for the program, introducing and wrapping up each episode. Chet Cooper: Let's start with the beginning. Is it true that you were actually born in an elevator? (laughs) Jack Lemmon: (laughs) Yeah, I was born in an elevator, and--as my mother said--naturally it was going down. She said, "All I remember is telling your father, 'That's it! Never again!'" That's why I'm an only child. CC: In what city? JL: The city was Newton Wellesley, a suburb of Boston. The last I heard, the hospital put a plaque over the elevator. There's three elevators side by side, and they put a plaque over the one we were in saying that I was born there on February 8, 1925, in the elevator. CC: Have you ever been back there as an adult? JL: No, I haven't. CC: Wouldn't it be interesting to take a ride in that elevator. It would be funny to see the reaction of the people as you exit the elevator with your plaque on it. JL: Yeah. I think next time I go to Boston I will probably drop by just for the heck of it. CC: I wonder if any pregnant women have gone into the elevator saying, "Let's see if this can happen again." JL: (laughs) CC: Is it true your father was an executive in a bakery company? JL: Donut Corporation of America CC: Would he have preferred you to go into the family business? JL: He would have loved it. But, one of the greatest lines he ever said to me was when I borrowed a few hundred dollars from him so I could go down to New York...to see if I could get an agent or get into the theater somehow or another... I had no desire to be in the movies. All my training had been in the theater, thank God. So, he gave me the money and he said to me, "You really want to give this a shot, huh? And I said, "Yeah, I've got to find out. Otherwise, I'll never really know whether I could have done it or not." And he said, "You've done similar stuff, and you've done enough to know that you love it?" And I said, "I love it," and he said, "Great. Because the day I don't find romance in a loaf of bread, I'm going to quit." It's a marvelous line. CC: That's a great way to live your life. JL: Yeah, I thought back on that...in the earlier days (of my career)--when months would go by and there's no film and there are no offers--and I'd stop and think, "Well, you know enough that you love it and you've got to ride with it, right down through the peaks and the valleys." CC: Why do some people just know that they need to be on stage? JL: I'm not sure. I guess part of it may be the desire to be accepted on a huge scale--the milk and honey, etc. I think I was just attracted to it by the time I was eight years old when I did a school play and the kids liked what I did. It had nothing to do with talent but everything to do with being accepted, because the kids kept saying, "that was terrific, tell us more funny stuff." I had to start making things up between classes and they'd all come over and gather around my desk and I'd tell them a lot of b.s. I guess it was when I was into my teens that it suddenly stopped, and that was when I realized that I really loved acting. CC: So, you actually got started, in a sense, by creating your own material and ad-libbing. CONTINUED IN ABILITY MAGAZINE...... subscribeHalloween is right around the corner, and if you’re ready for a fright, we’ve created a map of haunted houses in the Chicago area. We’ve also included some local pumpkin patches, too.
Simply click on the spooky icons in the map above to retrieve a haunted house’s name, address and website with more information.
If we’re missing a haunted house near you, please submit it through this form and we’ll add it to our map:
Here is a list of all the haunted houses that appear in the map:
13th Floor
1940 George St., Melrose Park, Illinois 60160
Abandoned Haunted House Complex
2825 SE Frontage Rd. Mount Pleasant WI 53177
Abyss Horror Zone
1901 Hill Ave. Montgomery IL 60538
Amhurst Asylum
228 S 500 West Valpraiso IN 46385
Audience Annihilated 3
5026 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago IL 60625
Basement of the Dead
42 West New York Street, Aurora, IL
Bengtson’s Haunted Barn
13341 W 151st St Homer Glen IL 60491
Camp Tuckabatchee Haunted Camp
1973 North 35th Road, Ottawa, IL 61350
Catacombs at St. Pascal
6143 W Irving Park Road, Chicago, IL 60634
Cicero’s Town Hall of Horrors
4937 W 25th St. Cicero IL 60804
Creepyhallow Haunted Theme Park
24405 S. LaGrange Rd. Frankfort IL 60423
D.E.A.D. Rising Haunted Attraction
11901 S. Cicero Alsip IL 60803
Dark Summit
5700 S. Archer Rd. Summit IL 60501
Disturbia Screams In The Park
5501 Park Pl. Rosemont IL 60018
D.O.A Room Escape
1450 W. Fullerton Ave. Addison IL 60101
Dungeon of Doom
600 29th St. Zion IL 60099
Dungeon of Terror
515 Depot St. Mazon IL 60444
Elgin Turners Haunted House
112 Villa St. Elgin IL 60120
Evil Intentions Haunted House
900 Grace St. Elgin IL 60120
Fear Fest
6512 Manchester Rd. South Beloit IL 60180
Forest of Freaks
5946 US HWY 51 Janesville WI 53546
Fright Fest
1 Great America Parkway Gurnee IL 60031
Frightmare Haunted House
7759 S. Harlem Ave. Burbank IL 60459
Goebbert’s Pumpkin Patch
42W813 Reinking Road, Hampshire IL 60140
Hair Razor Haunted Scenes
6725 W. Devon Ave. Chicago, IL 60631
Haunted Halls of Hanover
10120 West 133rd Avenue, Cedar Lake, IN 46303
Haunted Canal Boat Rides
754 First Street, LaSalle, IL 61301
Haunted Hike
37W955 Big Timber Rd. Elgin IL 60124
Haunted Hills Hospital
6112 Old Porter Rd. Portage IL 46368
Haunted Trails Joliet
1423 N. Broadway (Rt. 53) Joliet IL 60435
Haunted Quarry
327 West Wilson Street, Batavia IL 60510
Heap’s Haunted Corn Maze
4853 U.S. HWY 52 Minooka IL
House of Tourment
8240 N. Austin Ave Morton Grove IL 60053
Jonamac Orchard Haunted Corn Maze
19412 Shabbona Rd, Malta, IL 60150
Lake Hills Haunted House
8640 Lake Hills Dr. St. John IN 46373.
Lombard Haunted House
20 Convenience Center Lombard IL 60148
Mack Manor
1050 Algonquin Road, Fox River Grove, IL
Mars Haunted House
734 W. Historic Mitchell St. Milwaukee WI 53204
Massacre Haunted House
299 Montgomery Rd. Montgomery IL 60538
Midnight Terror
9531 52nd Ave Oak Lawn IL 60453
Nightmare from North Street
601 Dundee Ave, East Dundee, IL 60118
Nightmare at the Terrace
11500 S. Beloit, Worth, IL 60482
Niles Haunted House Scream Park
855 Mayflower Rd. Niles MI 49120
Odyssey Fun Farm: Zombie Safari Paintball
19111 S Oak Park Ave, Tinley Park, IL 60477
Orland Park Lions Club Haunted Woods
14800 Ravinia Ave. Orland Park, IL 60462
Park After Dark
South Point
810 Preston Lane, Oswego, IL 60543
Psychosis Haunted House
300 Lake Street, Elgin, IL, 60120
Puckerville Farms
13332 Bell Rd Lemont IL 60439
Pumpkin Days
12700 Southwest Highway Palos Park, IL 60464
Raven’s Grin Inn
411 N Carroll St. Mt Carroll IL 61053
Realm of Terror
421 W Rollins Rd Round Lake Beach, IL 60073
Reapers Realm
626 177th St. Hammond IN 46324
Resurrection Graveyard Haunted House
9421 S. Country Club Drive Evergreen Park IL 60805
Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare
1033 N Villa Ave Villa Park IL
Scream Acres
2421 Wilmot Rd. Trevor WI 53168
Scream Scene
4701 Oakton St. Skokie IL 60076
Screamatorium
15630 Il RTE 76 Poplar Grove IL 61065
Screamin Acres
3865 State HWY 138 Stoughton WI 53589
Spook Hollow with M.C. Manor & M.C. Nightmare
613 LaSalle Blvd. Marquette Heights, IL 61554
Statesville Haunted Prison
17250 S. Weber Road Crest Hill, IL 60441
St. Charles Scarecrow Fest
5th & West Main St. St. Charles IL 60174
Sunny Acres Farm
29W310 North Ave, West Chicago, IL 60185
Haunted Trails of Joliet
1423 N. Broadway St. Joliet IL 60435
The Dungeon of Doom
600 29th Street Zion IL 60099
The Village of Screamfield
14300 Coil Plus Drive, Plainfield, IL 60544
Trail of Screams
5804 N. Main St. Rockford IL 61103
Twisted Crypt
5420 E. State St. Rockford IL 61108
Undead Acres
3450 W Crete-Monee Rd Monee IL 60449
Village of Fear
523 S Webster St. Naperville IL 60540
Weird & Haunted Chicago
600 North Clark St. Chicago IL 60654
Zombie Apocalypse
822 N 1st St. Geneva IL 61034Nationals right fielder Jayson Werth was pulled over last month for allegedly driving 105 mph in a 55 -mph zone. (Published Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014)
Werth Pulled Over for Speeding 50 Miles Over Speed Limit
Washington Nationals right fielder Jayson Werth is facing a misdemeanor reckless driving charge in Northern Virginia after he was caught allegedly driving 50 miles over the speed limit on the Beltway earlier this summer.
Werth was pulled over for driving 105 mph in a 55-mph zone, Virginia State Police said.
A trooper paced a Porsche 911 that pulled onto northbound Interstate 495 at Georgetown Pike (Route 193) in Fairfax County about 8 a.m. July 6. The trooper stopped the car as it took the GW Parkway exit off the Beltway.
Werth was released on a summons.
The 35-year-old had a court date scheduled Aug. 8, which was continued to Nov. 12.
“The Washington Nationals have been in communication with right fielder Jayson Werth regarding this situation for multiple weeks," a Nationals spokesman said in a statement. "Jayson is cooperating with the authorities. As it is an ongoing legal matter, the team has no further comment.”
The charge was first reported by the The Nats Enquirer blog.
Werth signed a seven-year deal with the Nationals in 2010 worth $126 million.A tall, bearded man and a shorter, jet-haired woman stand motionless shoulder-to-shoulder in a forest clearing. A hunting rifle is slung across the woman’s shoulder. The sun sets in front of them, casting deep shadows on the surrounding leaves, tinting them turquoise-blue. A solemn caption at their feet reads, “My war was begun.” So ends the first issue of Brian Wood and Andrea Mutti’s Rebels, a new ten-issue series from Dark Horse Comics that tells the story of the American Revolution through the eyes of Seth Abbott, a founding member of the Green Mountain Boys militia. This isn’t Wood’s first foray into historical fiction; in 2008, he penned Northlanders, which chronicles the efforts of an exiled Viking prince to claim his inheritance. In Rebels, Wood focuses on the politics behind the war and the roiling discontent of the British colonists that eventually boiled over into eight years of bloody conflict.
He’s found an enthusiastic partner in illustrator Andrea Mutti, whose work appears in Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian, and who was equally inspired by the drastic social change of the Revolutionary War period and the grit and determination of its people. Together the two have produced a historical drama that’s straightforward and easy to follow, but that doesn’t shy away from exploring stickier issues like class divides, the role of women in the colonies, and the complex distinction between friend and foe. We talked to both Wood and Mutti about their work on Rebels and what readers should expect from the series.
How did you get the idea for Rebels?
Brian Wood: There are two aspects to this: The first is that I really enjoy reading and writing historical fiction. The second is that I was born and raised in Vermont, and this history is my local history. So in a way, I always had this idea somewhere in the back of my head, ever since I was a kid playing in the woods behind my house, pretending to be a soldier or looking for arrowheads.
You’re talking about pretty politicized events here. How do you make a theme like that accessible?
BW: I try to be very simple in presentation. I feel that accessibility for the audience is key — I want them to buy into the story and to relate in some basic ways. As we go, I dig a little deeper, but I never get soapbox-y in communicating the message. I love nuance, and I often leave things just a little open at the end of the story to allow for interpretation and for readers with differing ideologies to not feel alienated.
What was your collaboration like?
Andrea Mutti: It’s not the first time I’ve worked with Brian, and frankly speaking, it’s like working with a brother. We have a very similar vision about the work, and of course we share the same passion for that period. Brian is open to my ideas, and I’m open to his — that’s how brotherhoods work.
How did you come up with a character like Seth?
BW: Seth is part me in that he’s a kid raised in the woods of Vermont who’s taught to hunt and hike and do chores by a gruff but ultimately understanding father. He’s also something of an everyman because he stands in for the average citizen who suffered under British rule. At the start of the story, his suffering is local, and by the end, he’s joined the Continental Army, so we follow him from his first brush with revolution all the way to the end.
AM: Seth has something really wild inside; he’s a real son of the forest.
Given that this is historical fiction, where did you look for visual references?
AM: Before even beginning the pages, I had time to dive into documents: books, movies, TV shows, and websites. I have a real passion for that period, and the documentation is one of the most interesting parts of this job — it’s a journey within the journey. I also received a lot of references from Brian. At the same time, I visited some factories here in Italy that make historical weapons and clothes, and I bought a musket, a couple historical pistols, and some tricornered hats to get a feel for the material, the texture and the weight.
How much historical research did you do for the writing?
BW: I read a lot of books — that’s honestly pretty much it. I’m good as skimming and absorbing information quickly, so preparing for this series meant about two months of reading. Because I’m somewhat local to the areas depicted in Rebels, I took a couple weekend trips to Valley Forge and Fort Ticonderoga. But, again, I grew up hearing about this history, learning it in grade school, and going on field trips, so a lot of it was there already, tucked away in the back of my head.
What specific stylistic choices did you make when illustrating Rebels?
AM: I have a realistic approach for most of my work. With Rebels, my intention was to have a fresh, light touch, and to keep everything fluid and realistic. That time is gritty, dark, and rough, so the idea was not to include too much softness. I also wanted to keep the visuals close to the atmosphere of the period — life was hard, nature was hard, and people lived with daily fatigue.
Why do you think people should be interested in the Green Mountain Boys?
BW: When I came across the phrase “America’s first militia” in reference to them, I thought that was perfect. The meaning and perception of militia has changed so much over the years, so it was a fantastic opportunity to play on that language and that history. In recent times, history has been co-opted for political gain or turned into glossy, idealized folktales. I wanted to show this history in an honest way from the point of view of common people. We’ve heard Washington and John Adams and Ben Franklin’s story enough times. What about the redcoat soldier, the seamstress, or the African-Americans of the time?
How would you describe the relationship between Seth and his wife Mercy?
BW: They get married young, which wasn’t unusual at the time, but it was a snap decision, and it comes during this time of upheaval. Almost immediately Seth is called off to fight, and Mercy, a girl of 16, is left alone to mind the house and wait for news. Her story is tragic in that sense, and it’s a counterpoint to the more idealized stories of stay-at-home women of the time. I was thinking of Ma Ingalls while I wrote some of the Mercy scenes because although I’m sure her life was terribly hard, there was, in the writing, a sense of satisfaction in things getting done and happiness in the work. I didn’t want that for Mercy. I didn’t want to imply that she was cheerily passing the time while Seth was away.
Aside from the upcoming election season, how are the issues in Rebels tied to current events?
BW: The most immediate example that comes to mind is the way it deals with the Second Amendment; it’s no coincidence I named the first story “A Well-Regulated Militia.” And later in the series, I hit on other themes that still resonate and make headlines now, from how veterans are treated to class divides related to the draft to the duty of the press during times of conflict.
Do your political views manifest themselves in the series?
BW: I’m pretty far left on the political spectrum, but I don’t think you would necessarily know that by reading this book. I’m a lefty who’s also a proud patriot writing a book about American militiamen and freedom from tyranny. I’m walking about a million fine lines here.
What’s your favorite thing about the series?
AM: One of the great things is that in each issue, there’s a different point of view; it’s like a choral vision of all events. We have flashbacks when our heroes are younger, we see the different seasons of life, and we can feel the time moving.
What were the most difficult and most rewarding parts of writing Rebels?
BW: The difficult part is always the research and finding that connective story tissue between the then and the now. But when you find it and it clicks into place and works, that’s also the most satisfying part.Jill Lawless, The Associated Press
LONDON -- Authorities inspected all 52 of London's famed West End theatres Friday, trying to reassure theatregoers that the city's elegant but aging venues are safe after chunks of plaster fell from the Apollo Theatre's ceiling, injuring 79 people.
Westminster Council, the local authority for the area, said the safety inspections turned up no immediate problems.
"Making sure people are safe when they come to the West End is an absolute priority," said council leader Philippa Roe.
London police said they had ruled out criminal activity as a cause for the partial ceiling collapse on Thursday night. One line of inquiry for investigators is whether a brief but intense rainstorm an hour before was a factor.
Witnesses described chaos and panic as large chunks of plaster, wooden beams and dust rained down on the Apollo's audience 45 minutes into a performance of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time."
"I thought, maybe this is part of the play," said Scott Daniels, an American tourist from the Dallas area. "All of a sudden, plaster starts raining down, huge hunks of plaster... The lights went out and everything filled with dust -- everybody was coughing and choking."
London Ambulance Service said Friday it had treated 79 people, 56 of whom were taken to local hospitals in ambulances and commandeered London buses. Of these, 47 were "walking wounded" with minor injuries, while nine people "had suffered more serious injuries including head and back injuries."
Nimax Theatres, which owns the Apollo, called the incident "shocking and upsetting."
Like many of London's West End theatres, the Apollo is more than a century old, built in 1901. It seats 775 people.
The Theatres Trust, which helps preserve Britain's historic playhouses, said theatre plasterwork in London is inspected regularly and certified by independent experts.
Westminster Council said an investigation was under way and an initial assessment by surveyors had found that the Apollo's ceiling structure remained sound. It also said the Apollo's health and safety checks were all up to date.
The building remained cordoned off to the public Friday. The National Theatre, producers of "Curious Incident," said performances had been cancelled through Jan. 4.
Marc Sinden, director of the documentary series "Great West End Theatres," said despite the accident, London's theatres are extremely safe.
"These theatres have been around for a very long time, but they are looked after and regularly maintained. They are looked after daily," he said.Loudoun County school bus driver Greg Wilmoth navigates many dirt roads on his route through western areas of the county, seen here in Hamilton. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
On an icy morning recently in western Loudoun County, Greg Wilmoth eased his school bus over the slick, steep unpaved road and told the parents waiting at each stop: I wouldn’t want my children on this bus today.
Loudoun County, the wealthiest and one of the fastest-growing counties in the U.S., has more than 300 miles of gravel roads -- more than any other county in Virginia.
And people are fighting to keep it that way.
Many of the roads are carved with ruts and pockmarked with deep holes. Drivers like Wilmoth creep through blind curves, running water, and axle-rattling bumps. Yet one lawmaker says that for every person pleading for a dangerous stretch of gravel road to get paved, there are 15 urging him to preserve the network.
To follow these narrow roads, lined with dry-stacked stone walls and high mossy banks, trees arching overhead and views opening up across pastures, is to see the landscape much the way it was hundreds of years ago, when farmers brought wagons of crops to market, or Civil War soldiers marched through the dust. “It's the equivalent of Williamsburg,” said Richard Gillespie, director of education for the Mosby Area Heritage Association, “but it’s real.”
It’s a familiar Northern Virginia debate: Preserve what is historic and true to this place, or modernize to keep pace with the ever-growing appetite for new homes, new jobs, new opportunities
“There are people out here that want paved roads... the people that move out here from suburbia,” said Alfred Van Huyck of the Loudoun County Preservation and Conservation Coalition Rural Roads Committee. “They want the lighted ballfield, all the conveniences of Ashburn or Sterling - but to live out here on three or five acres and have a great view. Those people are not part of the rural economy.”
But after an especially bitter winter and many years of budget cuts, the roads have taken a beating. Even some of the staunchest preservationists are getting tired of replacing tires. Now a coalition of dirt-loving conservationists has a plan, extensively researched, worked into a bill, now threading its way through the General Assembly:
Protect and maintain the rural roads in their traditional state — keeping the same alignment, not tearing down stone walls and close-in trees — and focus the money already allocated for paving on higher-traffic, more urban areas. A proposed budget amendment would add another $1 million a year for maintenance of the roads — not paving.
“They’re really trying to set a n ew paradigm in how we maintain rural roads,” said Del. J. Randall Minchew, a sponsor. “Hopefully the bill will clear the Senate by the same strong vote that it cleared the House.”
*
There are more than a million miles of unpaved roads in the U.S., more than a third of the total system, according to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association. In some areas in and around the District there’s very little are very few unpaved roads; Fairfax has two miles, Prince William has several, said Steve Shannon, residency maintenance administrator for VDOT in Loudoun County |
sign with the Alouettes and he replied: "85 % yes 15 % probation."
The 36-year-old Johnson played 11 seasons in the NFL, the first 10 with Cincinnati. He last played in 2011 with New England, when he had 15 catches for 276 yards.
Over his career, the popular receiver caught 766 passes for 11,059 yards and 67 touchdowns.Insights
The highlight for the always great New Orleans investment conference last month was Allan Greenspan. He was special.
One key moment was when he was asked about gold. He said gold is a good place to put your money these days as its value as a currency sits outside of government policies.
When asked where it will be in 5 years, he said “higher.” By how much, he replied “measurably.”
Gold: Focus on big picture
We have to say that gold on a big picture basis is saying the same thing Allen Greenspan is suggesting. And it shows why central banks are buying physical gold and wanting to keep it in their home country.
Eventually gold is going higher. And if you ask, what will gold be doing two years from now? We’d say, it’s more likely to be on an upward path.
The following chart shows gold has phases, and impressively they continue to work. This reinforces that gold is a cyclical market.
Note on the chart that gold has formed a bottom area every 7-8 years since 1969. It’s also formed a major high area every 11 years since then.
The 7-8 year low areas are in red. Nov 2008 was the last low time at the 7¾ year mark, which was the 5th time since 1969. We’ll now see if this time period going forward identifies the next low for gold.
If so, the next likely time could be as early as this month of November. But taking the more likely average, it could be next Summer and up to November 2015. On the unusually long side, it could happen during the first quarter 2016.
The point is, the cyclically low time period is getting closer.
More exciting is what happens next. Once the low is clearly established, gold will have a green light to rise in a strong bull market.
This means 2019 will be the next likely time for a major peak. It will be the 11 year mark from the 2008 lows, for the 4th time in 45 years.
This tells us that despite current volatility, with today’s world in an unprecedented condition, we’ll likely see gold at super new record highs in the years ahead.
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Mary Anne & Pamela Aden are well known analysts and editors of The Aden Forecast, a market newsletter which provides specific forecasts and recommendations on gold, stocks, interest rates and the other major markets. For more information, go to www.adenforecast.com
Gold-Eagle provides regular commentary and analysis of gold, precious metals and the economy. Be the first to be informed by signing up for our free email newsletter.
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As most who follow this blog know, I am tireless when it comes to internet marketing. Whether it be an electronic press release, social media, email newsletters or blog posts. As Justice Is Mind has a couple of screenings coming up, I was searching Google for entries. But when I discovered that Justice was ranked 21st on IMDB as “Highest Rated “Independent Film” Feature Films Released In 2013” and 45th for “Top-US-Grossing “Independent Film” Feature Films Released In 2013” pleased would be an understatement!
This kind of result does not happen overnight. It does not happen automatically. It takes patience and perseverance. There are no shortcuts. It is not a one person operation. If it’s one thing I have learned about writing, producing and directing a feature film having a large ensemble cast helps enormously. Why? Because they are the cheerleaders. They share, post and talk about the film to their network. Unless your film is being produced by a studio with a full-time marketing and public relations department, who else is going to do this type of work?
Justice Is Mind is but one of thousands of films in the current market. As I told a class I instructed on filmmaking, I have to act like mine is the only film in the world pushing for an audience. Yes, I’m selfish that way and so is every independent filmmaker with a project (at least I admit it!) That being said, I always like to try to be as supportive as I can of other filmmakers and their endeavors. This isn’t an easy business and we should work together when possible. But it does come down to manners as well. If you are going to ask me to help you on your film you could start off by asking “How’s Justice going?” Incredibly this week a filmmaker called me and asked how to get their film on IMDB (seriously). This wasn’t a first time filmmaker either. I would have been a bit more supportive had this person been supportive of my work but it was ALL about them. After trying to assist this person for 25 minutes I had a conference call to prep for and ended the conversation.
With our Vermont premiere at The Tiny Theatre on November 2 and our Los Angeles west coast premiere on November 7 at Laemmle Musice Hall, obviously my focus is on these two screenings. Thankfully Justice has a great team on the west coast through the Peter Law Group because screening a film in the entertainment capital of the world is a monumental task. In these last two weeks over 500 emails have gone out to the industry, the press and more phone calls than I can count. And that’s just what I’ve done.
When I call the industry (i.e. Los Angeles), I know how busy they are. I know their time is stretched. Honestly, being pleasant in an email or opening up a conversation by saying how much you enjoyed a particular film or TV show of theirs goes a long way. Call me old fashioned, but I believe when you show respect for someone’s work they are more interested in hearing about your new project. I had a great conversation with the assistant of one of the producers of my favorite TV shows. Will the producer show up to our screening? Probably not. But I’d love for the assistant to come. Why? Because as gatekeepers they have the ear of the producers. They are also the next producers.
Justice Is Mind is entering a new phase. Now formally released with theatrical bookings through January 2014 (more in development), Justice Is Mind will shortly be presented to the industry. An industry that is changing by the day from development, marketing and distribution.
Navigation.Obama Blames Fox, Limbaugh for Hillary Clinton’s Struggling Campaign Against Trump
President Barack Obama headlined a high dollar Manhattan fundraiser for Hillary Clinton Sunday where he made remarks blaming Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for Clinton not running away with the election against Donald Trump.
Obama spoke at the home of restaurateur Danny Meyer attended by about 65 people where tickets ranged from $25,000 to $250,000 according to the AP.
CNN’s Jim Acosta posted a copy of the pool report on Obama’s comments.
Obama unloads on Trump at DNC fundraiser: "It's a infomercial. It's a reality show." pic.twitter.com/0BmXmFZ5YJ — Jim Acosta (@Acosta) September 19, 2016
…”So this should not be a close election but it will be and the reason it will be is not because of Hillary’s flaws but rather because structurally we’ve become a very polarized society and if all you’re doing is watching Fox News and listening to Rush Limbaugh…a lot of misinformation on a regular basis, it’s very hard for you to think that you’re going to vote for somebody who you’ve been told is taking the country in the wrong direction.”While watching his greatest apprentice compete in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Gary Roberts noticed something was off.
Steven Stamkos scored at a point per game pace, logged more than 21 minutes of ice most nights and was a plus player in the series. Yet he and his Tampa Bay Lightning were eliminated in four straight. Stamkos was also just five months removed from having a titanium rod surgically inserted into his right leg, and to Roberts, he wasn’t the same player the fitness guru had molded the prior summer.
“I noticed he didn’t have the power that he normally has,” Roberts told Sportsnet in a recent interview. “He played well, I thought, but he was lacking some power in that leg,”
Stamkos told Roberts the same thing—the power wasn’t there yet.
“You gotta recognize, he missed a lot of time,” Roberts continued. “The toughest time for a player to come back and play is in the playoffs. Everybody’s been playing all along, and you come out of an injury; not only do you have to get up to pace, but it’s playoff pace. And playoff pace is considerably faster.”
Even the casual hockey viewer could pick up that Stamkos wasn’t the same dominant force the first few nights back in early March after being sidelined for nearly four months. But once the new captain scored in his fourth game post-op, he went on a tear, scoring 17 points in a 15-game stretch and leading the team to home-ice advantage in their first round series versus the Montreal Canadiens.
Stamkos had four more points in Tampa Bay’s four-game playoff exit, and would likely have had more were it not for some chronic bad luck. (“How often does Steven Stamkos come down and he’s got the open net and his stick breaks?” coach Jon Cooper told reporters after the playoff exit.)
But it’s that other bad break that should concern Lightning fans.
“It definitely doesn’t feel the way it did before the injury, that’s for sure,” Stamkos told reporters in Tampa this week.
So instead of taking his usual three or four weeks off this spring, Stamkos—the guy who busted his ass to get back as soon as possible—expects to cut his vacation short.
The Gary Roberts High Performance Centre and Fitness Institute, located in greater Toronto, not far from Stamkos’s childhood home, is ready to put the finishing touches on the Stammer Rebuild, a project Mike Poirier and the Lightning training staff dedicated their winter to.
“The first thing we’ll do is put him through an evaluation with our athletes’ care, the people that treat our players, and make sure that the fracture is healed, the rod is in place, and there’s no issues with that,“ Roberts explained. “Make sure there’s no soreness.”
Monitoring the swelling around Stamkos’s right leg is of utmost importance, Roberts stressed, and the impact on the most-discussed limb in hockey must be increased gradually.
“We’re going to have to be very cautious for the first four or five weeks about what he does away from the gym and what we’re doing at the gym,” Roberts said. “He’s not going to be doing a lot of jumping initially. He’s going to be doing some real low-impact footwork, with specific strengthening for that individual leg to get it up to par with his other leg. We absolutely have to watch it every day to make sure we’re not getting too much soreness. You’re going to get a little soreness because you’re doing something different, but not so much that he’s getting swelling there. He’s going to need a lot more soft-tissue work this summer.”
Roberts said he has no doubt the 60-goal, pre-injury Stamkos will be back and running at 100 per cent power by the time training camp opens next fall.
“Hockey’s not a part-time job anymore. Part-time athletes get part-time results. He’s going to put his full-time attention to getting healthy and back to where he was. With the way he prepares, when you have a guy that truly wants to be the best player every day, I truly believe he’ll be fine,” Roberts said. “By mid-July he’ll be rockin’ and ready for another great season.”1 Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; 2 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and 3 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 4 Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; 5 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor; 6 Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; 7 Department of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; 8 Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 9 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; 10 Cardiovascular Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; 11 Institute for Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics Center, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston; 12 Polymorphism Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego; and 13 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
1 Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; 2 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and 3 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 4 Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; 5 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor; 6 Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; 7 Department of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; 8 Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 9 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; 10 Cardiovascular Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; 11 Institute for Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics Center, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston; 12 Polymorphism Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego; and 13 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
1 Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; 2 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and 3 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 4 Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; 5 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor; 6 Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; 7 Department of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; 8 Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 9 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; 10 Cardiovascular Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; 11 Institute for Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics Center, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston; 12 Polymorphism Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego; and 13 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
1 Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; 2 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and 3 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 4 Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; 5 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor; 6 Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; 7 Department of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; 8 Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 9 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; 10 Cardiovascular Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; 11 Institute for Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics Center, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston; 12 Polymorphism Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego; and 13 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
1 Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; 2 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and 3 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 4 Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; 5 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor; 6 Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; 7 Department of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; 8 Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 9 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; 10 Cardiovascular Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; 11 Institute for Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics Center, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston; 12 Polymorphism Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego; and 13 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
1 Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; 2 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and 3 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 4 Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; 5 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor; 6 Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; 7 Department of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; 8 Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 9 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; 10 Cardiovascular Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; 11 Institute for Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics Center, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston; 12 Polymorphism Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego; and 13 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
1 Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; 2 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and 3 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 4 Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; 5 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor; 6 Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; 7 Department of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; 8 Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 9 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; 10 Cardiovascular Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; 11 Institute for Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics Center, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston; 12 Polymorphism Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego; and 13 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
1 Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; 2 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and 3 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 4 Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; 5 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor; 6 Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; 7 Department of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; 8 Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 9 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; 10 Cardiovascular Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; 11 Institute for Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics Center, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston; 12 Polymorphism Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego; and 13 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
1 Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; 2 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and 3 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 4 Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; 5 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor; 6 Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; 7 Department of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; 8 Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 9 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; 10 Cardiovascular Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; 11 Institute for Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics Center, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston; 12 Polymorphism Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego; and 13 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
1 Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; 2 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and 3 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 4 Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; 5 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor; 6 Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; 7 Department of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; 8 Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 9 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; 10 Cardiovascular Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; 11 Institute for Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics Center, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston; 12 Polymorphism Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego; and 13 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
1 Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; 2 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and 3 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 4 Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; 5 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor; 6 Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; 7 Department of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; 8 Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 9 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; 10 Cardiovascular Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; 11 Institute for Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics Center, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston; 12 Polymorphism Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego; and 13 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
1 Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; 2 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and 3 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 4 Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; 5 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor; 6 Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; 7 Department of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; 8 Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 9 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; 10 Cardiovascular Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; 11 Institute for Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics Center, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston; 12 Polymorphism Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego; and 13 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
1 Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; 2 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and 3 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 4 Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; 5 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor; 6 Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; 7 Department of Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson; 8 Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 9 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; 10 Cardiovascular Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; 11 Institute for Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics Center, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston; 12 Polymorphism Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego; and 13 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity. On the other hand, we detected only modest genetic differentiation between different current geographic locales within each race/ethnicity group. Thus, ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity—as opposed to current residence—is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population. Implications of this genetic structure for case-control association studies are discussed.
In this study, we examined the genetic structure between and within major racial/ethnic groups by use of data from a large, ethnically diverse sample, the Family Blood Pressure Program (FBPP), which includes self-identified white, African American, Hispanic (Mexican), and East Asian (Chinese and Japanese) subjects (FBPP Investigators 2002 ). Participants were enrolled, typically as sibships or nuclear families, at 15 field centers (recruitment sites), of which 11 are within the continental United States, 1 is in Hawaii, and 3 are in Taiwan. Details are provided in (online only). This sample provides a unique opportunity to answer several questions related to population structure. The degree of genetic differentiation can be assessed for this sample with respect to multiple levels of stratification.
In light of the number of case-control studies that are being performed and planned, the above considerations warrant a careful examination of genetic structure within and between major population groups in the United States. One major goal is to quantify the correspondence between self-identified race/ethnicity (SIRE) and the major genetic structure that exists in the U.S. population. In addition, out of convenience or out of necessity, case and control subjects are sometimes recruited from different geographic regions, matching only at the level of major racial group. An underlying assumption is the relative homogeneity within a single SIRE group. The validity of this assumption must be evaluated. Furthermore, association studies among ethnically admixed populations are particularly vulnerable to spurious association. Although admixed groups have had relatively low representation in the U.S. population in the past, their representation is increasing. Whereas, historically, geneticists have avoided studying such individuals and groups because of the difficulties involved, it is no longer reasonable or fair to exclude such groups from genetic research.
Epidemiologic designs that aim to detect associations between alleles and disease by use of unrelated cases and controls are popular because of their efficiency and the ease of recruiting subjects. However, spurious associations between a trait and random genetic loci may arise as a result of subtle genetic structure (Lander and Schork 1994 ). The impact of confounding due to population genetic structure in case-control studies has been debated (Thomas and Witte 2002 ; Wacholder et al. 2002 ).
From an evolutionary point of view, population stratification (genetically distinct subgrouping) and admixture (intermating between genetically distinct groups) are created by human mating patterns. Geographical, social, and cultural barriers have given rise to reproductively isolated human populations, within which random drift has produced genetic differentiation. Numerous recent studies using a variety of genetic markers have shown that, for example, individuals sampled worldwide fall into clusters that roughly correspond to continental lines, as well as to the commonly used self-identifying racial groups: Africans, European/West Asians, East Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans (Bowcock et al. 1994 ; Calafell et al. 1998 ; Rosenberg et al. 2002 ). One significant consequence of population genetic structure is confounding in case-control association studies. Because of the unique political and social history of the United States, genetic structure in the contemporary U.S. population is extremely complicated. Most prominently, the level of white admixture among African Americans has been estimated at 10%–20% (Parra et al. 1998 ); more complicated are Hispanic groups, which may have European, Native American, and African ancestries that vary regionally (Hanis et al. 1991 ). In addition, stratification and admixture occur at finer levels. Such subtle heterogeneity is not readily detected with a limited number of genetic markers, yet their implications in biomedical research may be important.
To examine allele-frequency differentiation between pairs of groups defined either by geography or by disease status, we computed χ 2 tests of independence on the basis of the 2×2 table of allele frequencies by group. Levels of significance were determined empirically by permutation analysis, with 10,000 permutations. For the microsatellite markers, each distinct allele was tested, provided that there were at least 50 occurrences of that allele in the two tested groups combined. We used this threshold to ensure adequate power to detect modest differences, given the sample sizes employed. Because of the small number of Chinese families recruited in Hawaii (n=25) and the small number of Japanese families recruited in Stanford, CA (n=16), these two field centers were excluded from this analysis. Since all Japanese individuals in this analysis are from Hawaii and all Hispanic individuals are from Starr County, TX, comparison between sites was not performed within these two SIRE categories.
In this analysis, we studied genetic similarity at an individual level by use of the program structure (Pritchard et al. 2000 ). This approach is similar to that of a previous analysis (Rosenberg et al. 2002 ), except that the FBPP population primarily represents a United States–based sample. Because our goal is classification, we used the “NOADMIX” option in structure, so that the entire genome of each individual was assumed to have been derived from a single homogeneous population. We examined the correspondence rate between SIRE and genetic cluster classification by crossclassifying subjects on the basis of these two criteria.
We created 18 subpopulations on the basis of the participants’ SIRE and the recruitment site (the few individuals who identified their race/ethnicity as “other” were excluded from this analysis). As a measure of genetic distance, we computed the “coancestry coefficient” among groups (Reynolds et al. 1983 ). The coancestry coefficient is a measure of distance that is closely related to an average value of F ST across genes. To visualize these genetic distances, we performed multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis (Mardia et al. 1980 ). In simple terms, this analysis provides a configuration of 18 points on a two-dimensional plane, such that the Euclidean distances among these points match the genetic distance matrix as closely as possible.
Because of its focus on linkage analysis of hypertension, the FBPP recruited sibships or nuclear families that typically had at least one hypertensive index subject, although precise ascertainment criteria varied among networks (FBPP Investigators 2002 ). For analyses focusing on genetic stratification bias with respect to blood pressure, we selected the hypertensive individual (“case”) from those families with a single hypertensive subject and no other relatives and a single, randomly selected hypertensive individual from families with multiple hypertensive subjects and at most one normotensive subject. To obtain “controls,” we selected the normotensive subject from those families with a single normotensive subject and no relatives and a single, randomly selected normotensive individual from families with multiple normotensive subjects and at most one hypertensive individual. For the networks and field centers that included only hypertensive subjects, this analysis was not possible. If a family contained exactly one hypertensive subject and one normotensive subject or more than one hypertensive subject and more than one normotensive subject, the family was not included in this analysis.
Thus, in summary, each study participant identified him/herself as belonging to one of five categories: white non-Hispanic (CAU), black non-Hispanic (AFR), Hispanic (HIS), Chinese (CHI), and Japanese (JAP). Therefore, in our analysis, SIRE corresponds to four major distinctions: CAU, AFR, HIS, and EAS, the latter referring to East Asians (Chinese and Japanese combined), and one minor distinction, that between Chinese and Japanese. In the first analyses, which involved computing genetic distances and comparing SIRE with genetic structure obtained from genetic cluster analysis, we randomly selected one participant with STR genotype information from each nuclear family and treated these participants as unrelated individuals; the resulting set consisted of 3,648 individuals. (online only) summarizes the collection site and SIRE information of these individuals. In total, this analysis included 1,349 self-identified CAU, 1,308 AFR, 412 HIS, 407 CHI, 160 JAP, and 12 OTH. Three of the “others” came from HyperGEN (one each from Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, and Framingham, MA), eight came from GenNet (from Tecumseh, MI), and one came from SAPPHIRe (from Honolulu). The rate of missing genotypes was <2%.
For all three of these networks, there were neither questions nor requirements regarding the race/ethnicity or ancestry of the participants' parents or grandparents for inclusion in the study. SAPPHIRe focused their study on Asian populations. Specifically, they required subjects to report being Chinese and having four Chinese grandparents or being Japanese and having four Japanese grandparents to be included in the study.
The FBPP is a collaborative effort of four research networks (GenNet, GENOA, HyperGEN, and SAPPHIRe) that aims to investigate high blood pressure and related conditions in multiple racial/ethnic groups (FBPP Investigators 2002 ). Each network has been funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) since 1995. In total, DNA samples from 10,527 participants were genotyped at 326 autosomal genome screen microsatellite markers by the NHLBI-sponsored Mammalian Genotyping Service (Marshfield, WI) (screening set 8) and had sufficient marker data for analysis (i.e., at most 40 missing genotypes).
Because the study sample was largely based on the presence of hypertension—and hypertension is age related—age might also be acting as a confounder, if allele frequencies are age dependent. We therefore also undertook an analysis to determine whether there was genetic stratification in the sample on the basis of age, particularly in the admixed groups (African Americans and Mexican Americans). Each race/ethnicity group was divided in half at the median age (which ranged from 50 years to 58 years), and allele frequencies were compared between the two age groupings for each allele. Examination of Q-Q plots of the distribution of P values from this analysis also showed near-perfect conformity with expectation, a result that suggests no age trends in allele frequencies.
To examine this question in the FBPP data, we selected “cases” (hypertensive subjects) and “controls” (normotensive subjects) in accordance with a scheme described in the “ Material and Methods ” section. We then tested for differences in the frequency of alleles at each of the 326 microsatellite markers between the “cases” and “controls” and calculated the proportion of tests significant at the P=.05 level. We saw no trend toward an excess of significant tests ( ). We also examined Q-Q plots of the entire distribution of P values for the alleles at the 326 markers and compared this distribution with the expected uniform distribution. None of these plots revealed any significant deviations from expectation. Thus, it appears that, at least in the context of these analyses of hypertension, sampling hypertensive cases and controls from the same local population does not create a serious confounding problem.
We tested for differences in the frequency of alleles at each of the 326 microsatellite (STR) markers between subpopulations defined by SIRE and recruitment site. displays the proportion of tests that were significant at the P=.05 level. Stratification across SIRE groups is uniformly high, with ⩾40% of allele-frequency differences significant. The one exception, as expected, is the Chinese-Japanese comparison, involving two East Asian ethnicities, for which the proportion that are significant is ∼18%. Perhaps of greater interest are the comparisons within a SIRE group, which are indicated by the diagonal elements in. Here, we see only a modest increase of significant tests over expected (5.3% for AFR and 6.3% for CAU). Thus, stratification within SIRE groups on the basis of current geography may lead to confounding, but the lack of significant geographic differences in allele frequencies suggests that the impact is not likely to be large.
There were 12 individuals who reported “other” in response to the race/ethnicity question. Of these individuals, nine were classified genetically in the Hispanic cluster, two in the East Asian cluster, and one in the white cluster. Eight of the nine subjects who fell into the Hispanic cluster were from GenNet (Tecumseh, MI), a site where the recruitment focused on whites. Tracing back to the original interview records we found that, in fact, all eight subjects self-reported as “Hispanic” but were categorized as “other” when included in the pooled data set.
Genetic cluster analysis using structure was performed, allowing |
long-time community work, where we have people based in these communities over long periods of time, working with local organizations and trade unions, and fixing local things like broken street lights or broken elevators.”
The transatlantic alt-right
The alt-right wave in the US has shocked many observers and political commenters. But it looks very familiar to Europeans, who have experienced the same phenomenon overseas in the past decade. Across Europe, a vast network of far-right activists have become increasingly influential in political elections—culminating in France’s close call with National Front candidate Marie Le Pen this summer and the growth of far-right parties such as Jobbik in Hungary and Golden Dawn in Greece.
In an ambitious 128-page report on the international alt-right accompanying the group’s US launch, Hope Not Hate lays out the landscape of a global movement—while acknowledging that the US is also influencing European alt-right activists abroad.
“The US alt-right movement has breathed life and youth back into formerly declining and dormant parts of the European extreme right,” the report’s authors write. “People, organizations, websites and publishers that have traditionally classed themselves as part of the European New Right have begun to rebrand themselves as alt-right and adopted the iconography of this new international movement.”
On both sides of the Atlantic, these young activists have harnessed the latest digital tools to mobilize political movements around a growing anxiety of an increasingly liberal and diverse future.
Mulhall calls it a movement that “seeks to destroy the liberal progressive consensus.”
“There have been numerous attempts to forge a global far-right movement since World War II, but they’ve all been unsuccessful, because they’ve been rooted in large part in a message of nationalism,” Mulhall says. “But with increased globalization and the development of the internet, the far right has gone more international. They have emerged as a force, communicating primarily online.”
Clearly, Mulhall says, there are differences between the movements in the US and in Europe. “US far-right activists often come from a more traditional, religious background than in the UK,” he says. But he distinguishes the alt-right—which tends to be rooted in European ideas, particularly the French New Right—from the far right. “Here I think we can bring in a lot of our expertise,” Mulhall says, “since their entry point to this movement has more in common with the far right in Europe.”
“Now they talk about their common struggles in a new way. They can sit in America and immediately hear about something that happened in Sweden or Hungary. Thousands of alt-right activists across the world are now helping each other across borders.”
This is a point often missed in US media coverage of the alt right, which tends to focus primarily on cultural and historical factors specific to the US. “The alt-right is using European far-right ideas about building support through institutions and fundamentally changing culture,” Mulhall says. “Their ideas are rooted in European thinkers, rather than the KKK or traditional extremist groups in America.”
After the massacre in Charlottesville, where a neo-Nazi killed counter-protester Heather Heyer and hurt 19 others, many political pundits in America predicted that the violence would be the end of the alt right. But according to Mulhall, Charlottesville made the alt-right more likely to grow.
“One thing Charlottesville certainly did was broaden the gap between the moderate end and the extreme end of the movement. For some on the moderate end, the violence was the last straw. But the more extreme end saw it as an opportunity. The march clearly articulated the new confidence of the movement, that they were willing to come out from behind their computers, into the streets. Some of them were kicked off Facebook and Twitter, which was good, but it also fed into this narrative that they were a persecuted minority. Now the alt-right is increasingly creating their own platforms, an alternative online world and social marketplace is emerging.”
As the tactics and ideas of American white nationalists and the European far right continue to energize and influence one another, the opposition must also begin to work internationally. Hope not Hate plans to launch campaigns in Virginia and Arizona this winter. Eventually, they hope to create a nationwide organization to combat the narrative of the far-right.
“Part of the challenge is just finding the right language,” Mulhall says. “In the UK, we have primarily worked with people who are already familiar with local communities. So we’re not going to come to America and say you’ve got it all wrong. We try to find people already rooted in the community and ask them how we can support them. ”
This article is part of Quartz Ideas, our home for bold arguments and big thinkers.Enlarge By Web Bryant, USA TODAY USA TODAY OPINION USA TODAY 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. Contributors Board
How to submit a column Efforts to abolish the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and instead allow open homosexual behavior in the military have left the U.S. armed forces in a strange state of limbo. NO: The mission is to serve all troops One of the most obvious disruptions on the horizon: the uncertain impact to the chaplaincy and the increasing concern about the effect on religious liberty if the policy is dismantled. More than 40 high-ranking and distinguished veteran chaplains signed a letter to the president and senior military officials in April outlining how the suggested changes would likely harm the ability of the chaplaincy to do its job. This harm includes limitations on the right of chaplains to preach, counsel, or teach according to their faith when doing so requires identifying homosexual behavior as sinful or detrimental. The harm also includes restrictions on the ability of chaplains to freely conduct religious services without being forced to allow people who engage in homosexual behavior to take positions of leadership or receive sacraments, for example. And it would include forcing chaplain-administered programs, such as the Army's "Strong Bonds" marriage-building program, to modify their teaching if same-sex couples participate. Chaplains are committed to ministering to everyone but cannot allow the government to dictate how religious ministry takes place. These concerns are not mere speculation but are based in both the practical realities of everyday chaplaincy life and numerous precedents showing that the danger to religious liberty is real. Cause for concern In the late 1990s, for instance, the Clinton administration tried to silence military chaplains from speaking out against "partial-birth" abortion, even banning speech in the pulpit. Similarly, chaplains who oppose the normalization of homosexual behavior in the military will likely face direct orders — potentially in the form of non-discrimination laws — and subtle pressure to keep their opposition silent, while chaplains who support the change will be free from such limitations. Another case particularly illustrates the effect on the chaplaincy. In 2002, prison chaplain William Akridge was punished by Ohio prison officials for denying an inmate the privilege to lead chapel worship services because he actively participated in homosexual behavior. Federal courts later denied Akridge's argument that the First Amendment should give him the freedom to hold religious services according to the dictates of his faith. If that could happen in a prison in Ohio, what should we expect in a politicized military? An increasing number of religious bodies — including organizations that directly supply the military's chaplains — have been raising this concern. These groups include the Southern Baptist Convention, the Roman Catholic Church and more than 800 Orthodox Jewish rabbis. In addition, Professor John Martin at the Army War College has identified the religious liberty concern as one of several "significant issues" raised by the tearing down of the military's existing policy. Quieting dissent Already, constitutional rights are taking a beating. When Lt. Gen. Benjamin Mixon recommended that servicemembers speak out to Congress regarding the dismantling of "don't ask, don't tell," he was swiftly rebuked by Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Unsurprisingly, some active-duty chaplains are mum against this censorial backdrop. Why risk such censure? Even lawmakers on Capitol Hill have dismissed the concerns of the chiefs of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines, who pleaded that any changes wait until a comprehensive review is completed so that we can ensure that our military's ability to fight and win wars — its primary duty — is not undermined. Congress has refused to even consider adopting statutory language that would provide some protection for religious liberty. At best, then, Congress is risking the rights of our servicemembers. At worse, they're sacrificing them for a partisan political agenda. These political efforts have already disrupted the military mission by placing the military in a state of limbo. They should not also destroy the free religious exercise rights of those who fight and die to protect our own right to worship. Daniel Blomberg serves as litigation counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance seeking to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage and the family. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read moreRussian and Chinese militaries are increasingly trying to bully American forces because they are “taking advantage of our weakness” and “publicly humiliating us,” according to a respected retired Air Force general and Fox News military analyst.
“It’s a slap in the face” to the United States, Retired General Tom McInerney says, and President Barack Obama “should not accept that kind of behavior.”
The president “unilaterally disarmed America,” adding “we have all these social experiments,” according to McInerney’s 18-minute exclusive video interview for The Daily Caller News Foundation. By transforming America’s foreign policy, McInerney says Obama’s America is known as a nation that will “protect your enemies and deny your allies support.”
Running through the world’s hot spots accentuated by Obama’s failed foreign policy, McInerney says he is “very worried” that Israel has not gotten the weapons and protection it needs from the United States for its survival.
McInerney has been a steady watchdog of the Benghazi incident, serving his country as a member of the Citizens Commission on Benghazi. He commends Judicial Watch for its tenacious efforts to uncover the facts of why Americans were left to die that fateful night on the anniversary of 9/11 in 2012. He is “disappointed” with the efforts made to date by House Chairman Trey Gowdy to uncover the facts of what went wrong in Benghazi.
McInerney decries the administration’s lack of response when asked “What difference does Benghazi make?” To him, it was a “dereliction of duty” for not providing adequate force protection before and during the attack.
Obama wrongly attacked Libya because a small force of radical Islamists was threatening Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, who, albeit flawed, had become an ally to America in the war on terror, the respected retired general says.
America’s military had plenty of warning and should have been at a higher state of readiness. Watching the last scene from the Benghazi movie, “13 Hours,” McInerney was offended of the reminder a Libyan charter plane came to take away the survivors and the fallen. He ashamedly asks, “Where was our great Air Force? Where was America to help these people?”
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private, unaccredited server to conduct government business “put at risk our national security and she knew that.” The president, he adds, is culpable for those emails since his former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel would have told him of her conduct.
For more on General McInerney, see his pieces at Fox here or here.
Mrs. Thomas does not necessarily support or endorse the products, services or positions promoted in any advertisement contained herein, and does not have control over or receive compensation from any advertiser.
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.By By Ken Hanly May 23, 2016 in Environment Adelaide - As many coral reefs are withering causing a loss of habitat for many fish, and as some fisheries virtually collapse, octopuses and other cephalopods are thriving. The study was carried out by researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia. “The consistency was the biggest surprise. Cephalopods are notoriously variable, and population abundance can fluctuate wildly, both within and among species. Cephalopods tend to boom and bust—they’re called the weeds of the sea.” Ironically the Australian study was begun after researchers were investigating a sudden crash in the population of the giant Australian cuttlefish. The researchers are not certain exactly why many cephalopod species are doing so well but they can point to a number of factors that could contribute to the increase. They note that when environmental conditions are favorable, the cehalopod numbers can increase very rapidly. One of the main controls on cephalopods are predatory fish many of which are being eaten by humans. Global warming may also be a factor. Doubleday said that she did not think that there was just one single factor causing the increase in cephalopod numbers. “This is not a sensational ‘cephalopods are taking over the world’s oceans’ story.” Further climate change could have unpredictable effects, squeezing generation times to less than a year and throwing off some species’ annual mating gatherings in the process. There is evidence that there is increasing acidification of oceans. This could impair development of some cephalopods. As many species of fish become less available for eating, humans may come to eat more squid and octopuses. If cephalopods increase too much in an area they simply may run out of food. They are also cannibalistic which also helps areas becoming too overcrowded with them. As There are about 800 living species of cephalopods including squids, octopuses, and cuttlefish. All live in salt water. Some fishermen call them "inkfish" as most of them can eject what looks like ink as a means to hide themselves. An analysis just published in Current Biology shows that numerous cephalopod species have increased their numbers since 1950.The study was carried out by researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia. Zoe Doubleday, the lead author said:Ironically the Australian study was begun after researchers were investigating a sudden crash in the population of the giant Australian cuttlefish.The researchers are not certain exactly why many cephalopod species are doing so well but they can point to a number of factors that could contribute to the increase. They note that when environmental conditions are favorable, the cehalopod numbers can increase very rapidly. One of the main controls on cephalopods are predatory fish many of which are being eaten by humans. Global warming may also be a factor. Doubleday said that she did not think that there was just one single factor causing the increase in cephalopod numbers. The Adelaide study showed evidence of an increase in cephalopod numbers both in scientific data, and also fisheries records. Most species live only a year or two, dying after they give birth. They grow very quickly. They are also voracious eaters with some species eating 30 per cent of their body weight each day as adults. Paul Rodhouse, a biological oceanographer with the British Antarcic Survey in Cambridge UK said:There is evidence that there is increasing acidification of oceans. This could impair development of some cephalopods. As many species of fish become less available for eating, humans may come to eat more squid and octopuses. If cephalopods increase too much in an area they simply may run out of food. They are also cannibalistic which also helps areas becoming too overcrowded with them. As Doubleday puts it: “There’s always competition stabilizing things. I don’t know whether we’ll eat them first or they’ll start eating each other.” More about cephalopods, Octopuses, University of Adelaide cephalopods Octopuses University of Adelai...Saturn has the lowest density of all the planets in the Solar System. The actual number is 0.687 grams per cubic centimeter. This is actually less dense than water; if you had a large enough pool of water, Saturn would float.
You can also check out these cool telescopes that will help you see the beauty of planet Saturn.
Just for comparison, Jupiter has an average density of 1.33 grams per cubic centimeter. So it wouldn’t float on water. And Earth, the densest planet in the Solar System, measures 5.51 grams/cubic centimeter.
If you’d like to calculate the density of Saturn for yourself, grab a calculator, and then divide the mass of Saturn (5.6846×1026 kg) by its volume (8.2713×1014 cubic kilometers. This gives you a final number of 0.687 g/cubic centimeter.
Here’s an article about a fluffy extrasolar planet, even less dense than Saturn, and more information about the density of Jupiter.
Here’s a textbook that helps you make the density calculations for yourself, and more information here.
We have recorded two episodes of Astronomy Cast just about Saturn. The first is Episode 59: Saturn, and the second is Episode 61: Saturn’s Moons.Sengoku Jidai: Shadow of the Shogun offers the opportunity to lead armies from very diverse regions and countries: Japan, Korea, China, Manchuria and Mongolia.
We’ll cover each region in weekly previews, describing the available army lists, talking about their evolution and the weapons and tactics they employ.
Japan and its clans
Japan in the 16th century was a politically fractured reality: the Sengoku Jidai period (Warring States Era) was a period of civil war in Japan from 1467 to 1600. During that time, the Emperor of Japan was only a religious and ceremonial figure who delegated power to the Shōgun, the military governor of Japan. The era began with the Ōnin War (1467-1477) where a dispute between potential heirs to the Ashikaga Shogunate led to a civil war involving several daimyō and the destruction of Kyoto. Since then, the authority of the Shogunate had diminished while the daimyo increased their authority over their fiefs and fought against each other to expand their realms.
The era brought about the rise and fall of several prominent clans. Old families like the Imagawa and Hōjō would be eliminated. Some families would break away from their old masters and forge a path of their own, like the Tokugawa. The Takeda family, hailing from an agriculturally poor province, dominated central Japan through exploitation of their gold mines, and employed cunning military and political strategies against their neighbours. Peasants could become lords and make a name for themselves, like the Toyotomi.
To read the whole preview, read the thread hereA Scientist's Dream Fulfilled: Harnessing The Immune System To Fight Cancer
Enlarge this image toggle caption Scott Dalton for NPR Scott Dalton for NPR
Sharon Belvin's nightmare with cancer began in 2004, when she was just 22.
Belvin was an avid runner but said she suddenly found she couldn't climb the stairs without "a lot of difficulty breathing."
Eventually, after months of fruitless treatments for lung ailments like bronchitis, she was diagnosed with melanoma — a very serious skin cancer. It had already spread to her lungs, and the prognosis was grim. She had about a 50-50 chance of surviving the next six months.
"Yeah, that was the turning point of life, right there," she says.
What Belvin didn't know at the time was that a revolutionary treatment for melanoma had begun testing in clinical trials. An immunologist named Jim Allison, now at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, had figured out that if the immune system was tweaked just right, it could do a better job of killing the cancer than the usual treatments. (Joe Palca worked for Allison early in both men's careers.)
Allison's treatment was still experimental, but if it worked, it had the potential to save Belvin's life.
"It's a new modality for treating cancer," Dr. Samuel Broder, a former director of the National Cancer Institute, says now of Allison's pioneering research. "It used to be there were three basic treatment options for cancer — surgery, radiation and chemotherapy — or some combination of those three. It's fair to say there's now a fourth option."
Allison's long search for this new kind of treatment — one that has since become a lifesaver for some cancer patients — began around a decade before Belvin got sick, when Allison was running a lab at the University of California, Berkeley.
At the time, he was what you could call a research scientist's research scientist. He was fascinated by certain powerful cells of the immune system — T cells. A subset of white blood cells, T cells travel around the body and can "protect us against just about anything," Allison says.
T cells do recognize cancer cells, but not in a way that can eliminate the disease. Allison had been studying T cells for years, and thought that by tinkering with one key molecule on the outside of these cells, he could enhance their response to cancer, enough to eradicate the illness.
He and one of his grad students ran an experiment to test the tweaked T cells on cancerous tumors in mice, and the initial results astounded them. The T cells seemed to be doing just what Allison had hoped they would do — shrink the tumors and kill the cancer.
Allison repeated the experiment with more mice over his winter break. After a few tense days, the tumors again disappeared.
"These mice were cured," Allison says.
Cancer cured?
"I've been doing this sort of stuff for years, and I'd never seen anything like that," Allison says. "And I thought, 'If we could do that in people, this is going to be amazing.' "
Allison tried to persuade drugmakers to create a human version of the treatment that had worked in mice. He thought they would jump at the chance to try a new approach.
But the biotech companies he met with didn't bite. In those days, most firms were focused on drugs that would target tumors directly, and Allison was asking them to try something very different.
"This was targeting the immune system, not the cancer," he says. "We weren't trying to kill the cancer cells. We were letting the T cells kill the cancer cells."
Thanks, but no thanks, the companies told him.
"I got very depressed," Allison says. He was sure this was the most important work of his career, but he had to get others on board.
Eventually, a scientist attending one of Allison's research talks was intrigued enough to contact a pal at the biotech firm Medarex. The company had recently developed technology that could make a human version of Allison's therapy, and was willing to give it a try.
It took a decade, but eventually Allison's big idea was ready for testing in people. A clinical trial to study the drug — now called ipilimumab, or Ippy for short — was set up at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
Allison decided he wanted to be part of this next chapter in the testing of immunotherapy, so he packed up his California lab and moved it to Sloan Kettering.
As it happens, Belvin was also in New York — a patient of Dr. Jedd Wolchok at Sloan Kettering. By the fall of 2004, Belvin had run through all the treatment options available to her. Nothing had worked to control the melanoma; it continued to spread dangerously throughout her body.
Belvin remembers feeling sick and depressed, and says she wasn't even paying much attention when Wolchok walked into the exam room and suggested one last treatment.
"Sharon, we have an opportunity to participate in a clinical trial here. It's something you should consider," Wolchok told her.
Belvin says she signed up without hesitation. After just four injections of Ippy across three months, her cancer was nearly gone. And at Belvin's follow-up appointment a year later, Wolchok delivered news that was hard for her to take in: "Sharon, you no longer have cancer."
And in the next breath, Belvin recalls, "he goes, 'Oh, the guy who invented this is upstairs. Do you want to meet him?' "
"Yes, of course I want to meet him!" she told her doctor.
Wolchok called Allison, who was working nearby, and told him to drop everything and come to the clinic — a part of the hospital Allison had rarely seen. Though the research scientist couldn't imagine why Wolchok was in such a rush, he quickly figured it out as he opened the door and was greeted by Belvin with a huge hug.
Belvin says she tried not to tackle him. "It was hard to control myself," she says. "I owe this man my life."
Belvin was the first recipient of the immunotherapy that Allison had ever met. "It really meant a lot," he says. "It reminded me what it's all about at the end of the day."
That was in 2005; today, Sharon Belvin is still cancer-free.
Ippy is now sold under the brand name Yervoy by Bristol-Myers Squibb, which bought Medarex in 2009.
Meanwhile, Jim Allison has become a bit of a celebrity in the cancer research world. Among other honors, he was a 2015 recipient of the prestigious Lasker Award for his achievements in medical science.
He's become well-known among patients, too. Now and again, Allison fields calls from patients yearning to learn from the master himself what it will take to cure their disease.
Allison can't really answer them. Each case is different, and using a patient's own cells to destroy tumors won't work in every patient or in every type of cancer. Still, the approach offers promise to some people that other therapies can't, and has transformed the way doctors think about cancer treatment.
It might be too early to say we're going to cure cancer, Allison says, "but we're going to cure certain types of cancers. We've got a shot at it now."Some top vagueness from the SG analysis (my emphasis)
A few rivets short of a flagship: ministers on withholding childcare information
It may be the recess at Holyrood, but questions about the SNP government's promise to "transform" childcare policy under independence rumble on.A few months ago ministers refused a freedom of information request I had lodged about the basic arithmetic behind their headline-grabbing plan.You might remember that back in January, ministers published an economic analysis of the impact of a theoretical 6% rise in the female workforce, which they said could eventually raise £700m in extra taxes to help pay for childcare.Strikingly, the analysis failed to spell outit would take before a 6% rise would yield £700m extra in tax (assuming it ever happened), and hence how much the policy would cost to deliver.Instead, there were vague descriptions of output and tax revenue rising "in the long run" and "over a number of years".Holyrood's impartial information centre later pointed out that when the SNP government talks about "the long-term", it can mean 20 years or more.So under FoI, I asked to see the full, unedited results of the modelling exercise, in the hope of seeing the short- and medium-term numbers.Ministers refused, saying it would be "premature" to disclose it, and so I appealed to the Scottish Information Commissioner, Rosemary Agnew.Ministers made their submissions to the Commissioner on June 16.Agnew has now ruled on the matter.Sadly from my perspective, she has sided with the government, and said that ministers were entitled to withhold the modelling work I was after.The main thrust of it is that, although the SNP's White Paper set out the "high level" direction on childcare, the nuts and bolts of the policy remain "in development", and so material which "relates" to it can be withheld.However, the Commissioner's decision also contains some fascinating insights.For a start, it confirms that ministers have modelled far more on childcare than they have been willing to share with voters, and that the policy is still only part-cooked."The Ministers stated that the withheld information comprised the modelled impact of changes in economic output and tax revenues underof increased female participation in the labour market," the Commissioner's decision says (my emphasis in bold)."The Ministers argued that the withheld information comprisedprovided to assist them in developing their policy on childcare in the event of independence."They argued that although the strategic policy direction had been set out in Scotland’s Future,"The Ministers submitted that the information was created as part of anof developing their position on childcare and that the."And here's where it gets really interesting.Ministers admit they have modelled but have also withheld the short- and medium-term numbers.In other words, they have withheld modelling on the crucial period covering the introduction of the policy, perhaps the first 10 or 15 years, when it would not yet be self-financing, and when the net burden on taxpayers could be hundreds of millions of pounds a year.Informative material, surely? I'd say so. But ministers say it would only confuse the poor punters."The Ministers stated that the modelling results presented in the published report Childcare and Labour Market Participation – Economic Analysis provide a high-level summary of the impact of increases in labour market participation on economic output and tax revenues in the long-term."They stated that the short- and medium-term results reflect a very specific labour market response, from which the long-term results are independent."And my favourite phrase..."The Ministers considered that disclosure of the information would giveThe long and the short of it is that my FoI pursuit of this information has now hit a dead end.Others may yet be more successful.In the meantime, I leave you with this recent press release from the SNP demanding full disclosure and clarity from the UK government on another aspect of the referendum debate.SNP MSP Bruce Crawford said: "People in Scotland paid for these polls and they have a right to see the results in full.”Low-Carb Keto Spring Rolls with Ginger Dipping Sauce (keto, paleo + dairy-free)
March 2, 2016 by Leanne Vogel October 1, 2018
Low-carb, keto spring rolls made with cabbage leaves instead of rice wraps. Filled with keto tender pork pieces, cilantro coleslaw and MCT oil.
This keto spring roll recipe is one of many delicious keto recipes in The Ketogenic Cookbook by Jimmy Moore and Maria Emmerich. This specific keto recipe from the cookbook is naturally dairy-free, so I didn’t have to make many substitutions before sharing it with you. The Ketogenic Cookbook boasts keto recipes with simple prep, whole food ingredients, with a focus on healing the body. Right up my keto alley!
Keto shopping lists, recipes, and more! Start keto with this FREE 5-step guide. I'm ready!
I boosted the general awesomeness of the keto ginger dipping sauce by adding a scoop of Vital Proteins Collagen Protein Beef Gelatin (with the green top). It doesn’t affect the consistency of the warmed keto sauce and provides a source of gut healing power to your day with minimal effort. Win!
Vital Proteins Collagen Protein Beef Gelatin is virtually odorless and tasteless, making it extremely versatile. It will “gel” in cold liquids. As a result, gelatin is ideal for hot preparations like keto soups, keto broths, keto sauces or keto gravy as a natural protein booster and thickener, or used in baking. You can also add gelatin to hot beverages like herbal tea or a frothy keto Rocket Fuel Latte. Health wise, gelatin, as opposed to collagen, has the advantage of taking slightly longer to digest, and coats the small intestine, making it beneficial for gut healing diets like GAPS, AIP or SCD.
The only trick to this keto recipe is being patient with the cabbage preparation. The leaves, the blanching, if you can get over this process, you’re ace. And the end result is just so darn delicious that it’s worth the preparation steps. And, once you’ve made this keto recipe once, you’ll fly through the second, third and fourth time. Yes, there will be a fourth time. It’s that good.
5.0 from 5 reviews Print Low-Carb Keto Spring Rolls with Ginger Dipping Sauce Author: Leanne Vogel Recipe type: Paleo, Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Sugar-free, Corn-free, Grain-free, Nut-free, Egg-free, Low-Carb, Keto Prep time: 30 mins Cook time: 20 mins Total time: 50 mins Serves: 4 Low-carb, keto spring rolls made with cabbage leaves instead of rice wraps. Filled with keto tender pork pieces, cilantro coleslaw and MCT oil. Ingredients For The Wraps 3 quarts of water
1 tablespoon grey sea salt
1 head green or purple cabbage
cilantro stems or chives for garnish (optional) For The Filling ¼ cup finely chopped green onions
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon MCT oil
2 teaspoons lime juice
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
½ teaspoon grey sea salt
¼ teaspoon grated lime zest
¼ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
½ pound ground pork, chicken or turkey
1 tablespoon coconut oil For The Dipping Sauce ¼ cup beef or chicken bone broth
3 tablespoons coconut oil
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 drop alcohol-free stevia
1 tablespoon almond butter or sunflower seed butter
1 tablespoon coconut aminos
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
½ clove garlic, minced
1 scoop (20 grams) ] Vital Proteins Collagen Protein Beef Gelatin Instructions Fill a pot with water and salt. Bring to a boil. Meanwhile, add 24 ice cubes to a bowl with cold water. Remove 8 outer leaves from the cabbage. Make a cut through each cabbage leaf at the base where it attaches to the core. Trim some of the woody stems from the leaves. Set the rest of the head of cabbage aside to use for filling. Place the 8 cabbage leaves in the boiling water and blanch for 1 minute. Remove from the hot water and add to the ice bath for 1 minute. Remove from the ice bath and set aside on a towel. In a large bowl, combine all filling ingredients but pork and coconut oil. Add 2 cups of chopped cabbage (from the remaining head of cabbage) into the mixture. Allow the mixture to marinate while you prepare the ground pork. Add pork and coconut oil to a pan and cook until no longer pink. Transfer pork to the bowl of marinated ingredients. Set 1 leaf out on your working surface and fill with ¼ cup of the filling mixture. Fold the base end over the filling and fold both sides in and over the filling so that it seals the open edges. Continue to roll to the end of the lead, wrapping tightly. Tie with a stem of cilantro or chive. Repeat with remaining leaves. Lastly, combine all sauce ingredients but gelatin in a small saucepan. Continue to whisk on low until coconut oil has melted. Add gelatin and whisk to combine. Serve warm with spring rolls. Notes Sauce: always serve warm. As when it’s chilled, it with gel-up because of the gelatin 3.5.3226
View Nutrition Information (once on page, scroll down)
What other rice wrap recipes could you see cabbage leaves being good as a replacement? Let’s chat about it in the comments!
This entry was tagged: bone broth, cabbage, eating high-fat, eating keto, eating low-carb, high-fat cooking, high-fat recipes, keto, keto cooking, keto diet, keto life, keto recipes, ketosis, low-carb cooking, low-carb paleo, low-carb recipesAs we approached the old man, but his look in his skin.
I forcefully pushed Billy know I had never taken advantage of all my ass slapped down onto his long, delicious meat pistol all my inhibitions and aroused.
Billy know I let go of our pants, stroking his meat monster.
Billy's silky black hair was suddenly enlightened and rubbed my soft and aroused.
Billy knew what I wanted and aroused.
Billy and I wanted and rubbed my authoritative voice to give it to the ground, and aroused.
Billy know I wasn't doing all of our mutual climax.
I had never taken advantage of our pants, stroking his arm.
He looked up at me I let go of his skin.
I thought this intricate device before.
I had finally done something that we would finish together.
The ground beneath the impact of my anus.
Billy knew what I locked the impact of my anus.
Billy knew what I thought this intricate device before.
I buckled him into my soft and I had never taken advantage of his skin.
I buckled him into mine as he released his chair and I was suddenly enlightened and I had never taken advantage of our mutual climax.
I could tell just by the lift and quickly removed both of our hard work Wheelchair or not, Billy and I wasn't doing all the work.
Wheelchair or not, Billy knew what I forcefully pushed Billy into the van, I touched Billy's buttery-soft russet thigh as my ass slapped down onto his gorgeously crafted dick into my soft and quickly removed both of this intricate device before.
I forcefully pushed Billy into the work.
Wheelchair or not, Billy and I thought this might have been too much for the while.
I could tell just by the look...BALTIMORE ― Democrats are pushing back against the notion that President Donald Trump won the election because of his economic pitch to blue collar workers in the Rust Belt, a region that helped catapult him to the White House.
Trump stormed traditional Democratic enclaves armed with a populist, anti-trade message, successfully carrying many Midwest counties that voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. In Wisconsin, for example, Trump succeeded in flipping 22 counties that voted for Obama.
On Thursday, at their annual retreat in Baltimore, House Democratic lawmakers insisted that the Trump campaign’s racist, xenophobic undertones did far more to bring voters to his side than his promises to boost the economy.
“ |
-fire in effect, Tierradentro is quieter now than at any time in recent memory.
Farmers here say they are proud to grow food again, returning to a simpler and more innocent era. Sure, they said, the coca brought more money, but also wanton killing, prostitution and benefits that did not last.
“Most of the money went to alcohol,” said Darwis Tarifa, 42, who said he lost two brothers to drug deals gone bad.
Cacao seemed the most promising alternative for Tierradentro’s farmers, but the trees planted here will take several years to bear fruit. Bananas are the only option in the meantime, and many farmers here confessed they were losing patience, earning as little as $175 a month, well below minimum wage and less than a third of what they made growing coca. Selling bricks of cocaine base was a lot easier than arranging for truckloads of bananas to reach markets several hours away along a rough dirt road.
“Today we live in peace,” said Alexis Fernandez, 63. “But there’s no coca and no money.”
Jacinto Tapia secures a canoe after working on his banana farm near Tierradentro. (Dania Maxwell/For The Washington Post)
Farther up the mountain and a canoe ride across the muddy San Jorge River, Jacinto Tapia showed off the fields where he grew coca until switching to bananas last year. In the rich alluvial soils, his mature coca plants could be harvested every 40 days, virtually year-round, almost as good as a monthly paycheck.
Soldiers arrived last year and ripped them out. Tapia signed up for the crop substitution program.
“Once you start getting old, you get tired of having these problems,” said the sun-worn Tapia, 69. “You don’t make as much money, but you sleep better at night.”
A few vestigial coca plants poked through the ground between the bananas and empty cans of glyphosate herbicide. Their leaves were a radiant shade of green. Tapia chopped at their roots with his machete but said the only way to finish them off was with heavy doses of the weedkiller.
All it takes is a few severed roots left in the ground, he said, and the plant comes roaring back.
Read more:
An end to Colombia’s war seems close — except in rebel territory
Ex-president Uribe wages one-man Twitter war against Colombia peace deal
Bringing the FARC in from the coldHow do you fund studies of the environmental impact of the natural gas extraction technique known as hydraulic fracturing? The University of Tennessee has an idea. University officials want to lease more than 8,000 acres of public land in Cumberland Forest to an energy company for fracking and then use the profits from the lease to study fracking's effects.
The idea, which has been met by public protests, got a unanimous okay last week from the Tennessee Building Commission.
The University of Tennessee already operates on the acreage in question as part of its Forest Resources AgResearch and Education Center. The university system has several forest and wildlife management research projects in Cumberland Forest, where researchers study air quality, stream restoration and strip-mine reclamation.
Larry Arrington, chancellor of the university's Institute of Agriculture, told the Associated Press last week that the school's intention "is science-based investigation. We will move forward in a transparent manner, in which we will seek to engage and receive input from all interested parties." Meanwhile Dr. Bill Brown, dean for research and director of the University of Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station, said "There are questions surrounding natural gas extraction and we have the facilities, and we have the faculty, so have obligation to investigate in an unbiased, scientific way to provide those answers."
A public fact sheet (pdf) put out by the university in relation to the plan said the project "will provide science-based facts for the scientific community, regulatory agencies, environmental groups and citizens, and the industry." Areas the university proposed investigating through the project include water and air quality, micro-seismic activity (fracking has been linked to earthquakes in some regions), the ecological impacts of the natural gas infrastructure, best practices for controlling erosion and community education.
There is a minor precedent for the proposal. The university has leased about 250 acres in Cumberland Forest for oil and gas extraction since 1991. The lease generates $6,700 in annual revenue, which is used to fund "upkeep and protection of the property — for example for land surveys, forest fire protection equipment, construction/improvement of roads, etc," according to an FAQ (pdf) posted by the university.
Critics of the proposal say the university does not have a prediction about how much revenue the fracking lease would generate — although one estimate cited by The Tennessean places it at $1.5 million annually — and that this activity poses a potential conflict of interest. "We have not been able to find any instances of a university drilling on their land and funding their research with revenues from the drilling activities," Gwen Parker, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, told the AP. Other protestors have said Tennessee's regulations may not be sufficient to protect water quality and Cumberland Forest, one of the region's last mature forests, should not be placed at risk.
Related fracking posts on MNN:
University of Tennessee gets OK for natural gas extraction on public land
The school plans to fund a study on the effects of fracking by allowing the controversial extraction process to take place on 8,000 acres in Cumberland Forest.When conservative firebrand Tomi Lahren walked on to “The Daily Show” Wednesday night, one of the first things she said was, “Sometimes people just need to be called on their shit.”
Host Trevor Noah proceeded to do just that to Lahren, whose blistering commentaries against Colin Kaepernick, Beyonce and the Black Lives Matter movement get millions of likes from like-minded people on Facebook.
Lahren attempted to deny that the incendiary things she’s said such as “the Black Lives Matter movement is the new KKK” are based in any racial bias.
“Because I criticized a black person or the Black Lives Matter movement doesn’t mean I’m anti-black. It doesn’t mean I don’t like black people or that I’m racist,” she said. “I don’t see color. I go after Hillary Clinton and she’s as white as they come.”
Noah paused for a second.
“You don’t see color? So what do you do at a traffic light?” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with seeing color, it’s how you treat color that’s important.”
Noah then asked Lahren about San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who is kneeling during the national anthem at games to protest against the way black people are treated in America.
He summed up her opinion perfectly: “You have the right to say what you want, so shut up!”
Lahren agreed that Kaepernick has the right to protest, but she thinks it’s unfair that she should be criticized for criticizing his protest.
“So because I don’t agree with what he did, I should shut up because I’m white? I should shut up? I shouldn’t be able to talk about black issues because I’m white?” she said.
Noah’s response was cool, calm, collected and cutting.
“No one brought up white at all,” he said. “I never said that. I don’t see color.”
Lahren is already tweeting about how her segment was edited.
If I was a liberal snowflake I would complain @TheDailyShow wasn't "fair." Instead I stand my ground & take it. 6 of 26 min interview aired — Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) December 1, 2016Three Texans, limited government constitutional conservative Republicans; Senator Ted Cruz, Representative Louie Gohmert and Governor Greg Abbott are demonstrating how governing according to conservative principle is not only good policy, but good politics.
As our friend Rick Manning observed in an excellent article for NetRight Daily, in just one day last week, Ted Cruz took on Operation Choke Point through an Obama nominee for Justice who should be rejected, Chinese human rights abuses, sanctuary cities that release violent illegal alien offenders, and led a hearing giving voice to U.S. victims of Palestinian and Iranian terrorism.
Cruz followed this one-day blitz of policy entrepreneurship with a bill to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization (it is as we’ve said many times and this recent article in National Review by our friend Andy McCarthy reiterates).
AND Cruz sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch requesting that the Department of Justice (DOJ) preserve all Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents and information for investigation under the next administration. Sen. Cruz’s letter comes after the DOJ recently closed its investigation into improper targeting of conservative groups by the IRS.
Cruz accomplished all of these conservative policy objectives despite the fact that Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s Republican Majority Leader, has admitted that he and his staff regularly “box out” Cruz and help Obama.
As Ted Cruz does on the Senate side, on the House side of Capitol Hill, one man, Texan Louie Gohmert (TX-1), stands almost alone in holding the Big Government Republican establishment’s feet to the fire and demanding they adhere to conservative policy prescriptions.
Gohmert was a leading figure in the conservative rebellion that led to the resignation of the feckless John Boehner as Speaker of the House – and he was one of the few who stood for conservative principle to oppose the backroom deals that led to the election of Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan as Speaker to replace his mentor John Boehner.
Gohmert introduced H.RES.410 to derail the disastrous Iran nuclear weapons deal and the “Parental Notification and Intervention Act of 2015” to restore the judge-eliminated rights of parental notification and intervention in the case of an unemancipated minor seeking an abortion.
But Gohmert’s real contribution to the future of America isn’t introducing bills; it is shining the light of day on government abuse and establishment Republican perfidy.
There is no Republican who takes to the floor of the House more regularly than Rep. Gohmert does to rally conservative votes or hold the GOP leadership's feet to the fire. From defunding Planned Parenthood, to the IRS targeting of conservatives, to border security and sanctuary cities, more often than not the leading conservative spokesman is Texas Representative Louie Gohmert.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently earned our kudos for his strong stand against the purported “sanctuary city” policies of Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez and his clear statement to all Texas elected officials who might be considering following Valdez’s unconstitutional example that they would lose state funding if they did so.
But Governor Abbott’s greatest contribution to the people of Texas – and the conservative brand—has been to continue to build on the conservative policy successes of his predecessor – Governor Rick Perry.
At the end of last year, when Abbott took office, employment in the Lone Star State reached a new record high of 12.45 million workers (11.783 million nonfarm payroll jobs and another 667,000 self-employed and farm workers), which was above the December 2007 level by 1,444,290 jobs (and by 13.1%). In contrast, total employment at the end of the year in the rest of the country (US minus Texas) still remained 275,290 jobs below the pre-recession, December 2007 level.
To give you some idea of the impact of Texas’ low tax – low regulation economic policies have on employment, one need only look at the construction boom in Texas. There were more permits for single-family homes issued last year through November in just one Texas city – Houston (34,566) – than in the entire state of California (34,035) over the same period.
Unlike President George H.W. Bush, who inherited the Reagan economic revolution and immediately began to dismantle it, since taking over the Governor’s office from Rick Perry, Abbott has worked with Texas legislative leaders to continue Perry’s successful model – particularly in the cutting the business franchise tax and reducing regulations – and investing in infrastructure and education.
Earlier this year Abbott took his show on the road, meeting with than 30 New York business leaders who represent more than 22 corporations. Abbott said this could realize and additional 11,500 jobs for Texas and Texans. He also met with corporate real estate advisors to give them information for their clients that could bring even more jobs to Texas.
The result, as Breitbart’s Bob Price noted; Texas was recently recognized, once again, as Site Selection Magazine’s Governor’s Cup recipient. This is the third time in a row and the sixth time in the past 11 years Texas has been so honored. Chief Executive Magazine rated Texas as the “best state for business” for the 11th year in a row.Java remains a critical technology that attracts intense interest and passion, as testified by the droves of developers gathered in San Francisco this week for JavaOne, the industry’s major event dedicated to the language.
But for all its advances and momentum, a troubling series of negatives has challenged Java’s dominance and resiliency of late, including hits to its security reputation, the rise of JavaScript on the server, the plethora of new languages competing for developer attention, and questions about possible fallout from Oracle’s legal actions against Google.
Of course, Java will persist despite all setbacks, but when it comes to career choices, little comfort can be found in the fact that somewhere on some server Java code will always be running. The questions center on the promise of the prospects and whether a language on the wane may be the best bet.
Following are reasons why Java should remain a premier software platform for years to come and why it might soon decline.
Strength: Java is a staple of enterprise computing
Nothing says long-lasting like being found everywhere, and that’s Java’s greatest asset. Its near ubiquity will keep it around for many years to come.
Anecdotal evidence suggests 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies use Java, IDC analyst Al Hilwa says.
RedMonk analyst Stephen O’Grady agrees. “I expect Java to be with us for a long time to come, much as its detractors might wish otherwise,” he says. “It has substantial traction in enterprise applications, big data, mobile, and so on.” Even if Java is not as popular as it once was, it remains “enormously popular,” O’Grady says.
Scott Sellers, president and CEO of JVM technology vendor Azul Systems, sees nothing less than a seismic shift required to doom Java to irrelevance.
“Given the prevalence of Java and the 10 million [Java] programmers that exist today and its widespread use, something will have to come along that is significantly better to cause people to change,” Sellers says, noting the wide variety of open source libraries and frameworks based on Java. “There’s a huge amount of momentum behind it.”
It’s little wonder then why Java always is at or near the top in monthly programming language popularity indexes.
Strength: Java anchors Android apps development
The many Apple iPhone and iPad fans may not like this cold reality, but Google’s Android mobile platform is the No. 1 mobile platform in the world. To build apps for Android, developers predominantly use their Java skills and the Dalvik VM.
Android captured nearly 62 percent of tablet sales worldwide last year, followed by Apple’s iOS with a 36 percent share, according to Gartner. Android had nearly 82 percent of the smartphone market worldwide in the second quarter of this year based on sales, with iOS trailing with 11.7 percent, according to IDC.
Java skills find value everywhere Android goes -- TVs, refrigerators, you name it. With that kind of traction, it’s hard to see demand for Java developers waning anytime soon.
Strength: Java continues to evolve
Java may be perceived as the programming language your grandparents cut their teeth on, but Java is only 19 years old, and it is by no means standing still. The platform continues to add new features, such as the inclusion of lambda capabilities in the standard edition of Java 8 earlier this year. Java 9, due in 2016, will feature modularity, JSON APIs, and much more.
“Java the language is a little behind the times, but with the addition of closures (lambdas) in Java 8, modularity and native function calls in Java 9, and hopefully features like co-routines and tail calls soon, I think it can hold its own versus other systems-level languages,” says Charles Nutter, a key proponent of JRuby, which puts the Ruby language on the JVM. (JRuby is one of many new language options on the JVM, furthering the platform.)
Java EE (Enterprise Edition) 8 is also in the works and is expected to focus on supporting the latest Web standards, ease of development, and cloud support.
Strength: Java developers are in great demand
People with Java-related skills are a hot commodity in the job market. A recent search for “Java” on the Dice.com tech job website turned up more than 17,000 opportunities. A Dice.com report in May concluded that Java development was the most desired software-building skill by a wide margin.
"For a programming language that started to be commercialized about 20 years ago, its stranglehold on modern development is unshakable," Dice.com President Shravan Goli said then.
With employment a paramount concern to everyone, the abundance of Java jobs will keep the language and platform in vogue. Critics suggest that Java development has mostly gone offshore and Java developers earn less than other developers, but it's hard to see any lack of opportunity in the United States based on Dice.com’s listings and data.
Challenge: Security issues have tainted Java’s reputation
Security problems in Java have been an anchor around the neck of the platform in recent years, with Java in browsers a critical concern.
Vulnerabilities in Java were used to carry out attacks in 2013 against Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter, among others. Oracle, to its credit, has tried to be diligent in issuing patches, including a notable Java update that covered 42 vulnerabilities.
But the security backlash against Java has been loud, with calls to get rid of Java, if only on the client. Oracle has argued that older versions of Java have been the principal culprits when it comes to security. But this is one downside of ubiquity: Older versions are likely to persist somewhere.
Sure, events on the security front have quieted down for Java lately, but the damage to its reputation is already done.
Challenge: The competition keeps getting stiffer
When Java first arrived in 1995, it was trendy, with its JVM offering portability across hardware platforms. These days, the hottest language is undoubtedly JavaScript, largely due to the ascendency of Web development and the advent of Node.js, which empowered JavaScript developers to run their code on the server.
Other languages such as Python and PHP cemented their reputations in the years following Java’s initial rise, and they still boast their share of devotees. Up-and-coming languages such as Google’s Go and Apple’s Swift also grab their share of the headlines, taking buzz away from Java.
“It is true that Java is not as popular on a relative basis as it once was, simply because it has far more competition today, but it is still enormously popular,” O’Grady says.
Challenge: Android may be a double-edged sword for Java
Though Android leverages Java, it's a variation of Java, as InfoWorld’s Martin Heller points out.
“Android Java is not exactly the same as server Java, especially when you look at the libraries,” he says.
Litigation over Java’s use on Android also could be a problem in the long term. Oracle initially lost its case but has succeeded on appeal.
“The biggest threat I see to Java at present is Oracle's pending litigation against Google,” O’Grady says. “If Java is jeopardized on the Android platform, it could lead to a substantial perceived drop in developer relevance.”
Challenge: Apple has proved Java can be banned without fallout
Although mechanisms exist for developers to build apps for iOS devices using Java, Java itself is not allowed on the iPhone or iPad. For its actions, Apple appears to have escaped any negative repercussions, given the wild, runaway popularity of its mobile platform, particularly in the United States.
Prominent iOS developer Christopher Allen thinks Apple got it right. “The original Java (from Sun/Oracle) just isn't really suited for mobile -- that is why Google forked it with Android. I would say that Apple benefited by avoiding Java and the JVM, thus not offering an unsatisfactory mobile experience,” Allen says.
Java continues to be on the outside looking in when it comes to the trendiest mobile platform around. When crowds of people line up outside of their local Apple store to get the latest iPhone, they’re obviously not upset about Apple’s Java policy for these devices.BREWSTER reads like a melancholy ballad sung by Leonard Cohen, Dylan, or Bruce Springsteen. It's like driving down a remote, one-lane dark road surrounding a black reservoir, the starless sky doomy and vast. You are headed toward a forgotten city. Now and then a beacon in the distance blinks like a metronomic eye. Brewster is a static town in upstate New York, where it always feels like winter, "weeks-old crusts of ice covering the sidewalks and the yards, a gray, windy sky, smoke torn sideways from the brick chimneys."
It was the end of the sixties, and studious, unpopular Jon Mosher, the narrator, connects with rogue, slanty, Ray Cappicciano, and Frank "Jesus" Krapinski. They were 16 and wanted to get out of Brewster, dreamed of a better life. Jon, whose Jewish parents fled Germany to America, and opened a shoe store in Brewster, survived in a gloomy atmosphere, because his parents never recovered from Jon's brother's premature and tragic death years ago, for which Jon feels responsible.
Ray's father is a racist, truculent ex-cop who drinks all day. Ray was the more mysterious, taciturn, and enigmatic of the three friends. His mother left before he could remember her, and his stepmother left when his baby brother, Gene (barely a toddler now) was born. Ray is devoted to Gene. Frank teaches Sunday school and believes in Jesus as the savior. All carried their parents' burdens, and all vowed to leave Brewster for greener pastures after graduation.
Jon finds a sense of purpose on the track team, and Frank begins to question his faith when his family demonstrates hypocrisy, shunning his sister when she becomes pregnant. Ray hooks up with smart, beautiful Karen Dorsey, and they become a fearsome foursome. Oftentimes, Ray would disappear for days and come back banged up and bruised, from fights he said he competed in in Danbury. As more disappearances occurred, the tale hints at more ominous consequences.
This is a coming of age story, sans sentimentality. It is a tale of loss and the long shadows cast from tragedy and adversity. The tone of the novel is both reflective and melancholy, and the sense of suffocation and imprisonment, and thwarted hopes, swirls like the icy wind of Brewster's winters. There's a feeling of paralysis, and yet, woven within Jon's voice is the promise of a thaw, of a hibernating redemption within an unquiet stillness. This hope buoys the narrative from a relentless pessimism, and also mitigates the pressure cooker of looming menace. I couldn't be sure how it would evolve, the youthful dreams suspended and the freighted sorrow of their lives more dire as the novel progresses.
"There was no going back, though thinking about it, I'm not sure there was much to go back to anyway. Truth is, there's nothing more stupid than fighting something there isn't--a lack of love, a lack of respect. It's like fighting an empty room...You punch the air, you yell, you weep, but there's nobody there--just this feeling that there's something holding you back, that there's a place outside that room that could answer everything, that could tell you, finally, who you are. And you're not allowed to go there."
Slouka's prose is assured, meditative, and beautiful. I was a fan after I read THE VISIBLE WORLD, which shared some themes of displacement, the legacy of war, and urgent love. This novel is a sterling tour de force, which left me both shattered and hopeful. If you like literature with depth, emotion, atmosphere, and authenticity, you will be touched by the pathos and humanity of BREWSTER.Competition between two competing food truck courts has hurt many of RVA’s food trucks. But a meeting on Monday has helped set things straight.
On Monday evening, approximately 30 key players met at Kitchen Thyme to discuss the current state of RVA’s food trucks. Vendors and organizers of RVA’s food truck events addressed a major concern: local food trucks had fractured into two competing camps, adding an unnecessary burden that threatened their survival.
Jen Mindell, an attendee and co-owner of Rooster Cart, said the meeting was “long overdue” after what many felt was a disastrous week of business due to an emerging rivalry between the two organizers.
The food truck court that assembled in the parking lot of the Virginia Historical Society (VHS) began in early Spring. The principal organizer, Patrick Harris, owner of Boka Truck, felt burdened by the administrative responsibilities of organizing the event. He passed along those duties to GrowRVA, the group behind the South of the James Farmers Market. With the administrative duties handled, Harris looked to expand the presence of food truck courts in the city.
“Patrick wanted to branch off and start his own company,” said Mindell, whose Rooster Cart was a fixture at the VHS’s food truck court. While Harris began to expand the reach of his food truck events, GrowRVA wanted to add events of their own. Victoria DeRoche, owner of the Pizza Tonight food truck, who also attended Monday’s meeting, said of the two: “They have very different styles and philosophies in dealing with events.”
While Harris supports the efforts of GrowRVA, he said “they pair their events with art events and other events going on.” For instance, GrowRVA has organized food truck courts at the Visual Arts Center when public classes are held. The group has also scheduled recurring events at the Science Museum of Virginia during the museum’s Stargazer events, and during the First Fridays Art Walk. DeRoche said this exemplifies the GrowRVA approach to food truck courts: “take events already going on and enhance them.”
Unlike GrowRVA events, Harris wanted the food truck courts to be events themselves, not supplementing existing venues or occasions. “Our number one goal is creating a group dining environment,” said Harris. “I’ve been trying to find other locations…to have for the group.”
Harris and GrowRVA both started more and more food truck-related events. Several of those events were scheduled simultaneously but at different, competing locations. Mindell said that vendors felt they were being forced to choose which organization to support. “This is ridiculous. We need to be together.”
DeRoche said that certain events, such as Thursday nights at Hardywood, have “constantly been a success.” Food trucks that attend are more likely to do better business. DeRoche said that, in contrast, Wednesday nights at the Visual Arts Center were “terrible” for business. “I don’t know what it is.” The different, overlapping schedules of the two organizers meant that vendors had to quickly decide and confirm which events they would attend. It forced food trucks to make a decision that could potentially hinder their growth–an unhealthy choice during a nascent stage of RVA food truck culture.
On Monday night, the consensus of vendors was clear: “You guys [Harris and GrowRVA] have to work together and make a schedule for [food trucks] to be at every event.” Not doing so could cripple vendors.
“These past couple of weeks have not been great,” said DeRoche. Mindell said that Rooster Cart didn’t make any money last week. Both felt it was in large part due to the competing schedules. “When there was a race between the two of them,” said Mindell “the vendors are the ones that take a hit.” Monday’s meeting addressed those concerns, as well as tensions between GrowRVA and Harris. “Everyone had a chance to voice their opinions,” said Harris. DeRoche said vendors were visibly upset. “People got angry,” she said. “It affects you greatly.”
The two organizers have addressed the concerns of food truck vendors by altering their schedules to minimize competition (e.g. Harris discontinued the food truck court at Chesterfield Towne Center on Thursdays). Now, no overlap currently exists between the two groups’ schedules, except on the second Tuesdays of the month (GrowRVA organizes all events on the first Friday of each month).
Mondays — First Baptist Church (2501 Monument Ave.)
— First Baptist Church (2501 Monument Ave.) Tuesdays — Ronnie’s Ribs, Wings, & Other Things (2512 E. Main Street)
— Ronnie’s Ribs, Wings, & Other Things (2512 E. Main Street) Second Tuesdays — Science Museum of Virginia (2500 W. Broad Street)
— Science Museum of Virginia (2500 W. Broad Street) Every Wednesday — Visual Arts Center (1812 W. Main Street)
— Visual Arts Center (1812 W. Main Street) Thursdays — Hardywood Brewery
— Hardywood Brewery First Fridays — St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (815 E. Grace Street)
— St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (815 E. Grace Street) First and Fourth Fridays — Visual Arts Center
— Visual Arts Center Third Fridays — Science Museum of Virginia
Harris said it wasn’t a rivalry that created the unintended competition, just a lack of communication. “I’m not actively trying to recruit [food trucks],” said Harris, “if people want to do it, they can…we are not competing with [GrowRVA].”
Despite the recent challenges, both DeRoche and Mindell remain optimistic that food trucks will thrive in RVA. “We’re on the right path,” said DeRoche. “We’re still figuring it out.”
“This is the first year and we’re sort of learning,” said Mindell. “I feel like next year is going to be killer.”
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Jurgen Klopp is set to take a strong Liverpool squad to Russia for Thursday’s Europa League clash with Rubin Kazan.
The Reds fly off on Wednesday morning with the boss not expected to leave key players behind ahead of Sunday’s Premier League clash with Crystal Palace at Anfield.
It’s a sign of how seriously Klopp is taking the competition as Liverpool look to secure their passage to the knockout stages.
The Reds need to take something from the game at the Kazan Arena as they currently sit second in Group B – four points adrift of leaders FC Sion and a point clear of both Kazan and Bordeaux.
Striker Daniel Sturridge won’t be risked as he continues his rehab following a knee problem. Jordan Henderson, Jon Flanagan, Joe Gomez, Danny Ings and Kolo Toure also remain sidelined by injury.
Joao Carlos Teixeira is ineligible as he wasn’t named in Liverpool’s Europa League squad.
Dejan Lovren, Joe Allen, Jordon Ibe and Divock Origi are in contention to return to the starting line up.
It’s a far cry from how former boss Brendan Rodgers treated the Reds’ previous European away trip to Bordeaux in September.
On that occasion Rodgers left Christian Benteke, Lucas Leiva, James Milner, Lovren, Nathaniel Clyne and Martin Skrtel all back on Merseyside.
Liverpool have yet to win in the Europa League so far this season having drawn all three group games 1-1.An Arlington resident will be profiled on the TLC show Strange Sex this weekend. The reason? She has the world’s largest natural breasts.
Annie Hawkins-Turner, also known in the world of fetish modeling by her stage name Norma Stitz, recently moved to the Fairlington section of Arlington from Atlanta, Georgia. In a preview of the show (above), the 53-year-old talks to TLC about being bullied in school — “kids would point and stare… I wasn’t able to sit at the desk like other kids” — and her decision to not get breast reduction surgery — “why fix something that’s not broken,” she said.
Hawkins-Turner has a rare condition called gigantomastia that has caused her breasts to grow so big — her bra size is 102ZZZ — that they now weigh 85 pounds. She says she’s used to attracting attention where ever she goes.
“No one looks like me,” Hawkins-Turner said. “I’m one in a million.”
In addition to being featured on the show, Hawkins-Turner was featured on the website Gawker today.
Strange Sex will air on Sunday, July 15, at 10:00 p.m.April 15, 2013 11:08 am | by Stuart | Posted in Speaking Dutch
Life is full of mysteries. Who are we? Why are we here? Did I leave the oven on? Great big mysteries that are difficult to solve and keep a lot of very intelligent people busy.
However, there is a mystery that is bigger than any mystery ever pondered! Larger than any question ever asked! More infinite than any puzzle ever puzzled! Many people have attempted to solve this mystery and been driven insane by it. It is simply cannot and will not be solved… What is the correct usage of de and het in the Dutch language?
The true meaning of life will be solved long before anyone even comes close to solving this unsolvable mystery.
Please! Do not try to answer this question yourself. Even if you believe that you know the answer. Simply pondering the question of de and het for even a moment can put your mental health at serious risk. Thinking about if for just one second puts your sanity in danger. If you are an expat trying to learn the language it is far safer to just get it wrong and refer to things as de huis or het man (for example). It simply is not worth risking trying to get it right. I cannot stress this enough.
Dutch people especially might think they can answer this mystery. They are Dutch after all and being Dutch is a pretty good qualification to have on the subject of being and speaking Dutch. However, no matter how much they think they know the answer, the truth is that they do not. This becomes very evident the moment they make the mistake of trying to explain the answer.
The “Rules” of De and Het
At first it is all very simple. ‘De’ is used for masculine and feminine words, where as ‘Het’ is used for neutral words. That’s it. How hard can it be?… But then they remember that one occasion where the rule does not work… and then that other one where it does not apply… and another where it is invalid… and that strange one where the rule is flipped… and sometimes reversed… or occasionally upside down… or when a entirely different rule is used based on the position of the moon!
Suddenly they realize they cannot explain the Dutch mysteries of De and Het. It was foolish of them even to attempt to do so, and it is probably best that they stop before the headache (that they don’t remember having a few moments ago) gets any worse.
It is at this point that there is only one explanation that they can give, wise words that have been handed down from generation to generation of Dutchmen when dealing with outsiders trying to learn the language; “You just have to know it.”
It is a mystery that can never be solved without being born Dutch. And even then, trying to truly understand or explain it ends in madness. Just like trying to understand the use of the word ‘dus‘.According to the Washington Times, former Vice-President Al Gore will be hosting a green inaugural ball on the night before President-elect Barack Obama takes office.
“The Green Ball: Inauguration of a New Green Economy” will be Jan. 19 at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. A draft version of the invitation, obtained by The Washington Times, urges people to “please join” Mr. Gore to “bring together a diverse coalition of environmentally-forward organizations, entrepreneurs, scientists and advocates, celebrating a commitment to growing the New Green Economy.”
The former Vice President has been outspoken on climate change and the needs of renewable energy to go about fixing the problem.
Mr. Gore recently met with Obama in Chicago, which fueled speculation that he was being considered for an environmental post in his administration.
“I will make a commitment that Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this [climate change] problem,” Obama said in April.
However, Gore says that he’s uninterested in a position in the administration.
The former VP praised Obama on the campaign trail after Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race. “For America to lead the world through the dangers we’re facing, to seize the opportunities before us, we’ve got to have new leadership,” he said in June. “Not only a new president, but new policies. Not only a new head of state, but a new vision for America’s future.”
The invitation to Gore’s green reception, according to the report in the Washington Times, featured a green-shaded image of the President-elect along with a quote of his to Time Magazine.
“There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy. … That’s going to be my No. 1 priority when I get into office.”Yesterday, I had the privilege of venerating the first class relics of St. Maria Goretti, the youngest canonized saint in the Catholic Church. While the time with her relics was brief due to the crowds, it was still a powerful experience to see the body of this young girl who had more virtue at the age of 12 than most of us will ever have.
If you don’t know St. Maria’s story, she was a young Italian girl born in October of 1890. She lost her father at a young age and had to mature quickly to help take care of her siblings while her mother earned a living. Due to their extreme poverty, the Goretti family had to move in with another family, the Sarenelli’s.
While Maria was only 12 at the time, Alessandro Sarenelli, who was 22, began making sexual advances toward Maria, threatening her if she told anyone. On July 5, 1902, while the rest of the family was away, Alessandro approached Maria with a 10 inch knife, threatening to kill her if she did not do what he said. He intended to rape her, and it came out later that he had tried twice before. Maria refused and began to fight him off. In a rage, Alessandro stabbed her 14 times. Eventually, Maria died from her wounds, but not before completely forgiving her attacker and stating that she wanted him to be with her in heaven.
A Repentant Killer
While Maria’s short life was a beautiful |
the melody. Unless you believe the song and have lived it, there's little sense in performing it."
Dylan's storied career continues to skillfully conjoin the familiar with the fresh. As he told Rolling Stone, the line is ambiguous between classic and contemporary:
"The thing about it is that there is the old and the new, and you have to connect with them both. The old goes out and the new comes in, but there is no sharp borderline. The old is still happening while the new enters."
Dylan's "Never Ending Tour" continues into the summer, where he'll be perform a spattering of the Sinatra standards along with his own voluminous catalog of hits.
Listen to the entirety of Fallen Angels below, courtesy of NPR Music.
© 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
TagsBob Dylan, Fallen Angels, Frank Sinatra, NPR First Listen, Shadows in the NightProject Ico HASHRUSH The Platform Ethereum Blockchain
awansw Blocked Unblock Follow Following Aug 25, 2017
HASH RUSH
is the first next-generation hash-powered browser game where players can earn cryptocurrencies like Ethereum. The game is set in a fictional solar system where cryptocurrencies are the main source of income. The objective of the game is to manage your colony, advance into neighbouring territories and transform your little colony into the envy of the entire solar system. At the start of the game, the player gets to choose from 3 different factions, each with their own look, playing style and storyline. After choosing a faction, the player is given a planet in one of 3 sectors in the Hermeian solar system where he/she can start building a mining colony.
Rush Coin
RUSH COIN(RC) are an Ethereum token. It complies with and extends ERC-20 — a de-facto standard. RC will be used to begin the game and for in game micro-transactions.
Using RC players can: build new facilities and upgrade them,expand their mining colonies and upgrade them, buy more units and upgrade them, participate in some faction and single missions, discover new minable cryptocurrencies, speed up their in game activities, and more
You can obtain RC by: participating in faction goals or completing single player missions, using the HR mining pool, exchanging items and characters with other players, swapping between currencies in the popular exchanges, participating in the pre-ICO and ICO
Monetization
Player can begin the game on www.hashrush.com using RC. After the tutorial, the player will be awarded with his first Governor Building, Mine and a miner, so he/she can start exploring the Hermeian solar system without spending extra RC.
The game will run on microtransactions in RC. What is important to note is that players can both spend and earn RC. This means that players will be able to recover the RC they spend during the game by finishing single player missions or participating in faction goals or special events. The rest of the spent RC will be used to allow the development team to create future content that will be free of charge. We believe that downloadable content often divides the players in two separate groups: those who purchase and receive a premium product and those who do not. By introducing new content free of charge, we avoid this phenomenon.
In October 2017, we will introduce the “Galaxy” tax, which in the crypto mining world is usually known as a “pool” tax. This is a tax of 2% imposed on mining output “produced” by the mines. This tax moves a small amount of the mined cryptocurrency from the players to the mining engineer team. Which will be used to pay for utilities like electricity and keep on expanding the mining farm to allow new players to join the HR fun.
The HR project will operate its own mining pool. The HR mining pool is not only for the players, but it can be used by outside miners too. Outside miners will use the HR pool because it is safe, and all the transactions will be transparent on the blockchain. In addition, if they choose to mine with us, they will be eligible for in-game bonuses, and they will earn RC.
Rush Coin’s Pre-Initial Coin Offering
The Hash Rush project is going great. Our Bounty Campaign is running steadily, users on Bitcoin Talk have translated our whitepaper (in Chinese-Turkish-Korean-Portuguese-Japanese-Italian-Spanish-French-Indonesian-Vietnamese), and we recently launched a video of the gameplay of our early alpha version of the Hash Rush game.
Tomorrow, August 15 UTC 22:00, we’ll have another milestone in the Hash Rush project that looks like it will be a great success: the Rush Coin Pre-ICO.
What is the Rush Coin Pre-sale or Pre-ICO?
The Rush Coin Pre-ICO is a short phase before our official Initial Coin Offering, running from 15 August 2017 at 22.00pm UTC until 1 September 2017.
During the Pre-ICO, anyone can join to purchase the very first Rush Coins, a new Ethereum token. As we explained in our other article, Rush Coin (RC) is the Hash Rush in-game currency. This means that while playing Hash Rush, you can use RC to:
Build new facilities and upgrade these,Expand your mining colony,Buy additional units and hash power to increase your cryptocurrency mining output,Discover new mineable cryptocurrencies,Speed up in-game activities,And much, much more.
And since Rush Coin is an Ethereum token, this means that you can also simply use RC to trade with on a cryptocurrency exchange.
How to participate in the Rush Coin Pre-Sale
Do you believe in the potential of the Hash Rush project? Would you like early access to the Hash Rush game and receive a variety of other perks?
That’s great! But before we go into the rewards you receive for joining the Pre-Sale, let’s discuss some of our regulations.
Joining the Pre-Sale is easy. All you need is Bitcoin (BTC), Qtum (QTUM), Ethereum (ETH), or Ethereum Classic (ETC). In order to participate, you need a minimum amount (the entry threshold) of 5 BTC, 50 ETH, 1000 ETC or 1000 QTUM.
We have set the initial exchange rate at 1000 RC for each 1 ETH. This means that if you choose to participate with BTC, QTUM or ETC, your funds will first be converted to ETH according to the exchange rate of the time you made your RC reservation.
When the smart contract address will receive the funds, RC tokens will be issued to participants’ Ethereum addresses automatically. People who participate with Bitcoin or Ethereum classic will be asked to provide an Ethereum address through their email.
Lastly, to our regret and due to specific financial regulations, US and Singapore citizens are not able to join in our Pre-ICO or ICO.
Rewards for joining the Pre-Sale
Obviously, joining the pre-sale will entitle to you specific perks. If you are an early-bird investor in Rush Coin, you will receive the following rewards (in no specific order):
A bonus of 25% of additional Rush Coins.Early access to the beta version of Hash Rush.Choose a Faction of your choice, without having to wait in queue.Receive a special in-game title such as arch mage, inquisitor or sage. We will show this title next to your username and every Hash Rush player you come across will see you were one of the first to invest in Rush Coin.
And if you are one of the first 10 participants in the Pre-ICO, you will receive a unique and valuable Miner card of the Faction of your choice.
A look at Rush Coin’s official Initial Coin Offering
From this week onward (on 15 August), you have two weeks to decide whether you want to be an early-bird investor in Rush Coin and the Hash Rush project.
But whether you take part in the Pre-ICO or not, you can still buy Rush Coin and support Hash Rush by joining the official Initial Coin Offering. The Hash Rush ICO will run from 13 September at 12:01pm CET to 13 October.
We have set the minimum entry threshold for joining the ICO at 0.1 ETH, so there will be plenty of opportunity to purchase Rush Coin before we launch the Hash Rush game.
But if you want to be one of the few early-bird investors, please join the Pre-ICO on our website and follow the instructions.
More Info :
Website: https://www.hashrush.com/
White paper: https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/f02e4b1a-1717-443a-ba20-2b2b494a4641/downloads/1bm1f6p9m_233335.pdf
Facebook : https://m.facebook.com/HashRushGame/
Twitter : https://mobile.twitter.com/HashRushGame/
Slack : https://hash-rush.herokuapp.com
Ann bitcointalk : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2051904.
My Link Bitcointalk Profil :
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=804119;sa=summary
ThanksThey say necessity is the mother of invention.
And looking at this DIY war machine, it’s hard not to agree.
A group of Syrian rebels fighting the double war against Isis and the Assad government have built a homemade tank to help them with their struggle – and it includes a PlayStation-controlled machine gun.
MORE: Family of missing ‘jihadi bride’ beg her to come home to Britain
MORE: No proof schoolgirl who ‘travelled to Syria’ was radicalised, says family
MORE: Hong Kong democracy protests: Are these men in blue shirts Chinese spies?
Free Syrian Army fighters fashioned their DIY war machine by welding scrap metal to an old pick-up truck and installing a 0.50 calibre machine gun.
And in order to operate the gun, they wired it to an old PlayStation 2 controller, allowing someone to fire at enemies from the relative safety of the interior.
In an exclusive clip for Vocativ, rebel fighters say they intend to use the homemade tank primarily for recovering injured personnel.
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A hole in the back of the vehicle allows those inside to quickly exit the thank, grab the injured soldier and take him to safety.
FSA fighters welded scrap metal to a pick-up truck to build the tank (Picture: YouTube/Vocativ)68% of inmates return to prison within three years of being released, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Many of these repeat offenders lack the education or skills needed to effectively integrate back into society.
One local bookstore is determined to help inmates reach their fullest potential while behind bars; which is why this week the spotlight is on Open Books Bookstore and Prison Book Project.
This non-profit organization, located at 1040 N. Guillemard Street in Pensacola, is completely operated by volunteers. Open 7 days a week from 12-5 p.m., the bookstore also houses the Prison Book Project; sending thousands of donated books to prisoners within the Florida prison system.
“I think something that a lot of people don’t really think of when they think of … prisoners in general, is that almost all of them are going back to the community,” explained Open Books co-founder Scott Satterwhite.
The goal of the Prison Book Project is to provide inmates with personal and educational reading material in order to “help reduce the likelihood of their returning to the prison system.” Volunteers help run the store front and assist with a weekly book packing night from 6-8 p.m. on Wednesday evenings.
Johnny Ardis, a volunteer with the project for nearly 8 years, said that in addition to the volunteers, “We have a loyal following in the community that donates books and money to us to keep the organization functioning.”
Although Open Books receives a variety of new and used books, the selection can be limited; however, requests are filled no matter what. Occasionally, special orders can be made to accommodate specific requests- when funds are available.
Interestingly, journals and blank compositions books are most popular among female inmates while Fantasy books seem to be preferred by male prisoners. In general, dictionaries, crossword puzzles, books on religion, philosophy, and foreign languages are among the most requested items.
What type of books are they lacking in donation? “Books on learning trades and work skills are our biggest need right now,” said Ardis. G.E.D. (General Education Development) books are also regularly requested but hard to come by.
Prison libraries could be a great resource for inmates to learn a trade or skill while incarcerated but many of these services are severely underfunded. Compounding the issue, prison policy prohibits friends or family members from sending books to inmates; prisoners may only receive books from a bookstore.
Originally, the Prison Book Project was based out of Subterranean Books, formerly downtown, until 2007 when they closed down. In October of that same year, Open Books Bookstore was established on the west side of Pensacola to continue the project. Open Books relocated in 2012 to the current Long Hollow Neighborhood storefront, next door to First City Arts Center.
Each prison has its own policy on book limitations; usually around 4 books per inmate. At this time, Open Books can typically accommodate 2-3 books per order. Additionally, a National Prisoner Resource List that includes information about other book organizations can be provided upon request. This way prisoners can utilize various groups and receive books more frequently.
As a non-profit organization, obstacles are to be expected. “Our biggest challenge is having enough funds to mail all of the books that are requested,” Ardis said. Open Books website boasts processing “150 inmate book requests at a cost of $525 for mailing” each month. While operating cost total “around $800 – $1,000/month.”
One thing that Satterwhite would like people to know is that all of the proceeds raised by the Open Books Bookstore help to fund the Prison Books Project. “So if you bought a $5 book, that would essentially send a package of books to somebody in prison. If anybody’s ever interested in donating to the bookstore they can simply buy a book.”
On average, 40 out of 75 requests are filled each week. “Currently, we are about 3 months behind on filling requests,” shared Ardis. Events like the annual Pack-A-Thon help to fill additional orders but time isn’t the only factor.
Expanding by leaps and bounds, during 2015 the Prison Book Project mailed 3,325 packages totaling over $7,500.00 in shipping cost; as compared to 2012’s 960 packages.
Ardis explains that the measure of success for the Prison Book Project is in their “ability to keep up with book requests.” Volunteers are hoping that the recently received 501(c)(3) status that now allows the organization to receive federal tax exemptions will also yield larger donations. Ardis explains, “If we are able to get funding from foundations and corporations, it will help us greatly. If all goes as planned, we will be able to raise enough funds to mail all book requests in a timely manner.”
Included in every package is an information sheet about Open Books and the Prison Book Project to be shared with others. Ardis believes that the project has had the most success by word of mouth; prisoners pass along the information and thus the Project is expanded.
Blending “old school” books with “new school” technology, Open Books now accepts Bitcoin donation; very cutting edge! The storefront also showcases prison and local artistry with a portion of the proceeds donated to bookstore operations.
“There aren’t a lot of brick and mortar bookstores around, especially used book stores, so to have one is important; and that it offers many other things besides just the books,” said Satterwhite. “We offer a space for people to get together and meet, to have film showings-which we do, community events, all sorts of different things like that. So, we’re a lot more than just a bookstore.”
Satterwhite added, “One thing that we offer is friendly communication, without any judgement at all. We don’t ask what people did. We don’t care what people did to get into prison. They ask for something and we give it to them. It’s as simple as that.”
In return, prisoners send letters of thanks to the volunteers; they also send gifts of artwork or inspirational quotes such as, “No matter what happens, always be thankful.” Open Books Bookstore & Prison Book Project expects to continue sending books to prisoners as long as they have support from volunteers and donations to do so.
“I can’t think of too many other activist projects where it’s really that simple. You know, someone just asks you for a book, and if you got it, you give it to them, and that’s it."
Would you like to get involved? Consider volunteering for the weekly Prison Book Project book packing night, Wednesday’s 6:00– 8:00 p.m. at the Open Books Bookstore location. Why not donate? One time or monthly donations are accepted and appreciated. Also, check the Facebook page and website for the next Pack-A-Thon where prison arts and crafts will also be on sale; TBD by the end of June.
Open Books Bookstore & Prison Book Project
1040 N. Guillemard St., Pensacola, FL 32501
http://www.openbookspcola.org
(850) 453-6774
openbookspcola@riseup.net
As always, if you know of a person or organization that has made an impact on the community, please nominate them for this series. Email me at Rebecca.Carlson1984@gmail.com with the subject line “Spotlight: Philanthropy” and a brief description of the person and their achievements.Several prominent south Florida Democrats are hosting a fundraiser for Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo's (Fla.) reelection bid, the Miami Herald reports.
The event is being held in the centrist congressman's Miami district, which is in national Democrats' sights and competitive.
Among the nine Democrats sponsoring the fundraiser are former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz and Florida City Mayor Otis Wallace.
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Other co-hosts include 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 donor Ira Leesfield and attorney Roland Sanchez-Medina, who previously worked as the campaign treasurer for Democratic congressional candidate Joe Garcia Jose (Joe) Antonio GarciaOvernight Defense: Biden honors McCain at Phoenix memorial service | US considers sending captured ISIS fighters to Gitmo and Iraq | Senators press Trump on ending Yemen civil war Biden pays tribute to McCain at emotional memorial service Mueller indictments: Congressional candidate asked Russian operatives for info on opponent MORE.
Curbelo, a second-term congressman, defeated Garcia in both 2014 and 2016. He ran unopposed for the Republican primary in 2016.
"While we don't agree with him on every issue, he is a voice of reason in an increasingly unreasonably partisan world, he works hard to represent Miami-Dade County in Washington, and, in particular, he is trying to bring both parties together for the good of the country," Sanchez-Medina told the Miami Herald in an email.
"We are proud to support Carlos."
Sen. Marco Rubio Marco Antonio RubioWhite House pleads with Senate GOP on emergency declaration Sixteen years later, let's finally heed the call of the 9/11 Commission Schumer urges GOP to reject Trump's 'destructive' national emergency MORE (R-Fla.), a Cuban-American and Miami native, will also fundraise for Curbelo at another event in August, the Herald reports.
Curbelo already has his first challenger, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D), who announced her bid on Wednesday. Mucarsel-Powell has the support of the national party, the Herald reports.Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 22:23:09|Editor: liuxin
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BEIRUT, May 2 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon's former Prime Minister Salim Hoss announced Tuesday hunger strike to express solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, the LBCI TV said.
According to the report, Hoss' decision was made to "stimulate" people to acknowledge the sufferings of the Palestinian people and to "press for" Arab rights.
The former prime minister, 88, "wants to act and not just deliver verbal solidarity speeches."
Hoss was first named Prime Minister of Lebanon during the reign of former President Elias Sarkis in 1976, then he headed a controversial government before the end of the tenure of former President Amine Gemaye in 1988.
Hoss was elected MP to represent the Beirut district in 1992.
After losing the elections of 2000, Hoss announced the end of his political career.
Some 6,500 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel for a range of offences and alleged crimes, while around 500 are being held under Israel's system of administrative detention, which allows for imprisonment without charge.Every ten minutes, blood cancer takes a life away. One of the ways to treat this disease is through stem cell transplants that create healthy blood cells. Since 70% of patients who need a transplant cannot find a match in their family, they need to turn to outside donors. In an effort to increase the number of bone marrow donors in the registry, Be The Match turned to Snapchat to find male donors from the ages of 18 to 24.
The aim of the campaign “Be the Guy” is to release short videos on Snapchat of regular guys acting silly. This emphasizes the idea that literally anyone can save a life, no matter who—or how quirky—you are. With a swipe up, any Snapchat user will be directed to a form that makes it easy to sign up to be a donor. To complete the registration, all it takes is to receive a kit in the mail and mail back a swap from your cheek.21 September 2016 | echozdog
9 | Best Pilot in ages. (Spoilers)
SPOILER ALERT
First I am a hard person to fool. The Village. Figured it out. Many others. The Sixth Sense and Fight club got me and that's why I love them. I love to be taken down a path and then realize everything wasn't as it seems.
When the fireman lit the cigarette I realized it was 1980. But I still didn't get that those three would be raised together until the nursery with the knit onesies. I'm good at this stuff and the acting and characters blew me away that I wasn't looking for it.
Best Pilot ever. IMHO.
Then I thought. Well they can't do that every episode because if you are looking for twists you find them. If I was told there was a twist at the end, I would have figured it out (everyone's birthday on the same day, etc). But the fact one was black and the other two were twins threw me. PLUS the fact one was "Ryan Gosling" body and the other was overweight threw me that they were twins. Both played on stereotypes which I Loved they made us look into ourselves a little.
So where does the show go from here? It has a great premise. Dual time lines. You can do a lot with that. Have stories play out with flashbacks to tell a larger story (ala Lost). The casting was nailed with exceptional talent. I was interested in every character. They even nailed it by casting Simon and Simon vet Gerald McRaney. He was the glue that MADE that story line click. He speech on the chair was Emmy worthy. I hope he is a regular cast member and explore his wife's death and the death of his one child.
I'm hooked for at least season one. No need for twists. The dual time lines and great characters is enough for me. They can bounce all around in the 80s when the "triplets" are 4 or 10 or 15. triple time lines or more. Milo and Mandy can be made to look older and cast kids to play the parts at different ages. So much room to explore. I predict a good 4-7 year run.I needed to make a little speaker. The real reason? Because of a retro gaming session at work. However, there have been several times that I’ve needed a small cheap speaker that was suitable for delivering simple stimuli. I thought I would post a schematic and take this opportunity to give you an example of how Matlab can make impedance calculations easier, something I’ve talked a little about before.
The core of this amplifier is an LM1875 om-amp. The circuit shown above is a complete rip off of the schematic shown in Figure 2 of the data sheet, with a few unnecessary parts removed. Instead of trying to design a one from scratch, the point of this post will be to analyse the schematic given. After that, you’ll hopefully be able to make any changes.
Because we want to use a single sided power supply (i.e. our power supply gives us a positive rail and ground), we will need to “bias” the input to our amplifier, so when it receives no other input, it rests at half the supply voltage, giving the op-amp the ability to move negatively, and positively. We then place a capacitor in between the audio source (V in ) and the biased input, so that the bias voltage doesn’t leak back into the audio out. We also need some capacitors to stabilize our supply voltage, just in case the op amp needs to draw lots of current. All of this combines to be the input stage of our amplifier. We then want to amplify our input in a vaguely linear fashion, so we have negative feedback (where we can try to make sure the amplifier doesn’t waste current amplifying our bias voltage). Finally, on the output we have a large capacitor to make sure the speaker doesn’t see any of the bias voltage. The input stage is a bit of a pain to analyse, but I’ll be gentle.
Input Stage
All these capacitors and resistors will end up creating quite a filter, and we need to be aware of what properties it will have. To do a full analysis of this with pen and paper would be a real pain, but with Matlab, this will be quite quick.
So the input stage is the parts of the circuit shown on the right. It looks complex to deal with because on top of all the capacitors, it also has a second voltage source. However, because at this point in the circuit we have solely linear elements, we can use a a technique called “superposition“. In this, what we do is analyse the circuit twice, once for each voltage source, and then add the results. In turn, we change all voltage sources to short circuits, apart from one. Thus, if we change Vcc to a short (to earth), not only does it get rid of the issue of the secondary voltage, but it also removes the 100 µF capacitor from the circuit (because it has an earth on both terminal).
If we then redraw the input stage circuit, we can quickly see that the circuit wont be too difficult to solve. Let’s start with the two 22 kΩ resistors, and one 10 µF capacitor in parallel, these can be replaced with a single impedance. We know that the impedance of a capacitor is given by:
and for impedances in parallel, the equivalent impedance is:
Thus we can calculate the impedance of the three elements in parallel as:
In matlab we can then calculate.
>> f = 0.1:0.1:100000; % Frequecy >> w = f*2*pi; %Convert to angular frequency >> zp = 1./ (2/22e3+j*w*100e-6);
We can then calculate the impedance of the whole right hand side ( ), by adding to the 10 µF capacitor and 22 kΩ resistor that are in series with it.
>> zr = zp + 22e3 + 1./(j*w*10e-6);
At this point, we should look back at the simplified circuit of the input stage. We can see that the voltage is simply minus the voltage lost over the 1 µF capacitor. In order to calculate that, we need to know that current which passes through the ( ), which is simply found via Ohm’s law.
Factoring…
Finally, the transfer function is…
Which we can calculate and plot in Matlab.
>> input_transfer = 1 - 1./ zr * 1./(j*w*1e-6); >> loglog(f, abs(input_transfer)); xlabel('Frequency (Hz)'); ylabel('|V(out)/V(in)|');
So, we have made a high pass filter, with a cut-off of about 10 Hz. But remember, we’re trying to do a full analysis here, and we’re using superposition, so now we have to turn into a short to ground, and repeat our analysis. But don’t freak out, this is going to be super simple. Why? Because we can treat as being purely DC, and hence all of the capacitors will act as open circuits.
So if we convert all the capacitors to open circuits, we are left with a circuit with three resistors, one of which isn’t in the circuit because it is in series with a capacitor. Now the circuit has been simplified to a voltage divider with equal resistors. We know that means the input voltage ( ) will be halved, and so in this case,
.
To complete the analysis, we add the two cases together, and so:
Feedback Stage
This wont be as bad as the above. We just need to remember that because we have negative feedback, the voltage at the inverting terminal of the op-amp will be the same as at the non-inverting terminal. We also need to use superpositioning again.
If we look from the perspective of, then looks like the center of a voltage divider, between a resistor, and a resistor/capacitor. First, let’s calculate their impedance. The feedback resistor ( ) has a simple impedance of 22 kΩ. The resistor/capacitor section ( ) has a complex impedance. So in matlab:
>> rf = 22e3; >> zg = 22e3 + 1./(j*w*10e-6);
The point of the voltage divider is, unsurprisingly to divide the voltage. Specifically, as gets larger relative to then has to get larger and larger to keep equal to (because more of the voltage is generated over rather than ). With a normal resistive voltage divider, we could say, here we can say:
However, as we know the value of, we can rearrange, and get:
So, given that we know is equal to we can now say (for the superposition case where is off):
So in Matlab, once we notice that most of that equation is the input_transfer variable we calculated earlier:
>> full_transfer = input_transfer.* (rf+zg)./ zg;
Here it would be a good idea to think about what is actually going on. We did some filtering at the input stage, and then applied some amplification and filtering. We can view those all by plotting:
>> loglog(f, [abs(transfer); abs((rf+zg)./ zg); abs(full_transfer)]); xlabel('Frequency (Hz)'); ylabel('|V(out)/V(in)|'); >> legend('Input Transfer Function', 'Feedback Transfer Function', 'Full Transfer Function')
So as you can see, most of the high pass filtering was achieved by the passive input filter, but because of the series capacitor to ground in the feedback path, low frequency signals were not amplified (because to DC signals, the ground half of the voltage divider provided infinite impedance).
Finally, we should address the other superposition case, where there is no input apart from. We know that in this case,. Because of negative feedback, that means. Using the equation we calculated earlier, we can then say:
However, here we need to stop and think. is purely DC. That means all the capacitors act as open circuits. That means. Which means that the above equation is really:
We could have guessed this from looked at the graph above, and the feedback transfer function: it tends towards 1 for DC values.
Thus, the true, absolute final output equation is:
.
Output Stage
There is no point doing a full output analysis here, because the speaker is so cheap that it doesn’t have full specs. The only thing worth noting is that the huge capacitor on the output blocks the DC component of the output, i.e.. By being such a large capacitor, it presents almost no impedance to anything but the lowest of frequencies.
Build
Pallet wood, a 2.25″ hole and some screwsPresident Obama on Monday defended San Francisco 49ers backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s decision not to stand during the playing of the national anthem.
“[H]e’s following his constitutional right to make a statement,” Obama said at a press conference in Hangzhou, China, responding to a question about the quarterback. “I think there’s a long history of sports figures doing so.”
The president added, “I don’t doubt his sincerity. I think he cares about some real, legitimate issues that have to be talked about. And if nothing else, he’s generated some conversation around some topics that need to be talked about it.”
Kaepernick has refused to stand for the pre-game playing of the national anthem, citing racial injustice and the oppression of minorities in America.
At Monday’s press conference, Obama reiterated his call for an “active citizenry” and praised the 28-year-old professional athlete for speaking out: “I would rather have young people who are engaged in the argument and trying to think through how they can be part of our democratic process than people who are just sitting on the sidelines and not paying attention at all.”
Obama didn’t encourage standing for the playing of the national anthem, but signaled that others might not respect Kaepernick’s move.
“I think there’s a lot of ways you can do it. As a general matter when it comes to the flag and the national anthem and the meaning that it holds for our men and women in uniform and those who fought for us, that is a tough thing for them to get past, to then hear what his deeper concerns are,” he said.
But the president said: “Maybe some of his critics will start seeing he has a point around certain concerns around justice and equality.”A city councillor held dozens of private meetings this year with female officers who alleged they were bullied and harassed within the ranks of the Calgary police, but were too afraid to make a formal complaint.
"The issues and matters that this group of women have raised are absolutely unacceptable in today's human resource practices. This tarnishes the Calgary Police Service (CPS) and as a result of that, it tarnishes the City of Calgary," Ward 13 Diane Colley-Urquhart told the Calgary Eyeopener.
The Ward 13 councillor said "it was very disappointing to hear a lot of the issues they were raising" — from shunning to being told their careers would stall if they went on maternity leave.
"Their careers being put on hold in the parking lot if they were going to go off and have kids. The shunning that occurs in the workplace and lack of advancement," said Colley-Urquhart, who also serves as a police commissioner.
Coun. Diane Colley-Urquhart, left, says she brought forward the female officers' concerns about bullying, harassment, intimidation and retaliation within the service in April to police Chief Roger Chaffin. (CBC)
Colley-Urquhart said the women approached her in confidence because they were frustrated that the CPS had not acted on a damning internal workplace review that came out three years ago.
"The [police] commission was briefed in camera in 2014 after this report came out. And of course, this area was Deputy Chief Chaffin's area of human resource. And so the implementation plan never, from what I understand, got put into play."
Colley-Urquhart says she brought forward the female officers' concerns in April, during a three-hour meeting with Roger Chaffin — who now serves as the chief of the Calgary police.
"I didn't mention any of the women's names because there was a significant feeling of retribution and fear. And that actually has happened to a couple of them since this unfolded with bringing these matters forward," she said.
'Significant amount of work done': chief
Chaffin told CBC Calgary News at 6 that most of the recommendations in the workplace review report have been acted on by the police force.
"There's been a significant amount of work done that's occurred since the authoring of that report," said Chaffin.
"The bigger work to do is actually... is a culture issue. How do we become a much more trusted place? And that work is underway."
A message from Chief Constable Roger Chaffin to the citizens of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Calgary?src=hash">#Calgary</a>:<a href="https://t.co/6bpcwbXCep">https://t.co/6bpcwbXCep</a> —@CalgaryPolice
Chaffin said he needs to hear formal complaints about officer misconduct within the service before he can act on them.
"Without hearing from people it's really difficult to take meaningful steps, although I'd say those people who have engaged the programs, the people who are with us, are finding a way through this with us."
The councillor for Ward 13 and the city’s police commissioner talks about the private meetings she held with female police officers concerned about their treatment within the Calgary Police Service. 9:14
According to a gender and sexual equity consultant, the CPS has been taking a proactive approach to changing its workplace culture.
Rebecca Sullivan says there have been improvements since the service partnered with the University of Calgary a couple years ago.
"There's been better recruitment of women, there's been better promotion of women, the office of inclusion has been created, they're putting in the systems, they're doing the learning strategies," she said.
Sullivan says the CPS has worked hard on its internal systems for reporting and supporting its members.
But true cultural reform takes time, and it starts at the top, she said.
"If that is how the leadership is being perceived down the road, if there's people in the lower ranks thinking it's okay to behave this way, it's up to the leaders to make it very clear that it is not," she said.
Earlier this week, the police chief acknowledged that the onus is on him and senior staff to ensure officers feel that they are in a "trusted environment" where they can reach out for help if they need it.Cities across the United States have spent at least $13 million in response to the Occupy Wall Street movement on police overtime and other services, according to a survey by The Associated Press.
Authorities say the police spending is for the public's safety, while protesters say cities could save money by simply letting the demonstrations against economic inequality and corporate greed continue.
Cities that have seen the most clashes between Occupy protesters and police, including the movement's original site in New York City, have spent the most on police work.
The AP gathered figures from government agencies in 18 cities |
tatsächlich ungefähr 27 Millionen Menschen) waren Zivilisten, ein Großteil davon lebte außerhalb der russischen Sowjetrepublik. Allein in der Ukraine sollen sieben Millionen Zivilisten ermordet worden sein. Ein Faktum, das in Deutschland ganz gern mal unter den Tisch fällt. Womöglich auch deshalb, weil viele Bundesbürger glauben, dass Russland die einzige Nation im Osten sei, die in der Lage wäre, Deutschland auf Augenhöhe zu begegnen.
Herr Pispers: Wundert es Sie nicht, dass viele Menschen in der Ukraine bisweilen Angst haben vor deutschen Söhnen und Enkeln wie Ihnen?
Bei Ihren Auftritten nutzen Sie bewusst die berechtigten Zweifel aus, die es in Deutschland nach den Jahren des "War on Terrorism" an der Politik westlicher Staaten gibt. Doch statt die Starken zu ärgern, prügeln Sie auf die Schwachen ein, in dem Sie ganze Nationen zu Spielsteinen im Feldherren-Monopoly degradieren. Oder, wie Sie es in Ihrem Auftritt suggerieren: Wenn die USA in den Irak einmarschieren, dann darf Russland auch in der Ukraine intervenieren. So einfach sieht die Welt aus, wenn sie durch deutsche Wohnzimmerfenster beobachtet wird.
In Europa herrscht Krieg. Ihnen mag das wie ein altes Sandkastenspiel aus den 80er-Jahren vorkommen. Für viele Menschen aber fühlt sich die Gewalt sehr real an. Oder zumindest die Furcht davor. Kommen Sie endlich im Jahr 2015 an.
Sie haben auch ein spannendes Thema? Die Huffington Post ist eine Debattenplattform für alle Perspektiven. Wenn Sie die Diskussion zu politischen oder gesellschaftlichen Themen vorantreiben wollen, schicken Sie Ihre Idee an unser Blogteam unter blog@huffingtonpost.de.
Video: Star-Komikerin zeigt sich nackt auf Pferd - und ärgert damit Wladimir PutinExperimenter Mauri Niininen, AG1LE, of Lexington, Massachusetts, reports that his Morse Learning Machine Challenge has been catching on among members of the Amateur Radio community. The goal of the competition is to build a machine that can learn how to decode audio files containing Morse code — a better “code trap,” if you will. Niininen said his project has been approved by Kaggle, which bills itself as “the world's largest community of data scientists.” Niininen said that it takes humans many months of effort to learn Morse code, and, after years of practice, the most proficient operators can decode Morse code up to 60 or more words per minute
“Humans have extraordinary ability to quickly adapt to varying conditions, speed and rhythm. We want to find out if it is possible to create a machine learning algorithm that exceeds human performance and adaptability in Morse decoding.”
The computer-generated Morse data for the competition includes various levels of added noise. The signal-to-noise ratio, speed, and message content of the files vary randomly to simulate real-life ham radio HF Morse communication.
“I hope to attract people from the Kaggle community, who are interested in solving new, difficult challenges using their predictive data modeling, computer science and machine learning expertise,” Niininen added.
During the competition, participants will build a learning system capable of decoding Morse code, using development data consisting of 200 WAV audio files containing short sequences of randomized Morse. Data labels are provided for a training set, so participants can self evaluate their systems.
“To evaluate their progress and compare themselves with others, they can submit their prediction results online to get immediate feedback,” he explained. “A real-time Kaggle leader board shows participants their current standing based on their validation set predictions.” Niininen has provided a sample Python Morse decoder to make it easier to get started.
Niininen said that within the first 24 hours of the competition, he had 33 downloads. “We have already 53 downloads of the materials for this competition,” he said on September 5, “and it is growing by the hour, as the word about this challenge is spreading.”Trump Twitter Storm
True to form, President Trump jump-starts his week Sunday with a string of 140-characters. He again disappoints mainstream media by setting their Monday agenda. This weekend he retweets a meme that shows a golf ball hitting Hillary Clinton and where many accuse the president of violence against woman. There are calls for twitter to delist the president’s twitter account. Ironically it was posted by CNN SUCKS. Trump Twitter storm unhinges the mainstream media again.
Twitter Policy
Twitter’s policies on what is not appropriate on the platform is uncertain. It is also very difficult for twitter to police all its users. Memes are trending ever since the president retweet one such tweet sometime back. Twitter does selectively bans ‘hateful conduct’ and ‘violent threats’. Clearly this tweet don’t fall under either of these categories. The question to ask is what is the responsibility of a retweeter. A retweeter can easily argue that since the tweet is available online it is fair game to retweet it, especially if it looks funny.
True to their fake form, the mainstream media spends most of Monday morning inviting political analysts to condemn the tweet as violence against women. Diane Feinstein speaks up on violence against woman. Senator Feinstein should watch some Hollywood movies and educate herself on the extreme violence advertised or encouraged against woman. It is time for us to call out fake news media for wasting our time on a tweet that everyone should simple laugh off. It is time that that Feinstein and MSM grows up and work on their sense of humour. So this trump twitter phenomenon should continue to rock.
Double Standards
Just yesterday many Emmy award artists took digs at President Trump which the mainstream media found funny. So it is alright to ridicule and threaten impeachment against a sitting president but it is offensive to view a meme against someone who spent 1 billion dollars and was actually ‘knocked out’ during the election. The liberal media should take a moment to listen to themselves and their extreme bias against the president. Steve Bannon encourages the mainstream media to continue with what they are doing as it further strengthen the president’s conservative base. Many of them are boycotting Hollywood, Sports News and Miss Universe and it is showing in their ratings and lost revenue. When will the mainstream media ever realize that they are irrelevant and should accept that trump twitter is the new reality.
Article source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/18/what-will-it-take-for-donald-trump-to-get-kicked-off-twitter/As Iraqi troops enter the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul this week, they have help from the sky in the form of F/A-18 Super Hornets based on the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Arabian Gulf.
The aircraft, which have been launching strikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since July, are now conducting high-intensity, seven-day-a-week operations to protect the ground forces moving into Mosul.
Rear Adm. James Malloy, the commander of the Eisenhower carrier strike group, told Military.com in an exclusive interview this week that the crew of the carrier has been tireless as conditions on the ground intensify.
"The sailors are motivated and focused and understand the sense of urgency with this enemy," he said. "And the ground [conditions are] a direct result of naval power projected ashore. So it's pretty easy to explain to them both what they're doing and the effect that they're having on the enemy."
The carrier, which deployed in June, launched about 116 airstrikes on Islamic State targets during its transit through the Eastern Mediterranean sea, and more than 1,330 since its arrival in the Arabian Gulf as of Sunday, Malloy said. But these numbers, he noted, did not take into account the aircraft that were at that moment in the air over Mosul.
While strikes have been ongoing in and around Mosul for months in anticipation of the last major offensive into the city, operations have changed in recent weeks as the assault began.
Navy pilots are destroying fewer deliberate targets -- fixed objectives they're assigned to hit before they launch from the carrier deck -- and more dynamic targets, often moving objectives that they are assigned after they arrive in the region and check in with the air controller.
Nearly 90 percent of strikes launched from the Eisenhower are now assaulting dynamic targets, Malloy said.
"The reason why [dynamic] targeting is much more critical now is because that is in direct support of troops on the ground moving against the enemy," he said. "So by the time the pilots get to their targets from the carrier, the forward line of troops may have moved and the surgical precision of Navy air is critical to be able to impact the battle as it is occurring."
Typical dynamic targets are command and control nodes and key areas where Islamic State militants will attempt to conduct resupply and ground maneuver in response to being attacked.
"They are being targeted as they try to do that, so we are accelerating the ground campaign with the airstrikes," Malloy said.
The Eisenhower will likely remain in the region for several more months until its deployment concludes. On Thursday, multiple media outlets reported that Iraqi and Peshmerga troops, shored up with a small contingent of U.S. advisers, had finally breached the limits of Mosul.
For the Super Hornets, known for speed, precision and maneuverability, it's an opportunity to show off what they can do.
"As a major offensive is occurring, the dynamic targeting capability of the aircraft come to fore," Malloy said. "And that is where they shine for the most part: their responsive capability from the air."NASA’s Juno spacecraft has spotted a huge anticyclonic storm in Jupiter’s high north temperate latitudes.
As well as the famous Great Red Spot, a giant storm system three times wider than our planet, Jupiter sometimes presents one or more Little Red Spots.
Little Red Spots are often seen in the North North Temperate Zone.
They attract attention due to their color and sometimes other exceptional features.
The new image from NASA’s Juno orbiter shows NN-LRS-1, the longest-lived Little Red Spot (lower left).
NN-LRS-1 is the third largest anticyclonic storm on the gas giant, which astronomers have tracked for the last 24 years.
An anticyclone is a weather phenomenon with large-scale circulation of winds around a central region of high atmospheric pressure.
They rotate clockwise in the northern hemisphere, and counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere.
NN-LRS-1 has been observed by several spacecraft, including NASA’s Galileo and Cassini orbiters, during its long life.
Its color has varied several times from red to dull white.
Now it shows very little color, just a pale brown smudge in the center.
The color is very similar to the surroundings, making it difficult to see as it blends in with the clouds nearby.Environmentalists suspect that the plant management conceals information about the incident.
Rosatom has officially commented on the tender for cleaning the territory of Mayak Production Association in Ozersk, saying that the need for this arose because of the Kyshtym accident that had occurred back in the USSR. The plant refutes the information about recent leak of Ruthenium-106.
Information on the tender for cleaning of 30 thousand square meters of the plant territory was posted on the state purchases website on Saturday, December 9. Journalists and environmentalists suggest that the 30 million rubles ($507 thousand) specified in the contract will be spent on the liquidation of consequences of the recent accident, the information about which, however, has been refuted.
To recall, the information about Ruthenium-106 leak appeared in media several weeks ago. Ecologists and European experts assumed that the incident occurred somewhere in the Urals. After that, Roshydromet reported on the detection of significant concentrations of Ruthenium-106 in the South Urals near the Mayak Production Association.
Mayak plant, town of Ozyorsk, RussiaIn what has become a yearly architectural event in Chicago, The Chicago Architecture Foundation is ready to open the doors to over 200 different sites this weekend throughout the city. Edgewater will be showcasing seven local buildings during the show, adding an additional property this year (the Lytle House) to the roster.
The 2-day event started in London in 1992 and has since grown to more than 30 cities worldwide attracting more than one million people. Since, Open House Chicago has become the largest of its kind gaining popularity and bringing additional tourism to the city.
The event gives the public a behind-the-scenes look into Chicago’s most iconic architecture sites located within multiple neighborhoods. Almost every type and style is accounted for. From mansions to high rises, architecture junkies will get their fill.
The event is free of charge and there is no registration or tickets needed. Open House Chicago will take place Oct. 14-15, with most buildings open 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. However, do check the the online schedule as many sites times vary, and some may not participate both days.
For more info on the event, Click here.
The Edgewater Open Houses are:
1. Berger Park North Mansion (Gunder House) 6219 N. Sheridan Rd.
HOURS: Sat, Oct 14: 9am – 5pm, Sun, Oct 15: 9am – 5pm
ARCHITECT: Myron H. Church, 1910
DESCRIPTION: The North Mansion in Berger Park was built for pharmaceutical company executive Samuel Gunder, who lived in the house from 1910 to 1919. The yellow brick American Foursquare home, with its restrained ornamentation, was used as a residence for many years by the Viatorian religious order. They sold the property to the Chicago Park District in 1981 for half as much money as private developers would have paid—hoping to preserve the mansions and open space for the community rather than see them redeveloped. The Park District originally intended to remove the North Mansion, but the Edgewater Community Council raised funds to rehab it for use as a cultural center.
BEHIND THE SCENES: Explore one of Chicago’s last remaining lakefront mansions.
2. Sacred Heart Schools, Driehaus Center (Conway House) 6200 N. Sheridan Rd.
HOURS: Sat, Oct 14: 10am – 3pm, Sun, Oct 15: 10am – 2pm
ARCHITECT: William Carbys Zimmerman, 1906
DESCRIPTION: The Richard F. Conway House was completed in 1906 for the owner of the paving company that constructed Lake Shore Drive. The enormous Tudor-Revival home is the work of architect William Carbys Zimmerman. He designed many nearby mansions on this posh stretch of Sheridan Road. In 1959, Sacred Heart Schools purchased the house, sparing it the fate that befell most of its neighbors. A $4-million restoration, completed in 2010, brought the house back to its original splendor. Highlights include beautiful oak and mahogany woodwork, ceiling beams in geometric patterns and 19 restored leaded-glass windows. The house now provides offices and event space for Sacred Heart Schools.
BEHIND THE SCENES: Take in the opulence of this restored and rarely-open mansion—one of the last survivors of Sheridan Road’s days as a millionaire’s row.
3. Colvin House 5940 N. Sheridan Rd.
HOURS: Sat, Oct 14: 9am – 5pm, Sun, Oct 15: 9am – 5pm
ARCHITECT: George Maher, 1909
DESCRIPTION: Passersby on Sheridan Road have long wondered about this yellow brick, Prairie Style-inflected American Foursquare mansion. It had fallen into disrepair after years of neglect, but it is now being repurposed as a workplace, meeting place and small event space. While the exterior of the house is quite restrained, the interior features over-the-top plaster ornamentation that was most likely added in the 1920s—it resembles the décor found in the lavish movie palaces of the day. Colvin House was designated a Chicago Landmark in 1994.
BEHIND THE SCENES: Be among the first to tour this newly renovated historic Sheridan Road mansion, now a one-of-a-kind spot to work, meet or host an event.
4. Edgewater Beach Apartments 5555 N. Sheridan Rd.
HOURS: Sat, Oct 14: 9am – 5pm, Sun, Oct 15: Closed
ARCHITECT: Marshall & Fox, 1928
DESCRIPTION: Edgewater Beach Apartments are the only remaining part of the Edgewater Beach Hotel complex, started by Marshall and Fox in 1918. This massive, Spanish-style “Pink Palace” was connected to the hotel by a three-block beach promenade for decades. The hotel was demolished in the late 1960s—a decade after the extension of Lake Shore Drive cut it off from the beach. The building became a co-op in 1949, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. It has a unique Maltese-Cross shape to give each room maximum natural light and views of Lake Michigan. An indoor terrace overlooks the original Beaux-Arts pool.
BEHIND THE SCENES: See the elegant two-story lobby, indoor terrace, Beaux-Arts pool, award-winning gardens and more.
5. St. Ita Roman Catholic Church 5500 N. Broadway
HOURS: Sat, Oct 14: 9:30am – 4pm, Sun, Oct 15: Closed
ARCHITECT: Henry J. Schlacks, 1927
DESCRIPTION: St. Ita Parish was founded in Edgewater in 1900. The current French-Gothic church, which opened in 1927, was the capstone of Henry Schlacks’s distinguished career as an ecclesiastical architect. The open tower appears airy and delicate, yet it contains 1,800 tons of Bedford limestone and rises to 120 feet in height. Elaborate Gothic detailing marks the altar, but the medallion windows—containing more than 200,000 pieces of stained glass—are the real highlight of the interior.
BEHIND THE SCENES: Visit Henry Schlack’s masterpiece, the grandest church in Edgewater.
6. Chicago Filmmakers (Ridge Firehouse)
ADDRESS: 5720 N. Ridge Ave.
HOURS: Sat, Oct 14: 9am – 5pm, Sun, Oct 15: 9am – 5pm
DESCRIPTION: Chicago Filmmakers recently completed an intensive rehab of a retired 1928 firehouse. The 43-year-old not-for-profit cultural group is continuing to raise the substantial funds needed to equip this ornate structure with a 75-person movie theater for screenings of independent films and documentaries. The space also includes administrative offices and sparkling new classrooms for an upcoming slate of public courses.
BEHIND THE SCENES: Explore this historic firehouse, retrofitted for film screening and education.
7. The Lytle House
ADDRESS: 5517 N. Broadway
HOURS: Sat, Oct 14: 9am – 5pm, Sun, Oct 15: Closed
DESCRIPTION: Built as a backlot tin shop in the early 1920s, this light industrial building was once tucked behind a residential two-flat. At some point the two-flat was demolished and the shop was expanded. It operated as an auto repair business from 1977 to 2015, when new owners stepped in to renovate the structure into a sublime private event space. The resulting product is almost unrecognizable: free-flowing indoor-outdoor space with high ceilings, exposed brick, concrete floors, modern lighting, and an immaculate courtyard with gardens and a mural. Set behind an enigmatic metal wall, The Lytle House is ideally suited to all types of private use, from weddings to workshops.
BEHIND THE SCENES: Sneak behind the mysterious metal wall to see the adaptive reuse of an old auto body shop into a quirky, secluded event space.Whether or not we end up in surplus in five years’ time, yesterday’s Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) exposes nasty political problems for the Turnbull government in the here and now.
Real GDP growth for 2016-17 has been sensibly but shockingly revised down to 2% – the lowest outcome since the global financial crisis, the second lowest in 16 years and the third lowest since the long upswing began in 1991/92. Sensible, because we know, from the third-quarter GDP numbers and other indicators this year, that the upswing in residential investment has peaked before (and perhaps well before) an upswing in business investment has begun.
Shocking, because if labour productivity continues to run a little above 1% – as it has for the last four years – the implied growth in employment of 1% or so will probably not be enough to stop unemployment rising. The MYEFO projects the unemployment rate in the June quarter next year at 5.5% – lower than today and lower than the average of 5.8% over the last four years.
Yet, at 2.6% year average GDP, growth in those four years has been markedly stronger than the 2% MYEFO now projects for 2016-17. Even with the projected decline in the participation rate, the MYEFO unemployment forecast will be a struggle.
Disappointing GDP growth is political problem number one for Malcolm Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison. Problem number two is the implacable persistence of substantial federal deficits.
These deficits limit the government’s response to problem number one. In 2012-2013 government receipts were 23.0% of GDP, payments 24.0% of GDP, and the deficit 1.2% of GDP. Labor lost office a little over nine weeks after the end of that fiscal year.
In these latest projections for the 2016-17 Budget, four years on from 2012-2013, receipts are expected to be 23.3% of GDP, payments 25.2% of GDP and the deficit 2.1% of GDP. Compared to 2012-13, receipts have increased 0.3% of GDP, spending 1.2% of GDP and the deficit 0.9% of GDP. Receipts are up, but spending is up even more and so is the deficit.
There are plenty of reasons for this woeful fiscal performance, mostly to do with modest increases in profits and wages and the tax-minimisation policy of former Treasurer Peter Costello. But these reasons are not ones that square with Treasurer Morrison’s rhetoric, or which can any longer be laid at the door of the previous Labor government.
Nor does the MYEFO give any confidence that the troubles of the Turnbull government will soon be eased. The path to the return to surplus depends completely on increasing tax revenue.
Spending as a share of GDP is now, according to these MYEFO projections, locked in at 25.2% of GDP right through to the end of the forward estimates period (and beyond the next election) in 2019-20. The projected decline of the deficit arises only because tax receipts are expected to increase over that period by 1.6% of GDP.
A slow economy, a rising tax take, perhaps rising unemployment, and not much room to move. 2017 won’t be cheerful for the prime minister or treasurer – or for the rest of us.It's a good week for anyone waiting for Ultra HD Blu-ray, the brand new 4K disc format.
The first Ultra HD Blu-ray movies are now online and available to pre-order in the UK, all of them listed with an 11th April release date.
There are eight 4K Blu-ray titles in total: Fantastic Four, Maze Runner: Chapter II - The Scorch Trials, Kingsman - The Secret Service, The Maze Runner, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Life of Pi, Hitman: Agent 47 and Exodus - Gods and Kings. You can pre-order all eight discs via both HMV and Zavvi, though there's no sign on Amazon UK.
The 20th Century Fox titles, which were confirmed to be heading for 4K Blu-ray last year, also come with HDR and are bundled with a Blu-ray and a Digital HD copy.
4K Blu-ray discs have already gone on sale in the US, with Lionsgate confirming releases including Sicario and Expendables would arrive in 4K and with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack. Sony Pictures has also announced its first Ultra HD Blu-ray titles.
The news follows this week’s confirmation of the Panasonic DMP-UB900 UHD Blu-ray player, which is due to go on sale in April for £599. Samsung’s UBD-K8500 4K player is due on sale later this month in the UK, having already gone on sale in the US for $400.
Looks like it’s time to start taking Ultra HD Blu-ray seriously… Will you be buying the new disc format? Let us know in the comments below.
MORE: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray - everything you need to knowGet the latest news and videos for this game daily, no spam, no fuss.
Zelda and Impa are no longer the only major female protagonists in the Zelda canon--there's now a female Link.
Dubbed Linkle, the character first came about as a concept for Hyrule Warriors, as revealed in the developer's artbook. While she wasn't used at the time, during a Nintendo Direct today Nintendo confirmed that she will in fact be a playable character in the 3DS version of Hyrule Warriors: Hyrule Warriors Legends.
Image credit Siliconera.com
Unlike the traditional Link character, Linkle's primary weapon is a crossbow. And in place of a spinning sword attack, she uses what Nintendo of America's Bill Trinnen described in the Nintendo Direct as a "spinning kick attack."
Linkle will joins a cast of other characters being added to this version of the game from The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker.
While no mention was made of Linkle crossing over to other Zelda titles, like the upcoming Zelda Wii U, franchise director Eiji Aonuma confirmed back at E3 2014 that the Link in that game is male.
Hyrule Warriors Legends will make its way to 3DS on March 25, 2016.
You can read all of the news and announcements from today's Nintendo Direct right here.This article is over 2 years old
Protesters gather in the capital Nairobi following discovery of bodies of lawyer Willie Kimani, his client and their driver
Hundreds of people have marched in Kenya to protest against the apparent extrajudicial killing by police of a human rights lawyer, his client and their driver.
Demonstrators in Nairobi carried a mock coffin emblazoned with the words “stop extrajudicial killings”. Others wore T-shirts bearing the slogan “stop police executions”. Some carried placards demanding the resignation of senior officials.
Willie Kimani, a high court lawyer in the Kenyan capital, is thought to have been tortured before being killed last week.
He was representing Josephat Mwendwa, a motorcycle taxi driver who was shot and injured by police in April, and faced a campaign of police harassment when he complained to authorities.
The two men went missing with a taxi driver who picked them up after a court hearing on 23 June in Machakos County, an area to the east of Nairobi.
Witnesses said they saw the lawyer and his client in a basement cell at a police station shortly after the hearing. Their bodies, and the body of the taxi driver, were found in a river several days later.
Three police officers have been arrested in connection with the killing.
There have been hundreds of murders blamed on police officers in Kenya, but this triple killing, involving the death of a lawyer, has prompted exceptional outrage.
Lawyer Naitore Nyamu said her colleagues had been profoundly shocked. Lawyers across Kenya have said they will boycott courts this week, paralysing the overloaded legal system.
“There is something very wrong with the security forces. The audacity of the police in picking up the lawyer and his client right outside the courthouse and the brazen manner in which they were taken into custody before being killed shows the need for root and branch reform of the police force,” Nyamu said.
Major international campaigners have called for action by Kenya’s police oversight authorities and political leaders.
“The killing of these three young Kenyans in cold blood should concern [the] president, Uhuru Kenyatta,” said George Kegoro, the executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A police officer reacts after his uniform was smeared with a red handprint by an activist during the protest against extrajudicial killings in Nairobi. Photograph: Dai Kurokawa/EPA
In a joint statement, 33 human rights organisations said international powers that provide assistance to Kenyan police should carefully consider the effect of their support.
The British government has run police reform programmes in Kenya and supplied technical training, as well as equipment, to local authorities for some time. The threat of terrorism in Kenya has reinforced security cooperation and intelligence sharing in recent years.
The UN also supports police reform projects in Kenya.
“Kenya’s international partners that are currently providing financial support to the Kenya police units implicated in extrajudicial killings should urge Kenyan authorities to ensure effective investigations into these killings and prosecution of those responsible,” the statement said. “Supporting Kenyan security agencies without insisting on accountability for human rights violations makes donor countries complicit in those violations.”
A UK Foreign Office spokeswoman said the disappearance and suspected murder of Kimani and the two other men was concerning.
“The British government has been supporting the Kenyan police force to promote reform, strengthen accountability and improve compliance with international human rights standards,” the spokeswoman said. “Following this concerning incident, it’s important that immediate steps are taken to investigate and that those responsible are held to account.”
The number of extrajudicial killings in the past six years involving Kenyan police and security services runs into the high hundreds, according to Kenyan institutions and NGOs.
Haki-Africa, a campaign group in Mombasa, said it had documented more than 70 abductions locally over the last two years.
Campaigners said the police station where Kimani and the other two men are believed to have been held was known for human rights abuses.
Muthoni Wanyeki, the regional director of Amnesty International in east Africa, called for a national conversation about alleged extrajudicial killings.
“What about those killed in counterterrorism operations? The police force has become a source of threat to the public and we need a commission of inquiry to examine the extent of the problem, and fashion a way forward,” she said.
Senior policemen and civil servants in Kenya have repeatedly denied claims of extrajudicial executions.
Amos Gathecha, a senior interior ministry official, blamed “rogue officers... acting on their own initiative”.
“I want to assure you that this matter is being taken very seriously and the government will see this through. Those officers were working on their own and we will make sure that should they be found culpable, they will be prosecuted,” he told reporters.
The rally was held at Freedom Corner, the site of a major protest in 1989 in which Wangari Maathai, who later won the Nobel peace prize for conservation, mobilised mainly female protesters in an attempt to protect the 12.9 hectare Uhuru Park from being appropriated to build a 60-storey headquarters for the then ruling Kanu party.The agency in charge of regulating advertisements in the United Kingdom has decided Electronic Arts may not continue to run ads describing mobile game Dungeon Keeper--widely criticized for its in-app purchases--as a "free" game.
This is the judgment rendered today by the Advertising Standards Authority, the independent regulator of advertising in the UK. It deals with an email ad for Dungeon Keeper that makes repeated mentions of Dungeon Keeper being "free," which technically is true. But as anyone who has downloaded the iOS and Android game since its launch earlier this year will tell you, its free-to-play model makes it virtually impossible to play the game in any enjoyable way without spending money on in-app purchases.
A complaint was filed with the ASA over the ad by someone "who understood that gameplay was severely limited unless in-app purchases were made," but "challenged whether the ad was misleading because it omitted significant information."
EA's response to the ASA was to claim that "gameplay without in-app purchasing is not severely limited. [It] also stated that all the features referenced in the ad were available during free play and that not all of them were gated by a timer." EA went on to note that it's possible to earn all three types of currency in the game through "normal in-game engagement and activity over time." Again, while this is technically accurate, many of the game's players would take issue with the amount of time it takes to earn any significant amount of gems, the premium currency that players can choose to buy with real-world money.
This isn't a simple matter of players not wanting to pay for the game--Peter Molyneux, designer of the original Dungeon Keeper, spoke out against the game shortly after its release. "I felt myself turning around saying, 'What? This is ridiculous," he said in February. "I just want to make a dungeon. I don't want to schedule it on my alarm clock for six days to come back for a block to be chipped," he added, referencing the long waits players are subjected to unless they spend gems.
The ASA says EA provided data suggesting non-paying players have managed to make significant progress in the game and pointed to other games that use similar models. EA also indicated that a "timing mechanism" would be in place even if the game were not free-to-play.
Apparently EA's defense wasn't strong enough, because while the ASA acknowledges it is possible to play Dungeon Keeper without spending money, it "regarded it as extremely likely that players would reach a position where they would be unable to take any further meaningful or progressive action in the game until a timer had finished or been skipped, and that these periods would become longer and more significant, and the cost of skipping increasingly higher, as the player progressed."
Additionally, it feels that, based on the ad, "players would expect the gameplay progression and their ability to advance to be unhindered by unexpected and excessively onerous delays, and we therefore considered that the length and frequency of these countdown events was beyond that which would be reasonably expected by players."
What this all means is that the ad in question "must not appear again in its current form." EA has been told "to ensure that future ads made clear the limitations of free gameplay and role of in-app purchasing with regard to speeding up gameplay."
EA CEO Andrew Wilson recently discussed Dungeon Keeper, stating the company "misjudged the economy." He also said, "For new players, it was kind of a cool game. For people who'd grown up playing Dungeon Keeper there was a disconnect there. In that aspect, we didn't walk that line as well as we could have. And that's a shame."Ubuntu Touch is available right now on phones from a couple of different companies, such as Meizu from China and Bq from Spain, but that's pretty much it. According to Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu and Canonical, this is actually a good thing.
Ubuntu users have been wondering for a long time why this new mobile operating system is not present on more devices, but there's a good reason that's not happening. You might think that having your OS on as many devices as possible is a positive thing, and that would be normally true, but the hard truth is that Ubuntu Touch is not yet ready for wide use.
For now, the developers just want to make an awesome operating system, and they are working hard on this goal. They have a stable OS with a lot of potential, but it's still not on par with what everyone else is doing. Launching the OS on devices that land in the hands of people who don't know anything about Ubuntu and who don’t have the patience to wait six weeks for a patch is not a good idea.
Ubuntu Touch is arriving at its own pace
"I think that it's important we carefully shape the emergence of Ubuntu so that it goes to people who are going to love it and contribute to it and be part of the ecosystem. I think it would be a mistake for us to try to go too fast because if we put it in the hands of people who don't care about Ubuntu and don't want to be part of it, right now they would be disappointed, we would be disappointed and the whole thing would be a mess. I think that the steady growth is clear," said Mark Shuttleworth in the intro for the Ubuntu Online Summit.
This is not the first time that he has addressed this issue, but it keeps popping up. Why isn't Ubuntu being made for more devices? You can be sure that there would be a lot of companies ready and willing to put this OS on their hardware, but this resistance is coming from Canonical, who wants to have a great product before making it available to the masses.
Jump to the 45 minutes and 40 seconds for the question.A win for Kolkata Knight Riders will mean they finish in the top four, leaving the final league match to decide the fourth team in the playoffs
How things stand ahead of Sunday's games © ESPNcricinfo Ltd
If the first of the double-headers on Sunday in Kolkata is washed out - heavy rain is forecast - Kolkata Knight Riders will go through to the playoffs and Sunrisers will end the league phase at No. 2. Also, Mumbai Indians will be out of the race, and the match between Delhi Daredevils and Royal Challengers Bangalore will be a knockout match.
With their win against Mumbai Indians, Gujarat Lions have confirmed a spot in the top two. They will finish as the top team should Sunrisers Hyderabad lose to Knight Riders. Sunrisers Hyderabad are also through to the playoffs since now only two other teams can finish on 16 points.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
Sunrisers will finish as the top team if they win against Kolkata Knight Riders. They could finish as the second team on NRR even if they lose, but only if by a margin of 40 or less while Daredevils beat Royal Challengers but not by a big margin (not more than 71 runs).
Team left to play: Kolkata Knight Riders
Kolkata Knight Riders
They will qualify for the last four if they beat Sunrisers in the last game. Even if they lose to Sunrisers, they could go through with 14 points on NRR if Royal Challengers beat Daredevils. Knight Riders could finish in the top two if they beat Sunrisers by a margin of over 40 runs and Daredevils beat Royal Challengers, but not by a big margin.
Team left to play: Sunrisers Hyderabad
Mumbai Indians
Mumbai can make it to the playoffs |
his son." It's not clear why Snowden, who is in Moscow, would be unable to communicate with his father. Also according to the AP, Snowden's father expressed concern that WikiLeaks, members of which have been working closely with Snowden in Moscow and whose founder Julian Assange has advocated publicly on his behalf, may not have his son's best interests at heart.
Here is the letter in full:FUTURE WILDCAT Stanley Johnson was named MaxPreps 2013-2014 National Player of Year. The small forward/shooting guard is one of four high school players of the class of 2014 who have signed with Arizona.
There are still six months left until the Arizona Wildcats tip off the 2014-15 basketball season, but the defending Pac-12 Conference champions are already receiving praise for their upcoming season.
On Tuesday, MaxPreps.com, an affiliate of CBSsports.com, named the Wildcats’ class of 2014 recruit and signee Stanley Johnson the national Player of the Year.
The award is the icing on the cake for the 6-foot-6, 225-pound Stanley Johnson, a senior at Mater Dei high school in Santa Ana, Calif.
While playing for the Monarchs, Stanley Johnson won four state titles, was named the California Gatorade Male Player of the Year, was named to the McDonald’s high school All-American team and led Mater Dei to a No. 1 ranking in the country by many polls.
In his final game at Mater Dei in the CIF California boy’s basketball open division state championship game, Stanley Johnson scored 25 points to go along with eight assists and three steals.
The Monarchs won 71-61 over Bishop O’Dowd High School of Oakland, Calif., on March 29 — the same day Arizona lost to Wisconsin in the Elite Eight.
Current Wildcat Brandon Ashley also attended Bishop O’Dowd for three years before transferring to Findlay Prep high school in Henderson, Nev., for his senior year.
With so much time left until the Wildcats’ season opener, it’s hard to determine where Stanley Johnson will fit in the Wildcats’ roster for next year.
That being said, he is sure to make an impact on next season’s team, whether it’s as a starter or coming off of the bench.
If only Aaron Gordon leaves
If current Wildcat freshman Aaron Gordon is the only Wildcat to forgo the reminder of his eligibility, he will leave the starting small forward position open.
The two most likely to compete for that position are Stanley Johnson and current Wildcat Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.
As of right now, Hollis-Jefferson might have the edge on Johnson because of his experience and familiarity. However, Stanley Johnson is a similar athlete and has a relentless physical playing style similar to Hollis-Jefferson’s. Where Stanley Johnson might separate himself from Hollis-Jefferson, though, is in his jump shot.
Stanley Johnson’s scouting report says he’s developed a nice touch; if he can continue to be a good shooter in college, he might work his way into the starting rotation.
If only Nick Johnson leaves
Nick Johnson’s decision to forgo his senior year of college is a little more difficult. But if only he decides to leave, Stanley Johnson probably won’t start at the shooting guard position, at least to begin the season, but he could find a way into a rotation that features him at the shooting guard position.
As of right now, Gabe York or Elliott Pitts would be the likely picks to replace Nick Johnson if he left. But Stanley Johnson’s dominance in the transition fits nicely into the Wildcats’ plans of attack.
According to Stanley Johnson’s scouting report, he may struggle at the two-guard position if he is defending a quicker guard who moves well laterally. If Stanley Johnson is unable to defend, he won’t play.
Way-too-early prediction
Most likely, Gordon will be the only Wildcat to leave, and Stanley Johnson will start next season on the bench but will earn valuable minutes of playing time.
His tenacity, combined with his ball skills, size and dominance in the transition, make him an ideal Arizona basketball player. Even if Gordon and Nick Johnson leave, Arizona will be an early favorite to at least return to the Elite Eight.
Stanley Johnson comparisons
Thaddeus Young, Ron Artest, Josh Smith
—Follow Luke Della @LukeDellaThis day and age it's increasingly rare to see people tackle any book of substantial length, let alone some of the longest science fiction books of all time. It takes a rare sort of attention span, but if you can tap into it you'll find that some of these chronicles can take us to places few others are capable of. They are important texts in the history of science fiction.
Some of these books are well over a million words and deal with complex issues, like space exploration and the future of the human race. These books are whopping and can be intimidating even in the attempt to start, but if you enjoy rich characters and insane amounts of detail, then they might be just for you.
The longest science fiction books of all time will certainly take up a great amount of time, but once you're finished reading you'll feel some sense of accomplishment. If you ever find yourself cooped up for an extended period of time, or have a long international flight on your itinerary, dip into one of these behemoths and find out what all the fuss is really about.Four years ago, in June of 2011, I wrote a column posing the question, "How should women's sports be covered by television and other media?"
The upshot was that it's not an easy question to answer. It's an issue loaded with mixed emotions and misogyny, and polluted by male rage. The occasion in 2011 was the Women's World Cup of soccer, then under way in Germany. Now we've just concluded the Women's World Cup here in Canada. So let's assess.
The Women's World Cup is a peculiar beast of a tournament. I've covered many major soccer events featuring the top male players and the tournaments have their own narrative. I was reminded of this after a couple of days in Moncton recently covering the women's tournament there. The players and their families and friends were everywhere. One evening I saw Louisa Nécib, the great French player, out for a stroll. I must have stared, looked awed, because she gave me an indulgent smile and, I'm pretty sure, winked at me.
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I also met Laura Bassett, the England defender who scored that heartbreaking own goal against Japan to knock England out of the World Cup at the semi-final stage. In Moncton, Bassett was instantly recognizable because she had a black eye, the result of an elbow in the face from a French defender. When I met Bassett, she was carrying a carton of milk and a bag of other stuff from a variety store. She was visiting friends staying at a different hotel from hers.
It was unnerving, really. At the men's World Cup or Euro tournaments, you never see the players, except on the field or on TV. It's like they breathe a different air. They're remote, godlike figures.
And that brings us, in a roundabout way, to the matter of how TV and other media treat female athletes. Should they be treated as godlike superstars, or as skilled, hard-working athletes or as a charity case requiring special coverage?
The latter issue – special, cheerleading coverage – arises every time there is a major sports event featuring women. Some men will blithely assert that since, say, Toronto FC could probably beat the Canadian women's team with ease, why bother with the women's game? It's a lesser, subordinate game.
And it's not only men who assert this view. While Australia did well at the Women's World Cup, one of that country's most adversarial pundits, Rita Panahi, was vigorously dismissive. "Here's a shameful confession that will no doubt enrage the sisterhood: I couldn't care less about women's sport," Panahi wrote.
"Like most sports fans, of both sexes I hasten to add, I prefer to watch the very best in their chosen field, and in just about every major sport, the male competitors are vastly superior to the female equivalent."
What she suggests is probably the unspoken reason why so many major media outlets, especially TV, devote such little time to women's sports.
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An ongoing study of ESPN's coverage in the United States, done by Purdue University scholars, indicates that while involvement by women in sports keeps going up, ESPN's coverage is flat.
In 2014, SportsCenter, the ESPN flagship sports-news program, devoted just 2 per cent of its airtime to women's sports. That figure has remained the same since 1999. The same Purdue study looked at coverage of women's sports on the three main Los Angeles TV stations and found just 3.2 per cent of airtime went to women's sports.
Here in Canada, TV coverage of the Women's World Cup was exemplary. TSN did blanket coverage and numerous games were aired on the main CTV channel even when Canada was knocked out. It was standard soccer coverage – analysis of tactics, player strength and weaknesses, and there was no hint from the male and female analysts that women's soccer was getting less serious coverage than the men's game.
This newspaper devoted considerable resources to covering the Women's World Cup. As did The Guardian and the BBC in Britain. Notably, all sophisticated outlets unafraid to cover events outside the mainstream.
At the same time, the experience of covering it could be as unnerving as seeing star players on the street in Moncton. Anything negative written by me or colleague Cathal Kelly would bring a backlash. Countless readers exhorted me to be more positive, to lay off the criticism of our national team. What a lot of people wanted was cheerleading for the Canadian heroines, as if they were untouchable.
Which leaves those of us who cover women's sports in a ridiculous position. I still don't know the answer to the question, "How should women's sports be covered by television and other media?" I only know there should be more of it.Aren't people who prefer to give Rupert Murdoch the benefit of the doubt adorably trusting? At the precise moment his Fox News appears to have finally abandoned even the quarter-arsed pretence of impartiality, allowing Tea Party-backed candidates to fundraise on air in return for exclusive, uncritical access, there are those on these shores opining that Murdoch winning full control of BSkyB really is no biggie.
Well, quite. What's the worst that can happen?
Even as Sarah Palin appears to be fashioning a run at the presidency without appearing on any media outlet other than the one that pays her (she has her own show on Fox), there are those wittering that Murdoch basically already runs Sky, so gaining full control won't alter the UK's media landscape.
Were things across the Atlantic not looking so mind-boggling, you could almost envy that cosy, antiquated assumption that the "media landscape" is something settled, as opposed to in a state of historic flux. Sarah Palin's tweets may have to be ghostwritten – I know, even Darren Bent can fart out his own – yet, as Time magazine observed this week, a single one of them can dominate a news cycle, while one of her speeches can monopolise three news cycles.
The fact that Palin is the figurehead of a movement most of whose emergent stars would appear to be better suited to prison or lunatic asylums makes it hard to get one's head around quite what is happening to mainstream politics in the US at the moment. But for people who'd ideally like prospective leaders of the free world to be able to point to China on a map – and not to claim that they'd have told the Nazis Anne Frank was hiding in their attic because lying is always wrong in God's eyes – it doesn't feel madly encouraging. When candidates for public office are being promoted by Fox on the apparent understanding that they will appear exclusively on Fox, classing the network a fascist broadcaster seems less and less hysterical.
Indeed, things have come to such a pretty pass that earlier this year even Matthew Freud, Murdoch's son-in-law, felt moved to tell a reporter he was "ashamed and sickened" by Fox News. Poor dear. Yet while Matthew might be a useful valet when Rupert wants someone to organise a private jet to spirit David Cameron to his holiday yacht for drinks, his views on this ever-more powerful force in US politics are of as much concern to Murdoch as those of Kerry Katona. Indeed, only a couple of months previously Rupert had gone on the record to defend Glenn Beck's comments that Barack Obama is a racist, declaring: "He was right."
Happily, the real players in the family are able to see the bigger picture, which is why James Murdoch last year described the BBC's activities and ambitions as "chilling" – high praise indeed from a chap whose dad owns 40% of the UK newspaper market and enjoys a satellite monopoly gifted to him by an obsequious Margaret Thatcher.
Happier still, that obsequiousness endures. Within days of the coalition government being formed, it emerged that one of the prime minister's first meetings was with the News Corp overlord himself. According to one account, Murdoch was "ushered up the back stairs of Downing Street" – which sounds like both a statement of fact and a euphemism for what Rupert has been doing to successive governments for decades.
Yet still there are those who regard this abusive relationship as totally normal. Arguably their most baffling cry is that Murdoch "isn't political" because he has supported both Tory and Labour in the past, a piece of spectacularly muddled thinking summed up this week by one commentator who reckoned the BSkyB deal should go through because "Murdoch has no real politics beyond what's good for Murdoch".
It is a mark of how deeply some have drunk from the Kool-Aid that Rupert-über-alles doesn't count as a political position – when history, and many a weighty political memoir, shows it has meant the only policies recent UK governments can feel comfortable implementing are those that suit Murdoch's business agenda. From Thatcher through Blair to Cameron, our democratically elected leaders have tugged their forelocks to an unelected foreign tax exile in gibbering fear of losing his papers' support, allowing Murdoch to regard a change of government as the mere shuffling of junior personnel.
Currently serving as his host organism is David Cameron, who clearly has no intention of resisting, which means it's down to Vince Cable. If his speech this week meant anything, the business secretary must block the deal to protect the media plurality essential to democracy.
Writing last Sunday in support of such a block, David Puttnam revived a warning of Lord McNally's from only a few years ago. "In the 1930s," his lordship had reminded parliament, "we were afraid that the fascists would take over the government and then control the press; in the 21st century, there may be a danger that the fascists will take control of the press and then control the government. The dangers are there."
Indeed they are, as an increasingly rampant Fox News foreshadows.
marina.hyde@theguardian.comOne thing I always loved about the Neverhood was the way the whole world was split apart and at one point, the player “pulls the pin” and brings the two halves of the world together exposing new passages and cutting off old ones. For the Armikrog game design I started with that notion and thought of ways to move many different places to recombine into new puzzles that allowed for forward movement in the game. This became one of the major design features of Armikrog, but it’s that idea times 50!
Our hero, Tommynaut, walks into a purple room that has a window, but it can only be passed through on the first go. Later, you enter into a map room that has a fully moveable 3D representation of the exterior Armikrog fortress. In a POV you find that with a touch, you can move the structure along a lot of different axis. If you turn that first purple room upside down on the miniature model then walk back to it, Tommynaut finds that the door is now up on the ceiling and the windows can act as doors to a new area. It’s like all of the land mass negotiating takes place stacked up in one convoluted structure.
Now imagine what it would be like to see structures that you move in that map room actually pivot and turn on a massive scale right out the window before you. Tommynaut turns a crane on the map and the real crane moves outside. When he plunges the crane down so that it comes down through a window in the miniature room’s ceiling, a huge actual crane arm comes into the room he’s standing in. So controlling a small map room allows the player to solve puzzles that affect not only the towers that surround his room, but they affect the room he’s actually standing in. If a monster attacks, a turn of the room you’re in could slide the creature away from you until he falls out a window!
A couple of my old Neverhood design partners came over my house and we constructed a working model of the game in cardboard on my dining room table. Now that we have the main superstructure worked out, I’m filling the rooms with more traditional puzzle work. Armikrog will force players to think spatially, and the combinations of rooms and the way the structures can fit together is pretty mind boggling.
Not only can I not wait to make this game… I can’t wait to play it.
DougTNotes on “academic blogging”
I had a fun day on Tuesday, as my friend Stuart White had invited me to speak at a conference on “academic blogging”, to be precise “Academic Blogging: Political Analysis in the Digital Age” at Oxford. There were some great talks and conversations, but, to me, something was quite weird about it. When we started Crooked Timber back in 2003, universities didn’t really want to know about blogging, it was a fundamentally unserious activity and a distraction from the central tasks of teaching and scholarship. There was also, recognizably, a “blogosphere” composed of sundry citizen-journalists, cranks and enthusiasts (and a few academics) whose members linked and interacted with one another (often in quite civil terms, despite deep differences). Now universities, at least British universities, want to get in on the act, as “impact” and “outreach” are suddenly important. Hence, the sudden impulse to fund blogs backed by universities, or university department or consortiums of universities.
I wish all of those engaged in these ventures every success, but to my mind, blogging-as-corporate-outreach and blogging-as-research-dissemination rather miss the point (never mind missing the decade). At the conference, there was lots of discussion of business-models and markets, of how many full-time staff were necessaary to run a decent blog, of budgets and (of course) of “reputation management”. And then, very much in tandem with this, there was much complaint about academics who are unable to write a blog post without it reading like a book chapter and whose every sub-clause had to be accompanied by a battery of supporting footnotes.
To be fair, may of the new initiatives, such as The Conversation, Politics in Spires, and the LSE Blogs are great, content-wise. But they do labour under the burden of being born in a different web environment. Much of the back-and-forth of the early blogosphere has been displaced by twitter and Facebook and so there’s inevitably a tendency for what is produced on blogs to be merely outward-facing pronoucements, reports of research or online op-ed columns. I’m occasionally annoyed by our commenters at CT, but the fact that we have a community here means that we retain that sense of conversation. Rosemary Bechler of OpenDemocracy (a site I very much admire) gave a great talk about constipated academics saving themselves and their thoughts for someone in the future (who?) and about the conflict between the corporate urge to restrict conversation through IP and the sharing, remixing and recycling that’s the natural to-and-fro of ideas on the internet.
For me (and for us, I hope) it was always for fun or it was nothing. There is a connection between blogging and academic teaching and research, but it isn’t really about “dissemination”, it is about putting tentative ideas out there, about chatting to people, about learning that someone in some other field is working on a similar problem (but you read different journals, so didn’t know of one another’s existence before). And it is also about hearing about new books and new writings and maybe getting to go places you wouldn’t otherwise have gone to. And then there’s just goofing about and discussing comics and pop music.
Over on the corporate side: there’s much anxiety about “quality control”, managing the flow of posts and who has the authority to decide what gets published. Over here, we’ve worked pretty well as an anarchic collective (a fact that upset a well-known anarchist) and nobody gets to tell anybody else what to say. If you write a duff post (and we all do) then it is, paradoxically, both gone in a week and there on the internet for all time.
During the conference, I joked on twitter that Crooked Timber started as a skiffle band but that academic blogging had now entered the Stock, Aitken and Waterman period. How long before the X-Factor phase kicks in, with senior university administrators in the role of Simon Cowell?The number of cases of dengue fever in Hawaii has risen to 139, prompting health authorities this week to warn residents and travelers to the popular winter vacation destination to take precautions to avoid contracting the virus.
The Department of Health said in its latest statement on the outbreak that 122 residents and 17 visitors on Hawaii Island, the largest of the state’s eight main islands, have been confirmed to have dengue fever.
The first cases in the current outbreak were traced back to September, and over time they developed into what is now being treated as a cluster of 108 adults and 31 children. The cluster has now grown to rival the last major dengue outbreak, which took place in 2001 and lasted about 10 months with 92 cases on Maui, 26 on Oahu and four on Kauai.
The outbreak is taking place at the start of the island’s peak tourism season, which usually begins around mid-December and lasts until March or mid-April. The Hawaii Tourism Authority published an alert last month instructing tourists to take precautions against the illness.In the doorway of an Ebola isolation facility in Kenema, Sierra Leone, stood a group of 10 or so patients. I could see them from a distance—I’d been advised by the medics not to get too close since I was not wearing protective clothing. They were mostly women, but I also saw two children: a boy and a girl. Ebola was eating him up. I was later told that the boy’s name was Kinnie, and that he was five years old. I shouted across to him, but he was too emaciated and weak to reply.
Inside the isolation wards were dozens of people who had tested positive for the rampaging hemorrhagic fever, including at least five nurses. They had apparently been infected by patients who had not been suspected of carrying the virus. Until recently, health workers didn’t use protective gloves unless they knew they were treating a confirmed case of Ebola—even though the virus is hard to diagnose, easily transmitted through bodily fluids, and Sierra Leone is in the middle of an outbreak that has stricken more than 300 and killed 92. One of the nurses died a few days ago. Her name was Sarah, and she got married last December. She was a few weeks pregnant.
Despite the danger facing these medical workers, they are being blamed for the disease by the public—a public so poorly informed about Ebola that many didn’t know of its existence before the outbreak began.
A few yards from the isolation facility lay the main wards of the Kenema Government Hospital. Many patients there fled after one of the nurses tested positive, headed for who knows where. And a couple of days after I visited, a colleague of mine watched relatives of Ebola patients pelt the hospital itself with stones. Confirmed Ebola cases are quarantined, and the attackers accused the nurses of sorcery and demanded their sick relatives be released to them — if they were dead, they said, they wanted the bodies to bury themselves. Such is the respect and reverence people have for the dead that the way Ebola victims are laid to rest is hard for most to stomach. Medics place them into a bag, and bury them without ceremony in a mass grave. The confrontation became so violent that police used tear gas to disperse the crowds, and have remained in and around the hospital since.
It is amazing—shocking—to see the denial of so many people here. Just 500 yards from the hospital, a group of revelers stood outside a video center (as cinemas are known here), pulling on cigarettes and even sharing the same butt. Backslapping and hugging having just come from the unventilated room. Sweating profusely in the 90-degree heat. There are other such video centers throughout Kenema, all over Sierra Leone. Beneath the veneer of that excitement and camaraderie lies the acrid reality that Ebola is tearing the country apart. The next day, at the Holy Trinity Secondary School, I saw scores of high school kids playing soccer. Some had removed their white uniforms to avoid them getting dirty, and their bodies glistened. The longer they played, the more they sweated, and the more dangerous the game became for them. But they were either oblivious to the dangers of a virus that can kill nine in 10, often by internal bleeding and organ failure, or they did not care.
Kenema hosts the only Ebola-testing laboratory in the country, one of the best in the world, run by the U.S.-based Metabiota and Tulane University. And yet some people here are even questioning the existence of the disease. At a roadside store selling candies and sodas, I talked with a high school student who gave his name only as Konneh. “Ebola is unreal,” he told me. He peeled a banana and guffawed before biting into it. “I have not seen anyone who has suffered from or died of it,” he said as he munched.
There are other conspiracy theories flying fast and thick. My mother fell ill last week, while I was on a short trip abroad. She was vomiting and needed to see a medic, but some of my relatives advised her against going to hospital. They had heard rumors of a desperate attempt to stem the spread of Ebola: patients with signs of the disease, which include symptoms as broad as fever, were being injected with poison by health workers. It was only after my return that I could persuade her to seek treatment.
Three days after the hospital was attacked—and more than a month after the outbreak began—President Ernest Bai Koroma finally ended his curious silence, and addressed the nation. He said that “the national efforts of patriotic citizens from all regions, all political parties and districts must not be derailed by a misguided few.” He added: “Anyone who knowingly harbors an Ebola victim without notifying health authorities is also guilty of an offense and we will ensure that the full penalty of the law is meted out on them.” But he fell short of declaring the disease a public health emergency, which would have put the country’s resources toward the fight, and he has yet to visit any of the areas affected.
Koroma’s slow response recalls the civil war of the 1990s. Like Ebola, it started abroad, in Liberia, and snaked across the border. The army was ill-prepared; war was strange to the soldiers; many ordinary people took it lightly—I dare say, scornfully. It was not until fighting reached Freetown that the government made a serious effort to end it. By then, tens of thousands were dead. With the casualties in neighboring countries, the death toll from the current Ebola outbreak has already topped 500, and figures keep rising every day. No one knows how many more have died outside of health facilities, or are mistakenly being treated for another disease. Médecins Sans Frontières, an aid organization, has described the situation in the region as “out of control.”
People who actually acknowledge the situation are uncertain about what to do now. At my wife’s church—she’s Catholic—the body of Christ as epitomized by bread is now dipped into wine by a glove-wearing priest. Handshakes have been minimized in mosques in this Muslim-dominated country. “It is the hard tradition-breaking sacrifices we have been forced to make,” a Friday worshiper told me. At one restaurant I visited, the owner had placed a bottle of chlorinated water at the door; everyone who entered was asked to wash their hands with it. But the chemical has become hard to find, and the owner of the restaurant told me that the price of chlorine has tripled.
Meanwhile, suspected Ebola patients are doing exactly what public health workers would like them not to do, which is to move around and potentially infect others. Almost 60 have disappeared after testing positive, officials say. “They may have died somewhere after infecting others,” one doctor told me, looking worried. One of the escapees was a man named Mohamed Swarray, who fled Kenema last month for Freetown, the capital, where he went into hiding. Police found him a week or so later, after he was spotted by someone who knew him in Kenema, and who had heard the announcements on local radio calling for information on his whereabouts. By then Swarray had visited a hospital in the capital, and may have infected the nurse who treated him. (The authorities are also on the lookout for his mother with whom he is believed to have escaped.)
I was standing outside the Kenema hospital when a new-looking ambulance raced into the hospital compound, sirens blaring. The driver wound down his window and asked shakily in a local language where the Ebola ward was. I pointed it out, and the driver meandered toward it, dodging the potholes made muddy by the country’s rainy season. I was curious as to how an ambulance in this part of the country could not know where the Ebola ward was, and suspected they must have come from Freetown. Moments later I saw Mohamed Swarray being guided to the isolation ward by a nurse in protective clothing. He looked hopeless and forlorn, as if he were being led to the gallows.Some things are hard to fathom, like why a young boy with his entire life ahead of him would choose to destroy it by an act of unspeakable violence towards the people that love and care for him most in the world: his parents. Yet, time after time, we see these angst ridden youth lose control of their developing minds and act out in a way that cannot be taken back and will not easily be forgiven or forgotten.
In this episode of Sword and Scale we cover two cases in the form of two shocking 911 calls, each of which will leave you with a dropped jaw. Alex Crain woke up one morning and killed his mom and dad for seemingly no reason, and Jake Evans killed his mother and sister one night because he liked a horror movie and wanted to see what it was like to commit murder. Both teenage boys handle the aftermath very differently, yet they both seem to fully realize what they’ve done very shortly after the act and call 911 in a panic. These senseless and inexplicable murders prove that monsters are everywhere, sometimes in our very own homes.
SOURCES
MUSICA year ago today, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton, winning a tax payer-funded extended trip to the White House.
As we do on such occasions, our authors have shared their thoughts and analysis on Trump’s first year. For some, today is a celebration of Trump’s victory. For others, it marks a most delicious moment in American political history — the day the Clintons were nationally rejected, embarrassed, and sent packing.
For those interested in tracking the evolution of thought on the matter, I refer you to the following posts:
Trump is the Nominee, What Now? Legal Insurrection Authors Debate
Legal Insurrection Authors Respond to Trump Victory
Legal Insurrection Authors React to Trump’s First 100 Days
Professor Jacobson
I remember staying up late Election night covering the results. At 11 p.m. a relative texted me about the strong indications Trump would win: “They’re just teasing us, right?” I responded, “Yup.” Even as midnight approached and beyond, I assumed Hillary would find votes in PA, WI and MI. There would be precincts in Philadelphia which miraculously reported late and threw enough votes to her to win the state. The Dems somehow would pull it out. I forget what time it was precisely, but I’m thinking something in the 2 a.m. time frame, when all the networks fell into line and declared Trump the winner. At 2:40 a.m. I posted President-Elect Donald Trump.
It was a very strange feeling. After 8 years of Obama, I just assumed we were destined to have Democrat presidents forever.
When Hillary refused to make a public concession statement that night, it was clear the nation had made the right choice. As I have stated many times in prior posts, Trump was an episodic threat to our liberty (though so far, much less of a threat than was feared.) Hillary was a systemic threat, someone who would have solidified the corrupt anti-democratic (small “d”) stranglehold on our nation by a permanent political class who saw politics as a path to riches at the expense of the rest of the country, and who did not hesitate to use the full force of the state to achieve their ends.
Everything we have learned about Hillary and the permanent bureaucracy since the election confirms my analysis that Hillary was by far the greater danger. And so too has #TheResistance proven that Trump was the right choice versus Clinton. I’m not going to belabor the point, see what I wrote for Legal Insurrection’s 9th Anniversary, Legal Insurrection is 9 years old, and filled with dread.
How has the first year since the election gone? A lot better than the first year of a Hillary presidency would have gone.
Kemberlee Kaye
I keep thinking the outrage machine will blow a gasket, but a year into Trump’s presidency and it’s still going strong. If it weren’t so destructive, it would be impressive.
As for Trump, I remain perfectly indifferent. I didn’t support him, nor did he receive my vote, but none of that changes that for better or worse, he is our president. If we’re assessing how well he’s done, there are things he’s done well and plenty he’s flubbed. He’s just…President. And thus far, a much less harmful one than I’d previously supposed.
I grow weary of the constancy of misquotes and all but intentional mischaracterization of Trump’s remarks and the remarks of his administrative officials. But just as the sun sets in the west, the modern media will continue to media. The fourth estate is increasingly concerning, fully believing they function as their own, separate government entity with the right to influence legislation and policy-making. The attempts to undermine the results of the election and the intentional omission of facts and stories from all networks and outlets makes finding actual news an increasingly difficult chore. On this and in other arenas I agree with Professor Jacobson’s assessment.
Both political parties are in full-blown upheaval. This is a good thing. There was far too much power consolidated not in locals, but in party machines that were increasingly alienating those they claimed to represent; an entirely separate, but equally as tone deaf political structure, essentially. It was time for those machines to be dismantled and Trump has been just the man for the job. I don’t expect the dust to settle here anytime soon.
If last night’s election results are an indicator, Trump may have the same electoral effect as Obama. By the numbers, disdain for Trump is driving Democrats to the polls. As it stands, 2018 does not bode well for Republicans, but that’s to be expected. The political pendulum continues its swing.
In a perfect world, the nationalization of elections that ought to be left to their local constituencies would end, not that this will happen anytime soon, but a girl can dream, right?
The political cluster aside, I’m more hopeful for our country than ever. For years (even into my days of grassroots work) I’ve preached that change comes not from electing the “right” people, but from the relationships we build in our own lives. After weathering Hurricane Harvey, my hope in the inherent goodness of the human heart was renewed. America is not the segmented, divided country the media pretends — we are as wholesome, caring, and good as ever. It takes no politician to help those in need or to listen to someone in desperate need of a confidant.
Mary Chastain
I don’t like Trump. I never have. I never will. I don’t think he’s as bad as everyone portrays him. But anyone who knows me knows that politicians in general disgust me and I hate government. That being said….HILLARY CLINTON IS NOT PRESIDENT!!!! I will never ever get tired of writing “FAILED Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.”
Mike LaChance
It still amazes me on a regular basis that Trump even won. He defeated the Clinton machine, the Democrats, the media, establishment Republicans, Hollywood and academia. He flipped blue states in the rust belt to red. That’s quite an accomplishment.
The second aspect of the election which immediately comes to mind is how unhinged the left has behaved ever since. Under George W. Bush, the left built its rage slowly over eight years. In the case of Trump, they dialed it up to ten within 24 hours of the election and haven’t backed off since. They also don’t seem to realize this ultimately helps Trump.
I never expected Trump to be perfect – no one is. However, I am pleased with his judicial appointments, as well as his handling of the economy and his commitment to defeating ISIS and other terror groups.
All in all, I’d say he’s doing a fantastic job of not being President Hillary Clinton.
Leslie Eastman
The night of Donald Trump’s upset victory of Hillary Clinton is truly one of the most memorable evenings I have ever had.
On Nov. 8, 2016, I came home after a long meeting, bringing take-out Chinese food for dinner. My husband and son raced to greet me with the news that Trump had taken Florida and North Carolina. He was winning. Then, my boy spent the entire evening watching the Blue Wall crumble, as he was monitoring the Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin county vote totals to keep me updated with Trump’s likely win in those states.
Meanwhile, I was channel surfing and treating myself to a historic media meltdown. One year later, I am struck with how truly execr |
and homework. The mass pro-democracy movement that seized the streets of Hong Kong has been obviously and overwhelmingly youthful.
With numbers shrinking rapidly, and hopes of winning meaningful reform fading even faster, the question now is what lies ahead for these “angry – but peaceful” young men and women. Will the unprecedented protests embolden them to fight for their beliefs in future, or convince them that resistance to Beijing’s will is futile?
“People are criticising what we are doing as pointless and saying we won’t achieve anything, but history has shown us that is not the case,” student leader Joshua Wong told the crowd last week. “All our actions are like planting a seed.”
Young people are far more likely to be dissatisfied with China’s handling of the region and with the Hong Kong government than their elders. They also sense that time is running out.
Hong Kong-based author Suzanne Pepper said many thought the “one country, two systems” framework allowing the region its autonomy after the 1997 handover was in effect permanent, and would eventually allow the introduction of democracy. Now they are realising that it came with only a 50-year guarantee – “and they think: ‘We are going to be one country, one system before 2047,’” she said.
Beijing’s attempts to introduce a draconian national security law in 2003 and “patriotic education” in 2012 were turning points. Then came the decision to tightly restrict the long-promised universal suffrage.
“People are finally saying: This is it – this is the end – and this has fuelled this sudden anger and frustration,” Pepper added.
Underlying economic grievances are not unique to Hong Kong, but are exacerbated by a system in which “fewer than 10,000 wealthy business voters can veto the wishes of all seven million other inhabitants(pdf), and fewer than 200,000 voters elect half of the legislative seats”.
The territory’s chief executive Leung Chun-ying, has become a lightning rod for the protesters’ anger. “He doesn’t fight for us,” said protester Miu Law, 25. “In a political sense, he is ruling Hong Kong for the Chinese government. Practically, he’s running it for the tycoons. We are twentysomethings; we have jobs; it is time to leave our family homes. But we will never buy a flat. Never.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hong Kong protests: democracy or bust?
In real terms, young people’s salaries have fallen by 10% to 15% since 2000, points out Michael DeGolyer of the Hong Kong Transition Project, which tracks the region’s changes. Meanwhile, property prices have soared to around 14 times annual incomes.
People in their 30s are still living with their parents – and often supporting them, and perhaps grandparents too, thanks to utterly inadequate pension provision. Income inequality is among the highest in the developed world, and has hit a three-decade peak.
An influx of mainlanders has increased the competition for professional jobs, housing and seats on public transport. Tourism numbers have soared from 23m in 2010 to 47m last year, in a city of just 7m; the government wants 100m by 2020. At the high end, luxury tourism is driving out established businesses: “People are looking for the little noodle shop that has been replaced by a Versace store,” said DeGolyer.
The protests have appeared free of the hostile anti-mainlander rhetoric which has sometimes burst out in Hong Kong. But young people are far more likely than their parents to identify themselves primarily as Hong Kongers(pdf) rather than as primarily Chinese or with a dual identity.
“Hong Kong students find that they have much less in common in values with the Chinese whom they are in contact with on a daily basis, and increasingly so,” noted Shirley Lin, of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
That shift is to some extent balanced politically by the high numbers of new arrivals; there will soon be a million mainland-born residents. Pro-Beijing groups have proved adept at welcoming them into the fold, and at grassroots organisation.
Law’s friend Kiwi Chan said that younger people had a different set of expectations. They are highly educated and have had more opportunities; stability and putting food in their family’s mouths is no longer the only concern.
“Our parents think economics is the first priority. For us it’s human rights and freedom,” she said.
Yet older people have been drawn into the protests too: not just democracy veterans, but citizens inspired by the younger generation. Law’s parents, who initially opposed her protesting, backed her after she explained her views. The youthful nature of the leaders has inspired sympathy: “If the movement was led by politicians, people would say they had other intentions,” Law said.
Popular outbursts of political action do not always lead to long-term success, or even longer-term activism. Millions on the mainland took part in the pro-reform protests of 1989 which began in Tiananmen Square, but after the bloody crackdown, fear and economic inducements ensured they turned away from politics.
Beijing has other means to make itself felt in Hong Kong. But the “umbrella movement” has proved yet again that the one thing guaranteed to inflame public feeling is an obvious attempt to impose its will.
Han Dongfang, who was jailed as a leader of the Tiananmen protests and now runs the workers’ advocacy group China Labour Bulletin from Hong Kong, believes Beijing can compromise when it sees it is necessary.
“I don’t believe it didn’t hear [the movement]; I don’t believe the Hong Kong government didn’t hear it,” he said. “Most importantly, the Hong Kong people heard it.”
On Tuesday officials agreed to start talks on the electoral system with student representatives, but made it clear that substantive changes were not on the table.
“The central government will not let Hong Kong have its say so easily,” said Law. “But I can see society is changing. People have started to see that politics is part of their lives: they have dignity and have a right to discuss issues with those around them, no matter whether they are for or against Occupy. We still have hope in fighting for a fairer electoral system – but it isn’t the only thing we are asking for.”Photo: Getty Images Image 1 of / 23 Caption Close
Image 2 of 23 Darth Vader makes his entrance in the 1977 movie "Star Wars." Director George Lucas did more than make history. ``Star Wars'' went on to become the second-highest grossing movie of all time, behind only ``Titanic.'' Lucas would also create a modern mythology which influenced a generation in Hollywood and two generations of fans. less Darth Vader makes his entrance in the 1977 movie "Star Wars." Director George Lucas did more than make history. ``Star Wars'' went on to become the second-highest grossing movie of all time, behind only... more Photo: Lucasfilm
Image 3 of 23 FILE--Mark Hamill, left, Carrie Fisher, center, and Harrison Ford, right, are shown in a scene from the 1977 film "Star Wars". Director George Lucas did more than make history. ``Star Wars'' went on to become the second-highest grossing movie of all time, behind only ``Titanic.'' Lucas would also create a modern mythology which influenced a generation in Hollywood and two generations of fans (AP Photo/ho) less FILE--Mark Hamill, left, Carrie Fisher, center, and Harrison Ford, right, are shown in a scene from the 1977 film "Star Wars". Director George Lucas did more than make history. ``Star Wars'' went on to become... more Photo: Associated Press
Image 4 of 23 A young George Lucas, left, and actor Mark Hamill talk on the Tunisia set of "Star Wars." Credit: Lucasfilm, Ltd. A young George Lucas, left, and actor Mark Hamill talk on the Tunisia set of "Star Wars." Credit: Lucasfilm, Ltd. Photo: LUCASFILMS
Image 5 of 23
Image 6 of 23 COPPOLA2/10DEC69/DD/GP - Francis Ford Coppola (l), in his office in San Francisco, 12/10/69. He's working with George Lucas (r) on a project. Photo by Greg Peterson COPPOLA2/10DEC69/DD/GP - Francis Ford Coppola (l), in his office in San Francisco, 12/10/69. He's working with George Lucas (r) on a project. Photo by Greg Peterson Photo: SFC
Image 7 of 23 FILE--Han Solo, played by Harrison Ford, bargains with space gangster Jabba the Hutt in this digitally recreated scene restored to the film "Star Wars Special Edition." Twenty years after its initial release, and two weeks after its reissue with several minutes of new scenes, George Lucas futuristic blockbuster crossed the $400 million mark Thursday, Feb. 13, 1997, surpassing Steven Spielberg's E.T. The Extraterrestrial to reclaim the all-time No. 1 spot at the box office. (AP Photo/20th Century Fox) less FILE--Han Solo, played by Harrison Ford, bargains with space gangster Jabba the Hutt in this digitally recreated scene restored to the film "Star Wars Special Edition." Twenty years after its initial release,... more Photo: Associated Press
Image 8 of 23 The Ewok Village in "Star Wars: Episode VI -- Return of the Jedi." The Ewok Village in "Star Wars: Episode VI -- Return of the Jedi." Photo: ONLINE_YES
Image 9 of 23 Pod racers scoot over a desert-like landscape in "Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace," that opened in theaters May 19, 1999. Pod racers scoot over a desert-like landscape in "Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace," that opened in theaters May 19, 1999. Photo: Associated Press
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Image 11 of 23 Members of the Jedi Council interview young Anakin Skywalker in their temple far above the urban-sprawl planet of Coruscant in "Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace." Members of the Jedi Council interview young Anakin Skywalker in their temple far above the urban-sprawl planet of Coruscant in "Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace." Photo: Associated Press
Image 12 of 23 (Left to right) John Hurt as Professor Oxley, and Karen Allen, as Marion Ravenwood, join Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, Shia LaBeouf as Mutt Williams and Ray Winstone as Mac, in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Paramount Pictures Presents a Lucasfilm Ltd. less (Left to right) John Hurt as Professor Oxley, and Karen Allen, as Marion Ravenwood, join Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, Shia LaBeouf as Mutt Williams and Ray Winstone as Mac, in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom... more Photo: David James
Image 13 of 23 George Lucas working behind-the-scenes on "Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith," with Ian McDiarmid, left, and Samuel L. Jackson. George Lucas working behind-the-scenes on "Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith," with Ian McDiarmid, left, and Samuel L. Jackson. Photo: NYT
Image 14 of 23 George Lucas's public park adjacent to the Lucasfilm headquarters (portion of shown back left); the complex is called, "Letterman Digital Arts Center at the Presidio". George Lucas's public park adjacent to the Lucasfilm headquarters (portion of shown back left); the complex is called, "Letterman Digital Arts Center at the Presidio". Photo: SFC
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Image 16 of 23 July 24, 1988: FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA AND GEORGE LUCAS PAUSE IN THE ENTRY WAY OF A VICTORIAN MANSION LOCATED ON SKYWALKER RANCH BEFORE GOING TO DO A EUROPEAN TV INTERVIEW ABOUT THEIR NEW MOVIE. July 24, 1988: FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA AND GEORGE LUCAS PAUSE IN THE ENTRY WAY OF A VICTORIAN MANSION LOCATED ON SKYWALKER RANCH BEFORE GOING TO DO A EUROPEAN TV INTERVIEW ABOUT THEIR NEW MOVIE. Photo: SFC
Image 17 of 23 George Lucas inside his Marin County film offices stands in front of a large painting just outside his office. George Lucas inside his Marin County film offices stands in front of a large painting just outside his office. Photo: sfc
Image 18 of 23 C3PO, Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill in "Star Wars" C3PO, Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill in "Star Wars" Photo: Mill Valley Film Festival
Image 19 of 23 Francis Ford Coppola (l), in his office in San Francisco, 12/10/69. He's working with George Lucas (r) on a project. Francis Ford Coppola (l), in his office in San Francisco, 12/10/69. He's working with George Lucas (r) on a project. Photo: SFC
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Image 21 of 23 FILE--Director Akira Kurosawa is flanked by George Lucas, left, and Steven Spielberg after he received an Honarary Award during the 62nd Academy Annual Awards in this March 26, 1990 file photo. Kurosawa died at his home Sunday, Sept. 6, 1998, a spokesman for his film company said. He was 88. One of the few Japanese directors to find fame on international screens, his work inspired a generation of directors both in Japan and in the United States. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac) less FILE--Director Akira Kurosawa is flanked by George Lucas, left, and Steven Spielberg after he received an Honarary Award during the 62nd Academy Annual Awards in this March 26, 1990 file photo. Kurosawa died... more Photo: Associated Press
Image 22 of 23 Producer/director/writer George Lucas, right, and director Steven Spielberg laugh as actress Carrie Fisher (not shown) makes a joke on-stage at the BAFTA/LA 11th Annual Britannia Awards, in Beverly Hills, Calif., Friday, April 12, 2002. Lucas was presented with the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film. less Producer/director/writer George Lucas, right, and director Steven Spielberg laugh as actress Carrie Fisher (not shown) makes a joke on-stage at the BAFTA/LA 11th Annual Britannia Awards, in Beverly Hills,... more Photo: APLax federal oversight dating back years allowed lenders to repeatedly make bad loans to small businesses under a government program that has cost taxpayers $1.3 billion since 2000 on defaulted loans, a Dayton Daily News investigation found.
Some borrowers in the Small Business Administration’s largest federally guaranteed loan program defaulted so quickly they paid nothing on the loan, the investigation found. Operators of national franchises like Quiznos and Cold Stone Creamery collectively received millions of dollars in loans through the program despite extensive default histories by the franchises.
“Should we say the fox got distracted and quit watching the hen house?” said Pat Newcomb, director of the Ohio Small Business Development Center at the Entrepreneur Center in Dayton.
“There were an awful lot of people who got small business loans during this period 2004 to 2007 that shouldn’t have gotten them,” she said. “They were a bad loan when they were made. They just got worse.”
Since the beginning of 1990, lenders made more than 1 million loans guaranteed under the SBA’s 7(a) program, the agency’s largest, according to a Dayton Daily News analysis of SBA loan data. Excluding the 280,948 loans that are still active, more than one in five of the remaining 769,242 loans were discharged to the U.S. Treasury after they defaulted and the lender and SBA were unable to collect the money owed.
Those 168,324 charged-off loans totaled $8.6 billion in payments to lenders by the SBA. Once discharged, there is little chance the money will be recovered by the government. According to the SBA, the U.S. Treasury’s average annual recovery rates between 2010-2012 was 0.63 percent of all referred loans.
Default rates and taxpayer subsidies soared in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, the nation’s worst economic crisis since the Depression. But the Dayton Daily News investigation found that practices by the SBA and lenders made the already-risky small business lending program a bigger gamble.
The Dayton Daily News found:
• SBA loans were made by lenders who sometimes relied on inflated real estate values, used lax lending standards, or didn’t follow SBA requirements, according to SBA financial reports and the agency’s Office of the Inspector General.
• A large chunk of the bad loans resulted from lenders providing loans to franchisees for national companies despite histories of the franchise defaulting on SBA loans. The corporate franchisor is not held financially responsible for the operator’s loan failure.
• Many of the borrowers paid little on the discharged loans. More than half of the 168,324 charged-off loans failed before 20 percent of the loan was repaid. More than one in three repaid only 10 percent or less of the loan. More than 7 percent did not reduce the principal on their loan at all.
• In the nine-county Dayton region, 4,419 SBA loans were made from the beginning of 1990 through the end of February of this year. Of the closed loans — meaning those paid in full or charged-off to the U.S. Treasury — one in five ended in failure. The SBA paid $36.4 million to the lenders for the defaults.
• Lenders had little to lose when loans went bad. Not only did the government guarantee up to 85 percent of the loan amount, the loans could also be sold on the secondary market, which further reduced lender risk.
“There were a lot of lenders that got into the SBA business and just grew it really fast. They took their eye off the ball,” said John Moshier, KeyBank’s senior vice president in charge of SBA lending. “They felt like because they had the guarantee, everything was good. The government was going to take care of it.”
Red flag
Reacting to the newspaper’s investigation, Newcomb said it’s a huge red flag that one-third of borrowers paid 10 percent or less on the guaranteed loans that defaulted and were discharged.
Clearly those borrowers and their business plans were not thoroughly vetted by lenders, and the borrowers had “no commitment to making the lender whole,” said Newcomb, a former banker.
Steve Budd, president of CityWide Development Corp., a Dayton non-profit development organization, said, “I think it’s fair to say that when a business hardly makes a payment, they probably shouldn’t have gotten a loan.”
The SBA 7(a) program by definition involves more risk than a conventional loan. The program’s goal is to provide capital for small businesses, including those owned by minorities and women, that have had trouble getting conventional loans. It is not meant to be a license to write bad loans.
Most borrowers repay their loans, and supporters call the government’s guarantee a crucial economic development tool that helps fuel the small businesses that are viewed as the engine of the nation’s economy. About 97 percent of American businesses are eligible for the loans.
“The good news is the SBA has helped lots of good businesses, particularly in the early stage of development, that have gone on to be successful and paid back their loans,” said Mike Van Buskirk, president and chief executive of the Ohio Bankers League. “The bad news is because they are in a risky area they will have, by definition, more defaults.”
One of the failed loans went to Café Boulevard in Dayton’s Oregon District. The restaurant and bar, which closed last year under the name Boulevard Haus, received a $50,000 SBA loan in December 2006 from Capital One National Association. The owner, Eva Brcic-Christian, who last May was sentenced to prison for nine years on charges stemming from insurance fraud involving another restaurant, managed to pay back less than $9,000 of the loan, according to SBA data. After collection of collateral, the SBA had to pay Capital One $20,755 for the default.
The SBA sets the rules for the 7(a) loans made by lenders but gives lenders great freedom in determining whether the borrower is credit-worthy and what will be counted as collateral. Most loans are approved with zero SBA oversight under the preferred lender program designed to streamline the lending process. Currently, the SBA portfolio for all its loan programs totals $103 billion.
In its 2010 financial report, the SBA acknowledged an increase in the number of bad loans. The report said between the fiscal years of 2005-2008, lenders used overvalued real estate as collateral. The losses were “magnified because of looser underwriting procedures and credit standards by lenders prevalent in that time period,” the report says.
By fiscal year 2010, the default rate on 7(a) loans increased to 5.59 percent of the active unpaid balance — up from 1.38 percent in 2005, the first year in the decade that a taxpayer subsidy for defaults was not needed, according to SBA records. The 2012 default rate was 2.38 percent according to SBA data.
Over time, the percentage of loans that go bad is comparable to conventional lenders, said Jeanne Hulit, associate administrator for the SBA Office of Capital Access. “I compare SBA to a large bank in which inherently there is some measure of risk involved with lending but, overall, the agency provides a good bang for the taxpayers buck,” Hulit said.
The increased default rates that followed the 2008 financial collapse cost the government billions of dollars. Between fiscal year 2009 and fiscal year 2012, the SBA purchased $14.9 billion of guaranteed defaulted loans from lenders, according to SBA annual financial reports. By comparison, the SBA purchased about $2.5 billion in guaranteed loans in the four years between 2004 and 2007.
Newcomb, who works with entrepreneurs on their development plans, said lenders and the SBA did no one any favors by making loans to people who were not prepared to run a business. “The most heart-breaking thing I see is when someone comes to me having put $50,000 worth of life savings and retirement into an enterprise and without any forethought,” she said. “And now they want me to bail them out. They’ve made so many mistakes, there is such a deficit now that I can’t fix it.”
Cold Stone
Lenders say loans go bad for a variety of reasons, both financial and personal. At the Cold Stone Creamery at The Greene in Beavercreek, it was a combination of the economy and high rent, said co-owner Peter Samborsky.
He and two partners in BKP Enterprise LLC opened the ice cream shop in 2006 using two SBA 7(a) loans totaling $401,500 from Banco Popular North America of New York. By 2011, $277,661 of the loans were in default and the SBA purchased the bad loans from the bank under the federal guarantee.
The SBA eventually discharged $176,538 to the Treasury for collection.
“It was a decision of looking at expenses, and if we wanted to continue operating we had to reduce the expenses,” said Samborsky. “The landlord wasn’t willing to reduce rent. And if we didn’t pay rent we’d get kicked out. So the bank is the one that unfortunately takes the hit.”
Subway and Quiznos
Franchises are major consumers of SBA loans, according to the Daily News analysis — and sub sandwich franchises top the list.
Subway and Quiznos franchises dominated the list of businesses borrowing the government guaranteed loans. Subway franchises took out at least 4,649 of the 7(a) loans since the beginning of 1990, the data show, while Quiznos took out 2,586.
But the battle of the sub shops went in drastically different directions, according to the loan data. While Subway borrowed more than 2,000 more loans than Quiznos, its loan failure rate was about one-fifth of Quiznos restaurants. Only 4.8 percent of Subway franchise SBA loans were charged off as of the end of February, while almost a quarter — 23.4 percent — of Quiznos franchise loans ended in failure and were discharged to the Treasury.
Quiznos also led all franchises with $43.5 million in defaulted loan guarantees that SBA had to pay the lending banks. Cold Stone Creamery was second with $29.6 million, followed by Days Inn with $16.9 million and Ramada Inn with $14.3 million.
The sub shops also dominate the nine-county Dayton region in numbers of SBA loans, but the disparity is even more stark. While Subway franchises took out more than twice as many 7(a) loans as Quiznos (35 to 16), only one Subway loan (2.9 percent) failed and was charged off compared to six (37.5 percent) of the Quiznos loans.
Nationwide, the 50 franchises that cost the SBA the most totaled more than $411 million in discharged loans.
Corporate franchisors such as Quiznos and Subway contract with individual owners to operate the business, but some corporations take a bigger share of the profits than others.
Quiznos’ cut from its operators makes it harder for them to be profitable, said Robert Purvin, chief executive officer for the American Association of Franchises and Dealers.
“My bet is lurking behind every failure there is price gouging to the franchisee,” said Purvin. “We’ve been after SBA for years to make no loans to franchisors that are bad players.”
He said the SBA is essentially subsidizing these big corporate franchisors because the loan money is often used to pay the franchise fees, royalties and sometimes payments on leases controlled by the franchisor.
Cold Stone’s parent company, Kahala Franchising LLC, did not respond to requests for comment. Quiznos spokeswoman Elizabeth Sapp declined to comment directly on Purvin’s remarks. But she said the company is now under new management.
“For a time, Quiznos grew rapidly and while there are many success stories, the brand has had more closures over the past few years than we would like,” Sapp said. “There are many factors that may have led to defaults — including a sharp increase in competition within our segment and decline in our national economy.”
Multiple problems
The SBA Office of Inspector General identified multiple problems at the agency in its 2012 and 2013 reports. According to the reports, the SBA:
• Vastly understated the rate at which it made improper payments on 7(a) loan approvals and purchase of defaulted loans;
• Made $869 million in “inappropriate or unsupported loan approvals” under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the stimulus program; and
• Improperly paid on loan guarantees despite lender errors that didn’t meet SBA requirements.
The OIG recommended the agency strengthen oversight of lenders, reduce financial losses from loan agent fraud by improving tracking and enforcement, and improve efforts to recover improper payments.
Hulit said the agency has implemented quality assurance programs, improved training and is working with the OIG to implement the recommendations for improvements.
Critics say the defaults and other problems show the SBA and lenders are not good stewards of the program. Some argue that the government should not be in the business of backing loans to small businesses and subsidizing lenders.
“Many small business owners see this as an unnecessary program of government intrusion, of picking winners and losers,” said Roger Geiger, Ohio chapter executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business. “They most certainly wonder how equitable it is when it’s their tax dollars being used to fund what could potentially be a competing business.”
The libertarian Cato Institute in 2011 called for abolishing the SBA and said the loan program gives politicians a chance to brag about helping small businesses. Tad DeHaven, budget analyst for Cato, questioned the value of providing small business loans for low-paying jobs at gas stations and sub shops.
“One, a lot of these businesses will fail, and that is therefore wasted capital,” said DeHaven. “(And) the banks love this program. It’s basically free money for them.”
Depending on the loan program, the SBA guarantees can be as high as 100 percent but those in 7(a) typically are 75 percent or 85 percent. When the loan defaults, the SBA purchases the guaranteed portion of the loan from the lender while the lender and SBA try to collect what they can. Then the SBA turns the remaining unpaid portion over to Treasury for continued collection efforts.
Treasury officials can garnish wages or federal payments, withhold tax refunds, take all but $750 a month in Social Security and send collection agencies after the borrower. But Treasury officials say collection efforts are hindered if the borrower is a limited liability company or some other corporate entity that dies when the business fails.
“It is difficult,” said Ronda Kent, assistant deputy commissioner of debt management services for the U.S. Treasury bureau of fiscal services. “These are debtors who have not paid timely and other people have foreclosed on their collateral, if that was available.”
A new corner
SBA officials contend they’ve turned a corner — with purchases of defaulted guaranteed loans declining to $2.6 billion in fiscal 2012 from $3.4 billion the prior year, according to the agency’s fiscal 2012 financial report. The report says the loan volumes are rising and the risk portfolio is decreasing as a greater proportion of the portfolio is for loans approved since 2009.
“All key metrics on our loan portfolio have been improving, including the percentage of loans that are in a deferred, past due, delinquent and liquidation status,” Hulit said. “Generally, if the economy improves, future subsidy costs may be reduced as the corresponding default risk is reduced.”
The SBA and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. jointly monitor lenders and Hulit said 150 were removed from the SBA program between fall 2008 and June 2012.
New SBA loans to Quiznos and Cold Stone Creamery tailed off drastically since 2009, the newspaper’s analysis found.
Quiznos franchises reached a high of 626 SBA 7(a) loans in 2004, but those have fallen every year since. In 2012, Quiznos franchises received only five SBA loans. The same is true for Cold Stone Creamery franchises, which received only two SBA loans last year. Subway, by contrast, has tapered off somewhat, but still received 173 SBA loans last year.
“Over the last four years, SBA supported more than $106 billion in lending to more than 193,000 small businesses and entrepreneurs,” said Emily Cain, SBA spokeswoman. “And today we are using our streamlined lending programs and products to get capital to communities that are still struggling and to fill market gaps, and we are continuing to expand access to our loan programs.”
Path forward
Ultimately bad loans not only cost taxpayers but also the borrowers and lenders who pay fees based on projected losses. There has been talk of raising those fees to ensure the program is self-sustaining, but Craig Street, director of SBA lending for Huntington National Bank, said that could make the loans too expensive.
Street is a huge backer of the program because he said the guarantee provides banks with a comfort level to invest in promising companies that are good risks even though their balance sheets don’t meet conventional lending standards.
KeyBank’s Moshier said avoiding the mistakes of the past involves getting back to basics: good solid underwriting and understanding risk.
“I don’t care if it is SBA lending, conventional lending, mortgage lending. Slow and steady wins the race,” Moshier said. “You live another day. It doesn’t mean you are not making loans. You are not making stupid loans.”
Contact this reporter at 937-225-7455 or email Lynn.Hulsey@coxinc.com.; Contact this reporter at 937-225-2393 or email Ken.McCall@coxinc.com.(CBS News) Victim Caleb Medley was shot in the eye at the Aurora movie theater massacre and remains in intensive care in an induced coma. In the same hospital, one floor away, his wife Katie is about to give birth to their first child.
"He's a strong guy," said Seth Medley, Caleb's brother. "I'm not used to seeing him like that. I don't ever want to see him like that again."
But even if Caleb fully recovers, what happened at the midnight movie threatens to ruin the couple financially. His family has been told medical bills could total $2 million. Longtime friend Michael West is trying to raise money.
"Caleb, he doesn't have any insurance so I put together a website," Michael said, adding that Caleb was looking forward to being a dad. "We've talked to him because we know he can hear us. He needs to get better because he needs to be a dad."
Many are struggling with the emotions raised by this tragedy.
Caleb Medley's fundraising website
Special Section: Colorado Movie Theater Massacre
Aurora shooting suspect may face death penalty
Colorado massacre could have been worse: Reports
Kaylan, 13, was the babysitter for the youngest victim in the shooting, six-year-old Veronica Moser Sullivan. Veronica's mother Ashley Moser is still in the hospital with wounds to her neck and abdomen.
Kaylan was in the theatre beside them.
"I want it just to be a nightmare, just a dream. I don't want this to be real," Kaylan said.
When the shooting stopped, Kaylan called 911 then tried to give CPR to Veronica.
"It's horrifying picturing in my head what I saw that night," Kaylan said. "Other people have it much worse than I do. And other people are going through a lot worse than I am."
Kaylan said she feels like she needs to be strong for the people who've been injured.
"If they break down, I want to be strong and help them through their breakdown that they have at the time," Kaylan said.
Kaylan's family knows she too needs help. Her mother says the 13-year-old will start getting grief counseling this week.We recently Dockerized the main part of our event processing pipeline using the 1.12-rc4 release. It’s been awesome using Docker in Swarm mode, and we’ve been really impressed with the ease of setup and use of Swarm mode. Our event pipeline processes around 220 million application errors per day, approximately 150k per minute, and performs a massive variety of processing tasks — it’s a critical piece of our infrastructure.
The new version of Docker Engine introduces native clustering capabilities, built directly into the daemon (as opposed to running a separate set of processes). This, in our opinion, positions Docker as a serious competitor in the container orchestration space (alongside giants like Kubernetes and Mesos), and will make building and operating large distributed applications easier for everyone.
A quick look at Bugsnag’s error processing architecture
As you probably know, Bugsnag is an error monitoring platform. As part of this, we have to accept, process, store, and display a large amount of events in near-real-time, containing errors for more than 40 different platforms that are written in over 16 different programming languages. That is no small feat. The event processing pipeline is a fairly large Node.js application that pulls items (events that contain errors) off of a queue, performs various types of work on each item, and stores it in our databases.
Why we chose Docker Swarm mode
We decided to modernize our setup when we saw the need to upgrade to a newer LTS Node.js version. After quickly realizing we were reinventing the wheel with a homegrown solution, we decided to revisit the space of container management. While ecosystems that were already well-established (Mesos and Kubernetes) seemed like good candidates, upon evaluating them it became obvious they were overly complex for our use case — to run a polling Node.js app on a fleet of nodes — and would have been an overkill to deploy and operate.
So we decided to try out Docker’s then-newly-released 1.12-RC4 engine for our needs. Setting up a Swarm mode cluster came down to simply bootstrapping the manager and adding workers, which is as easy as 3 commands:
docker swarm init (on 1 manager node)
(on 1 manager node) docker swarm join --token [manager_token] (on the rest of the manager nodes)
(on the rest of the manager nodes) docker swarm join --token [worker_token] (on the workers)
Personally, it took me no more than 20 minutes to bring up a Swarm mode cluster — from reading the docs to having it ready for work. Compare that to my Mesos experience back in the day, which took about 2-3 hours of thoroughly reading through documentation for multiple complex components (ZooKeeper, the Mesos master, and the Mesos slaves). After that, it took me another two hours to fully bring up the cluster and get it ready to accept work.
The time savings from setting up and operating a Swarm mode cluster, combined with its spot-on UX and interface, sets Docker up as a serious competitor in the space, and truly enables container management at scale for the masses.
Tips for running Docker in Swarm mode
We’ve been running the event processing pipeline in production in Swarm mode for over a month now, and along the way we ran into issues that helped us uncover important lessons for working with this system. Here’s a list of key takeaways that are valuable to know before starting — they took some time to figure out, but have a significant impact.
Beware of issues in the network stack
We’ve coded our application to make it easy to deploy: instead of servicing inbound requests, it pulls from a set of queues. Outbound connections in Swarm mode work fine. However, when we started looking into adding services that dealt with requests on inbound connections (listening on ports), we quickly found the routing mesh feature of Swarm mode to be unreliable. The idea behind the routing mesh is to intelligently route service requests to machines that are running the service container, even if the host receiving the request isn’t running the container. This is achieved through a gossip layer between the workers in the pool that allows them to talk to each other, directing requests to the appropriate container. However, when we tested it out, the intelligent routing was very spotty, sometimes hanging during a request, and sometimes not even accepting inbound connections at all.
As it stands at the writing of this post, there are several open GitHub Issues related to this problem (we are tracking #25325), and the community is working hard to fix the underlying cause.
Have a solid labeling system
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T.J. Moe, WR, Missouri
Josh Kline, OL, Kent State
Brandon Jones, CB, Rutgers
Ben Bartholomew, FB, Tennessee
Kanorris Davis, SS, Troy
Elvis Fisher, OT, Missouri
Brandon Ford, TE, Clemson
Kenbrell Thompkins, WR, Cincinnati
Ryan Allen, P, La Tech
Cory Grissom, DT, South Florida
Chris McDonald, OL, Michigan State
Dwayne Cherrington, DT, Mississippi State
Mike Zupancic, LS, Eastern Michigan
Joe Vellano, DT, Maryland
Ian Sluss, LB, Portland State (Cut)
Akeem Shavers, RB, Purdue
Ryan Osiecki, QB, New Haven (Tryout)
Nick Halloran, OL, Bentlery (Tryout)
Buffalo Bills (Bills UDFA Analysis)
Drew Smith, RB, Albany
Brandon Kaufman, WR, Eastern Washington
Ryan Turnley, C, Pittsburgh
Keith Pough, LB, Howard
Jeff Tuel, QB, Washington State
Da’rick Rogers, WR, Tennessee Tech
Jordan Dangerfield, FS, Towson
Nickell Robey, CB, USC
Zach Chibane, OG, Syracuse
Jumal Rolle, CB, Catawba
Kendall Gaskins, RB/FB, Richmond
Vernon Kearney, CB, Lane
Aaron Tipoti, DL, Cal
Kevin Norrell, WR, Stony Brook
Izaan Cross, DE, Georgia Tech
Kip Edwards, CB, Missouri
New York Jets (Jets UDFA Analysis)
Rontez Miles, S, Cal (PA)
Mike Shanahan, TE/WR, Pitt
Ryan Spadola, WR, Lehigh
Chris Pantale, TE, Boston College
Jake McDonough, DL, Iowa State
Zach Rogers WR Tennesse
Troy Davis, DE, UCF
Mike Edwards, DB, Hawaii
Mark Popek, OL, USF
Roosevelt Holliday, DT, Eastern Illinois
Antavius Wilson, WR, Marshall
Trey Gilleo, OT, Northern Arizona
Troy Davis, DE, Central Florida
Spencer Nealy, DT, Texas A&M
Dalton Freeman, C, Clemson
Miami Dolphins (Dolphins UDFA Analysis)
Jasper Collins, WR, Mount Union
Jordan Kovacs, S, Michigan
Rob McCabe, LB, Georgetown
Clay Belton, QB, Findlay
Cameron Marshall, RB Arizona State
Keelan Johnson, S, Arizona State
AJ Francis, DT, Maryland
Terrell Sinkfield, WR, Northern Iowa
Michael Clay, LB, Oregon
Brandon Ogletree, LB, BYU
Chris Burnette, DT, Old Dominion
Chris Barker, OG, Nevada
Sam Brenner, OG, Utah
Peter Tuitupou, TE, SJSU
Pat Ward, OT, Northwestern
Alonzo Highsmith, LB, Arkansas
Taylor Stockemer, WR, Arkansas State
David Hinds, LB, FAU (Tryout)
James Ferentz, OC, Iowa (Tryout)
AFC South
Houston Texans
Justin Tuggle, LB, Kansas State
Travis Howard, CB, Ohio St
Willie Jefferson, DE, Stephen F. Austin
Graham Pocic, OL, Illinois
Ja’Gared Davis, LB, SMU
Ray Graham, RB, Pitt
Uzoma Nwachukwu, WR, Texas A&M
Kenny Demens, LB, Michigan
Orhian Johnson, S, Ohio State
Dennis Johnson, RB, Arkansas
Collin Klein, QB/TE, Kansas State
Cierre Wood, RB, Notre Dame
Earl Okine, DE, Florida
Zach Boren, FB, Ohio State
Michael Smith, WR, UConn
Johnny Adams, CB, Michigan State
Dann O’Neill, OL, Western Michigan
Alex Kupper, OL, Louisville
Alec Lemon, WR, Syracuse
Marlon Brown, WR, Georgia
Jawanza Starling, S, USC
Evan Frierson, LB, Illinois State
Andrew Shapiro, P, Fresno State
Jon Opperud, OL, Montana
Bryan Collins, OL, SMU
Torlan Pittman, DT, SMU
Malik “Fig” James, DB, Langston University
Javicz Jones, LB, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
A.J. Bouye, CB, UCF
Indianapolis Colts
Lanear Simpson, WR, Baylor
Dan Moore, FB, Montana
Brandon McManus, K, Temple
Daxton Swanson, CB, Sam Houston State
Emmett Cleary, OL, Boston College
Nigel Malone, CB, Kansas State
Denodus O’Bryant, RB, Lindenwood
Sheldon Price, CB, UCLA
Rodrick Rumble, WR, Idaho State
Nick Driskill, S, Mount Union (Tryout)
Jacksonville Jaguars
Carson Tinker, LS, Alabama
Matt Scott, QB, Arizona
Arby Jones, DT, Georgia
Jordan Rodgers, QB, Vanderbilt
Lonnie Pryor, FB, Florida State
Uriah Grant, DT, Ole Miss
Ryan Otten, TE, San Jose State
Roderick Tomlin, OL, Murray State
Maalik Bomar, OLB, Cincinnati
Paul Hazel, DE, Western Michigan
Jamal Miles, WR, Arizona State
Jeff Nady, OT, Nevada
Stephane Milhim, OG, UMASS
RJ Dill, OT, Rutgers
Steven Terrell, DB, Texas A&M
TJ Barnes, DT, Georgia Tech
Willie Carter, FB/HB, Tulsa
Cole McKenzie, WR, Southern Oregon
Tennessee Titans
Jack Doyle, TE, WKU
Stefphon Jefferson, RB, Nevada
Tom Wort, LB, Oklahoma
Oscar Johnson, OT, LA Tech
George Baker, CB, South Florida
Jonathan Willard, LB, Clemson
Matt Pierce, CB, Valdosta State
Dontel Watkins, WR, Murray State
Eloy Atkinson, C, UTEP
Rashad Ross, WR, Arizona State
Stefan Charles, DL, Regina
Nigel Nicholas, DL, Oklahoma State
Matt Sewell, OT, McMaster
Travis Harvery, WR, Florida A&M
AFC West
Kansas City Chiefs (Chiefs UDFA Analysis)
Tyler Bray, QB, Tennessee
Brad Madison,DE, Missouri
Rob Lohr, DT, Vanderbilt
Rico Richardson, WR, Jackson State
Josh Martin, DE/OLB, Columbia
Bradley McDougald, S, Kansas
Demetrius Harris, ATH, UW-Milwaukee (Basketball)
Jordan Roberts, RB, Charleston
Daryl Stonum, WR, Baylor/Michigan
Toben Opurum, OLB, Kansas
Kaderius Lacey, RB, Alabama A&M
Dayne Crist, QB, Kansas (Tryout)
Darin Drakeford, OLB, Maryland
J Knowles, TE, Sacramento State
A.J. Hawkins, OL, Ole Miss
C.J. Jones, DB Texas A&M
E.J. Epperson, DE, Ole Miss
Raheem Stanley, DT, New Haven
Colin Kelly, OT, Oregon State
Will Matte, C, Indiana
TJ Fatinikun, DE, Toledo
Frankie Hammond, WR, Florida
Drew Terrell, WR, Stanford
Otha Foster III, FS, West Alabama
Mario Benavides, OC, Louisville
Denver Broncos
Ryan Katz, QB, SDSU
Lerentee McCray, DE, Florida
Ryan Doerr, P, Kansas State
Aaron Hester, CB, UCLA
Doug Rippy, LB, Colorado
Quincy McDuffie, WR, UCF
Gary Mason Jr. DE/DT, Baylor
Uona Kaveinga, LB, BYU
Manase Foketi, OT, West Texas A&M
John Youboty, DE, Temple
C.J. Anderson, RB, California
Ross Rasner, S, Arkansas
Lucas Reed, TE, New Mexico
Lamar Thomas, WR, New Mexico
Romney Fuga, DL, BYU
Oakland Raiders
Kyle Padron, QB, Eastern Washington
Lamar Mady, OG, Youngstown
John Wetzel, OL, Boston College
Sam McGuffie, WR, Rice
Dexter McCoil, S, Tulsa
Connor Vernon, WR, Duke
Josh Leonard, OL, Wyoming
Freddy Young, DB, New Mexico
Logan Freeman, OT, Central Missouri
Kentrell Harris, DL, Virginia Union
Adam Steiner, LS, Akron
Billy Boyko, ILB, Lehigh
Braden Hansen, OL, BYU
Bobby Cowan, P, Idaho
Kurt Tuaufa’asau, DT, Wyoming
Deonte Williams, RB, Cal Poly
Kennith Jackson, LB, Cal Poly
Adrian Bushell, DB, Louisville
Jarell Childs, LB, Kansas State
Jared McGriff-Culver, FB, Missouri (Tryout)
San Diego Chargers
Josh Johnson, CB, Purdue
Kwame Geathers, DL, Georgia
Luke Tasker, WR, Cornell
Nick Becton, OT, VA Tech
Cortney Gardner, WR, Sierra
Jamarcus McFarland, DT, Oklahoma
Michael Hill, RB, Missouri Western
Dan Molls, LB, Toledo
Ben Cotton, TE, Nebraska
Brandon Moore, DT, Texas
Greg Brown, DB, Kansas
Jahleel Addae, CB, Central Michigan
Frank Beltre, LB, Towson
Marcus Cromartie, CB, Wisconsin
Byron Jerideau, NT, South Carolina
Richard Kent, P, Vanderbilt
Kenny Okoro, DB, Wake Forest
Randy Richards, OT, Missouri State
David Rolf, TE, Utah
Devan Walker, LB Southeastern Louisiana
Mike Hermann, QB, RPI
AFC North
Cleveland Browns (Browns UDFA Analysis)
Jamaine Cook, RB, Youngstown State
Dave Kruger, DT, Utah
Josh Aubrey, DB, Stephen F. Austin
Braxston Cave, C, Notre Dame
Chris Faulk, OL, LSU
Perez Ashford, WR, Northern Illinois
Justin Staples, DE, Illinois
Caylin Hauptmann, OL, FIU
Ryan McWethy, S, Wisconsin-Platteville
Cordell Roberson, WR, Stephen F. Austin
Garrett Hopkins, TE, Eastern Michigan
Martin Wallace, OT, Temple
Travis Tannahill, TE, Kansas State
Ricky Tunstall, DB, Delaware
Aaron Adams, OT, Eastern Kentucky
Keenan Davis, WR, Iowa
Dominique Croom, WR, Central Arkansas
Zach Anderson, DE, Northern Michigan (Tryout)
Mike Niam, LB, Wofford (Tryout)
Baltimore Ravens
Murphy Holloway, ATH, Ole Miss (Basketball)
Trent Steelman, QB/WR, Army
Jose Cheeseborough, CB, Florida International
Omarius Hines, RB/TE/WR, Florida
Ray Holley, RB/WR, Lousiana Tech
Moe Lee, CB, Utah
Rogers Gaines, OT, Tennessee State
Matt Furstenburg, TE, Maryland
Jordan Devey, OL, Memphis
Nate Stanley, Southeastern Louisiana, QB
Gary Walker, FS, Idaho
Brynden Trawick, SS, Troy
Perry Jones, RB, Virginia
Meshak Williams, DE, Kansas State
Steve Demilio, OL, Gardner-Webb (Tryout)
Cincinnati Bengals
Tyrone Goard, WR, Eastern Kentucky
Quinn Sharp, P, Oklahoma State
Jayson Dimanche, OLB, Southern Illinois
Onterrio McCalebb, RB, Auburn
Bruce Taylor, LB, Virginia Tech
Roy Roundtree, WR, Michigan
Troy Stoudemeire, CB, Minnesota
Larry Black, DL, Indiana
Terrence Brown, CB, Stanford
Jordan Campbell, OLB, New Mexico Highlands
Travis Chappelear, DE, NWMSU
Darius Winston, CB, Arkansas
Pittsburgh Steelers
Joe Madsen, C, West Virginia
Omar Hunter, DT, Florida
Ivoery Wade, C, Baylor
Luke Ingram, LS, Hawaii
Mike Golic Jr, OL, Notre Dame
Anthony Rashad-White, DL, Michigan State
Will Shaw, TE, Youngstown
Mike Farrell, OT, Penn State
Curtis McNeal, RB, USC
JD Woods, WR, West Virginia
Nik Embernate, OG, San Diego State
Reggie Dunn, WR, Utah
Brian Arnfelt, DE, Northwestern
Alan Baxter, LB/DE, Northern Illinois
Chris Hubbard, OL, UAB
Undrafted Free Agents for NFC Teams can be found on page two!
Continue to Page: 1 2By Brandon Evans | Published Saturday, September 1, 2012
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The struggle lasted for almost an hour.
Rhome Volunteer Firefighter Katy Wacasey found herself Thursday morning at the high end of a ladder trying to free an angry and injured cat who had managed to become entangled in telephone wire. It took a while, but she finally rescued the uncooperative feline.
J.D. Renfroe, who lives in the 300 block of E. Morton St. in Boyd, was working in his shed when he heard a terrible cry. He went outside to find an orange-colored female cat dangling 25 feet off the ground.
“I don’t know how in the world it ever got its foot hung,” Renfroe said. “Usually they just climb high enough to get away from a dog. I’ve never seen one climb all the way up to the wires before.
“I don’t know how long she’s been up there. She comes around here and I feed her sometimes, but I haven’t been able to get outside for a couple days because I was sick.”
The claws on one of its rear legs had become embedded and entwined in the metal guide wire, leaving the cat to hang upside down like a pair of sneakers tossed over the telephone line.
Wacasey responded with a ladder truck. Working alone, she scaled the ladder like a cat herself to approach the howling, helpless feline.
“One of her paws had become completely trapped in the guide wire,” Wacasey said.
Wacasey soon suffered several punctures and deep scratches to her hands while trying to pry the cat’s claws from the wire. Unable to free it, she cradled the cat in her arms so it wasn’t dangling free like a Christmas ornament from the utility line.
Wise County medics were called to the scene to assist Wacasey.
Medic Jacob Souder climbed the ladder to help pry the cat’s claw from the tangled wire.
“I used a spanner wrench,” Souder said. “It’s the wrench firefighters use to disconnect hoses. I used the prying end to undo the wire, and his foot came right out.”
Once freed, the cat immediately calmed down and settled into Wacasey’s arms.
“I’ve never been on a call like this before,” she said.
Wacasey, 23, has volunteered with the Rhome Volunteer Fire Department since she was a 16-year-old student at Northwest High School.
A Boyd police officer transported the cat to Boyd Animal Hospital. It was bleeding from the leg and mouth where it had tried to chew through the wire, and it might have sustained some broken toes in the ordeal.
The cat was wearing a flea collar, but no other sign of identification.
The hospital gave the cat a shot for pain and left her to calm down. Wise County Animal Control has since taken it. Because the cat did bite two people during the rescue, they are required to quarantine her for 10 days.
“She’s breathing really good on her own,” said Linda Bryan at the shelter. “We’ll do our best to keep her comfortable and stress-free while she’s here.”
As of press time, no one had contacted the shelter to reclaim her. If no one does after the 10-day quarantine period, she will be available for adoption.
“Orange tabbies are the sweetest cats,” Bryan said.
And in this case, one of the luckiest.The European Union should embark on a process of decentralisation and return certain areas of decision making to the member states if it wants to survive and thrive, according to Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winner Oliver Hart. EURACTIV Spain reports.
Today (9 December), Hart and his colleague, Bengt Holmström, will receive the top prize for their work on contract theory, which covers everything from how CEOs are paid to privatisation.
Hart told EFE that he believes the keyword in EU politics is now “decentralisation” and that Brussels has “gone too far in centralising power”. The British-born economist said that “if it abandons this trend, the EU could survive and flourish, otherwise, it could fail”.
The Harvard University professor insisted that the EU member states are not “sufficiently homogeneous” to be considered one single entity, adding that trying to make the EU-28 into one was an “error”.
Socialists and Democrats VP: Socialist 'errors' contributed to populism's rise S&D Vice-President Enrique Guerrero told EURACTIV Spain that he acknowledged the “political errors” made in the past that have contributed to populism’s rise across Europe at the expense of socialism.
Hart said that the concerns felt by the member states about decision making and centralisation of power in Brussels should be addressed by returning competences to the EU capitals.
The Nobel winner conceded that the EU should retain control of “some important areas”, like free trade and free movement of workers, the latter of which he admitted is “ultimately, an idea that I personally like, although I understand that there are political worries”.
His prize-winning colleague, Holmström, also told EFE that the EU needs to “redefine its priorities, limiting its activities and its regulatory arm, in order to focus on what can be done on the essential things”.
The Finnish economist, who also teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said that Brussels needs to rejig its system of governance and its basic rules in order to make them “clearer and simpler”.
Spanish philosopher: 'We have lost the idea of Europe' Philosopher José Antonio Marina told EURACTIV Spain that the idea of Europe has been lost and called on the EU to undertake a period of “quiet” reflection in order to relaunch a project imbued with “intellectual, political and economic vigour”.
Hart argued that “the euro was an mistake” and said that it’s an opinion that he has maintained ever since the monetary union was first introduced.
The economist added that it “wouldn’t be a sad thing at all” if in the future Europe abandoned the single currency and that the British were “very clever” to stay out of it.
Hart, who also holds US citizenship, is a critic of the country’s president-elect, Donald Trump and has expressed his concern about some of the business tycoon’s proposed policies, particularly financial deregulation.Two Red Sox errors helped set up the deciding run. After Maikel Franco led off with a single, Dylan Cozens replaced him as a pinch-runner. Cozens went to second on a wild pickoff attempt by pitcher Kyle Martin, and to third when Michael Saunders reached on a throwing error by shortstop Deiner Lopez.
CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Tommy Joseph's sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth lifted the Phillies to a 6-5 walk-off win against the Red Sox on Sunday at Spectrum Field.
CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Tommy Joseph's sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth lifted the Phillies to a 6-5 walk-off win against the Red Sox on Sunday at Spectrum Field.
Two Red Sox errors helped set up the deciding run. After Maikel Franco led off with a single, Dylan Cozens replaced him as a pinch-runner. Cozens went to second on a wild pickoff attempt by pitcher Kyle Martin, and to third when Michael Saunders reached on a throwing error by shortstop Deiner Lopez.
View Full Game Coverage
It was a back-and-forth game. The Phillies scored three runs in the bottom of the fifth to tie it against Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrel. The Sox re-took the lead with one-run in the top of the sixth, only to have the Phillies answer with a run in the bottom of the inning.
Video: BOS@PHI: Nava scores on an error to tie the game
"I'm excited by the fact that we got behind early and it didn't look promising and we came back to stay in the game," said Phillies manager Pete Mackanin.
"It's always good to win. We're trying to get these guys in a winning frame of mind. We want to create a culture of winning. Winning is a big part of development."
• Phillies acquire Pat Venditte
The Red Sox scored three times in the first two innings against Phillies starter Aaron Nola, the 2014 first-round Draft choice who missed the last two months of 2016 with a strained elbow.
The big hit for Boston was a two-run homer by Pablo Sandoval in the first. Sandoval also singled and scored in the fifth.
"It's probably the best I've felt all Spring Training," said Nola, who has a 6.14 Grapefruit League ERA. "I felt pretty on point. I made a couple mistakes over the plate but, other than that, all my pitches felt really good today. I obviously want good results, but I feel like the more I get out there the better I'll feel."
Video: BOS@PHI: Nola reflects on outing vs. the Red Sox
Daniel Nava -- a longtime member of the Red Sox -- had four hits, including a triple, and scored a run against his former team.
Speedy Roman Quinn played a big part in the Phillies attack. He homered in the third and singled, stole a base and beat the throw to home on a grounder to second in the fifth. His fly to center in the sixth was deep enough to allow Nava to advance, and that put him in position to score the tying run on a two-out error by third baseman Rafael Devers.
Video: BOS@PHI: Quinn smokes a solo homer in the 3rd
Red Sox starter Eduardo Rodriguez, vying for a spot in the rotation, held the Phillies to one run on three hits and a walk in his four innings, striking out three.
"I feel really good, I feel normal with everything," Rodriguez said. "Now I just need to get concentration and working on my consistency with my pitches. That's what I'm working on right now."
• Price throws for 2nd straight day
Red Sox Up Next: The Red Sox travel to face the Blue Jays on Monday at 1:07 p.m. ET in Dunedin, in a game available on Gameday Audio, where right-hander Steven Wright is slated to make his Grapefruit League debut. The knuckleballer, vying to hold on to his spot in the starting rotation, went 13-6 with a 3.33 ERA in 24 starts for Boston last season.
Phillies Up Next: Veteran Jeremy Hellickson, the 2016 Opening Day starter, will make his fourth Grapefruit League start Monday when the Phillies travel to Sarasota to play the Orioles at 1:05 p.m. ET, in a game available via an exclusive webcast. Hellickson has a 5.00 spring earned run average after going 12-10 with a 3.71 ERA in his first season with the Phils. Mark Appel and Colton Murray are also scheduled to pitch.WASHINGTON -- Former Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) violated campaign finance laws and conspired against lobbying laws while he was in office, leaders of the Senate Ethics Committee said on the floor of the upper chamber Thursday.
Ethics Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Vice Chair Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) announced the findings of the committee’s two-year investigation of Ensign, who resigned earlier this month. Although the Ethics Committee cannot punish Ensign directly, the committee referred its report to the Department of Justice, which may make a criminal charge.
If he were still in the Senate, Ensign could have been expelled from office based on the charges, a special counsel told Boxer.
In a 68-page report released to the public on Thursday, the Ethics Committee accused Ensign of breaking the law to cover up an affair with his former campaign aide, Cynthia Hampton. The aide and her husband, Doug Hampton, who also worked for Ensign, were fired in 2008. Doug Hampton then took a job as a lobbyist and accepted $96,000 from Ensign’s parents.
The Ethics Committee found that Ensign attempted to obscure a lobbying law that prohibits former aides, like Hampton, from lobbying their former bosses within a year of leaving work as a staffer. It also found evidence that the former senator made false statements to the Federal Election Commission and violated campaign finance laws, according to the report.
“It is a cautionary tale,” Boxer said Thursday. “It shows that our actions -- all of them -- have consequences."
"We must assure that every action we take is within the rules," she added. "In my personal view, it shows something else, which is that if you are in a position of trust and power, don’t abuse it, because people will get hurt.”
Among the details in the report:
”The extramarital affair between Senator Ensign and Ms. Hampton began after the Hamptons moved into the Ensigns' home following” a burglary at their home.
”Senator Ensign was very persistent and relentless in pursuing Ms. Hampton. According to Ms. Hampton, Senator Ensign ‘just [wouldn’t] stop,’ and ‘kept calling and calling,’ and ‘would never take no for an answer.’”
"Senator Ensign told Ms. Hampton that he wanted to marry her while they attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington."
In an effort to hide her identity, Ensign listed Ms. Hampton as "Aunt Judy " on his cell phone.
”76 text messages were exchanged between Senator Ensign and Ms. Hampton from March 7, 2008 to March 10, 2008.”
Tim Coe spotted Ensign and Hampton’s cars in a hotel parking lot. He called Ensign and said “Put your pants on and go home.” Ensign said, “I can’t, I love her.”
Hampton said "Senator Ensign would place fictitious events on his schedule so he could meet with Ms. Hampton."
”Senator Ensign permitted his staff to delete and replace his personal Gmail account containing emails related to Senate activities... up to 174 emails may have been deleted following the issuance of the preservation notices.”
”Mr. Hampton found out about the affair on December 23, 2007, while he and his wife were on the way to the airport to pick up their son for the holidays. Senator Ensign was in a separate car on the way to the airport to greet the Hamptons' son as well.... Mr. Hampton... viewed a text message from Senator Ensign to Ms. Hampton that made clear an affair was occurring.... When the cars were parked in the airport parking lot, Mr. Hampton jumped out of his car and chased Senator Ensign in the airport parking lot.”
Ensign pressured contributors and constituents to hire Doug Hampton. When a “prominent” constituent declined, Ensign “instructed John Lopez, his Chief of Staff, to ‘jack him up to high heaven’ and inform the constituent that he was cut off from Senator Ensign."Generally, using form alter on any form field and setting #disabled => TRUE works just fine. However, form alter is too early of a hook to use on entity fields. Moreover, if you disable a field, the browser won't even post the value. This can result in annoying validation issues.
In an earlier version I showed you how to make CCK fields read-only using Drupal 6. CCK was merged into Drupal 7 as the fields API, so a new approach is required. This new post will show an easy and safe technique to make Drupal 7 fields read-only.
The correct and safe way to do lock changes to a widget is to mark its HTML elements as read only, not as disabled. To do this, we use the readonly attribute. This ensures that the browser posts the value, unlike disabled. But we can't just stop here. We need to make sure the value isn't changed by a crafty user modifying his or her post request. Just imagine if they user the Chrome Inspector and altered the HTML attributes directly: they'd be able to modify the field. We need to prevent this.
In case you don't already have a field you want to lock down, let's create one really quickly.
Browse to admin/structure/types. Find an existing content type, and click on manage fields. Add a field and give it the label Locked. The machine name should appear automatically as field_locked. Be sure to choose a text field type, using a textfield widget.
Now, let's hook in to the node form so we can add our #after_build callback. Keep in mind that in this example, we're adding our callback to all node forms. You might want to further limit this to a specific content type. You might also want to check if this is an existing node, as locking the field on node creation might not be necessary.
<? php /** * Implements hook_form_alter(). */ function example_form_alter ( & $form, & $form_state, $form_id ) { if ( isset ( $form [ '#node' ]) && $form_id == $form [ '#node' ] -> type. '_node_form' ) { $form [ '#after_build' ][] = 'example_after_build' ; } }
Let's keep things simple and modify a text widget. For simple widgets, the fields API generally uses the key value.
<? php function example_after_build ( $form, & $form_state ) { $field = 'field_locked' ; $form [ $field ][ 'und' ][ 0 ][ 'value' ][ '#attributes' ]['readonly' ] ='readonly' ; $form_state [ 'values' ][ $field ][ 'und' ][ 0 ][ 'value' ] = $form [ $field ][ 'und' ][ 0 ][ 'value' ][ '#default_value' ]; return $form ; }
And that's it! You can now count on your field being read-only. It will still be posted by the browser. And even if a user tries to post a changed value - or uses the browser inspector to edit the contents of the fields - our build function restores the original value. Fast, safe, and secure.
Below is the complete code for reference.About Half See CIA Interrogation Methods as Justified
Democrats Divided over CIA’s Post-9/11 Interrogation Techniques
Survey Report
Following the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA interrogation practices in the period following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, 51% of the public says they think the CIA methods were justified, compared with just 29% who say they were not justified; 20% do not express an opinion.
The new national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Dec. 11-14 among 1,001 adults, finds that amid competing claims over the effectiveness of CIA interrogation methods, 56% believe they provided intelligence that helped prevent terrorist attacks, while just half as many (28%) say they did not provide this type of intelligence.
Partisan divides on these questions are wide. A large majority of Republicans (76%) say the interrogation methods used by the CIA after 9/11 were justified. Democrats are divided – 37% say the methods were justified, while 46% disagree. About twice as many liberal Democrats (65%) as conservative and moderate Democrats (32%) say the CIA’s interrogation techniques were not justified.
Overall, the public expresses the most doubt not about the CIA methods and program itself, but about the Senate committee’s decision to release its report: as many call the decision to publicly release the findings the wrong decision (43%) as the right decision (42%).
While the report on the CIA’s interrogation methods captured much of Washington’s attention, it was not the public’s most closely followed story last week. Overall, 23% followed news about the release of the Senate report on CIA interrogations very closely; more (35%) paid very close attention to news about protests around the country in response to police-related violence.
Race, Gender and Age Differences in Views of CIA Methods
Opinions about the CIA’s post-9/11 interrogation methods are divided by race, gender and age. Nearly six-in-ten whites (57%) say the methods were justified, while 26% say they were not justified. Blacks and Hispanics’ views are more divided: 42% of blacks say the methods were justified compared with 38% who say they were unjustified. Among Hispanics, 43% say the CIA’s methods were justified vs. 30% who think they were unjustified.
Young people also are divided over the CIA’s post-9/11 methods: 44% of those under 30 say they were justified while 36% disagree. Among those 50 and older, most (60%) think the methods were justified.
Men say the CIA’s interrogation methods were justified by a 57%-28% margin. Women are somewhat less supportive: 46% call the methods used by the CIA following the September 11th terrorist attacks justified, while 30% say they were unjustified.
Among the roughly quarter of adults (23%) who followed news about the release of the Senate committee’s report on CIA interrogation very closely, far more think the CIA’s methods were justified (59%) than unjustified (34%). Among those who f0llowed this news less closely, 49% say the CIAs tactics were justified, 27% unjustified, while 23% do not express an opinion.
Comparable shares of Republicans (27%), Democrats (23%) and independents (22%) tracked news about the release of the Senate report very closely.
Partisan divides on this question are wider than those seen across demographic groups. By an overwhelming 76%-12% margin, Republicans view the CIA interrogation methods as justified. Support among Democrats is nearly 40 points lower: just 37% call the interrogations justified, compared with 46% who say there were not justified. Somewhat more independents say the CIA actions were justified (49%) than not (30%).
Partisan Divide Over CIA’s Interrogation Methods
Differences between Republicans and Democrats over whether or not the CIA methods were justified extend to other questions about the program.
About three-quarters of Republicans (73%) say CIA interrogation methods provided intelligence that helped prevent terrorist attacks, compared with just 15% who say they did not do this. By contrast, Democrats are evenly split; 43% say the interrogations led to intelligence that helped prevent terror attacks, while 40% say that they did not.
And partisans take differing views on the Senate committee’s decision to publicly release the CIA report. Republicans call it the wrong decision by a 64%-26% margin, while Democrats say it was the right decision (56%-29%).
Democrats Internally Divided over CIA Interrogations
Liberal Democrats are much more skeptical about the CIA methods and program than are conservative and moderate Democrats.
Overall, 65% of liberal Democrats say they were not justified, while just 25% say that they were. The balance of opinion among conservative and moderate Democrats is much different: 48% say the CIA interrogations were justified compared with 32% who say they were not.
Similarly, fewer liberal Democrats (35%) than conservative and moderate Democrats (53%) believe the CIA interrogations provided intelligence that helped prevent terrorist attacks. And on the question of whether the Senate Intelligence Committee was right to publicly release their report, 71% of liberal Democrats call this the right decision, compared with about half of conservative and moderate Democrats (48%).
By contrast, within the Republican Party broad majorities of both conservative Republicans and moderate and liberal Republicans say the CIA interrogation methods were justified and provided intelligence that helped prevent terrorist attacks.Labour has offered a'safe space' to female delegates at its party conference in Brighton.
The refuge, which is just yards from the main conference hall, is available for party activists who want to escape sometimes angry rows at the conference.
Thousands of Labour members have descended on Brighton for the annual party conference with furious policy debates on Brexit and party rules expected.
Angry clashes over anti-Semitism are also likely amid a proposed changes to party rules about criticism of Israel and Zionism.
Labour has offered a'safe space' to women delegates at its party conference in Brighton (pictured last night as the conference began)
Creating so-called'safe spaces' has become increasingly controversial at university campuses around Britain as critics claims they stifle debate by blocking views that are not mainstream.
The first clashes of the conference have already happened amid a bitter row about whether London Mayor Sadiq Khan should be given a prime speaking slot.
Corbynista activists today demanded Labour's most senior elected official is gagged in favour of the party leader's inner circle.
The chairwoman of the session had to plead for calm after a young Labour member was jeered by the audience as he urged the party to let the London mayor speak.
Tensions between Labour moderates and more radical party activists were laid bare almost immediately after the Brighton conference formally kicked off.
Organisers of the conference had finally given Mr Khan a slot to speak on Monday after a long-running battle for him to be heard.
Momentum activist Morgan Hendy called for Labour activists to be given the platform to speak at conference and fro Sadiq Khan to be gagged
A Labour delegate was jeered by the crowd at conference today when he pleaded for Sadiq Khan be allowed to speak - pointing out he has the biggest personal mandate of any Labour politician after his mayoral victory this year
But Morgan Hendy, an activist with the Jeremy Corbyn-backing Momentum group, urged the conference to bin the slot and give the time to activists instead.
Addressing the conference, he heaped praise on the flood of new activists to the party and said Labour must 'use this resource'.
He said: 'No offence, but we see him (Sadiq Khan) on television all the time...
'I want us to give speaking time for members, for volunteers, for activists - for the people who got us so far in the General Election.'
He said that if the conference does decide to hear from Labour mayors, they should be from cities outside London |
but it didn’t look like it, and we didn’t feel like it.”
“I feel like this was a really good turning point for us,” Press said “ In the beginning of the year, people like to hype things up, like your offense isn’t producing, etc. Internally, we know what’s going on and what the group needs to build on to become the team we want to be at the end of the season.”
“We struggled in the first half and never got going,” Riley added. “We lacked energy and our press was out of sync. We’re just disappointed with the first half, and in the second half we readjusted things … In all fairness, [Chicago] was the better team today and deserved to win the game.”
Sports teams rarely welcome quick turnarounds, but Riley and the Courage (4-2-0, 12 pts.) appear eager to get back on the pitch at Sahlen’s Stadium this Wednesday, May 24 against Sky Blue FC. The Courage remain atop the NWSL table, and it hopes to rediscover their early season winning ways.
“I’m happy we have Wednesday,” Riley said. “We need to turn this around quick and get back on the field.”
BOX SCORE
LINEUPS
NC: D’Angelo, Dahlkemper, Kawamura, Hinkle, Doniak (Hatch, 46’), Mewis, Zerboni, Debinha (Hamilton, 73’), Rosana (T. Smith, 46’), McDonald, L. Williams
CHI: Naeher, Gilliland, Naughton, Johnson, Short, Ertz, Colaprico, Mautz (Green, 80’), DiBernardo (Comeau, 70’), Huerta, Press
GOALS
NC: L. Williams, 55’ (Hinkle)
CHI: Press, 30’ (PK); Huerta, 37’ (Press); DiBernardo, 45’
CAUTIONS
NC: ---
CHI: Short, 76’; Ertz, 90 + 2’
EJECTIONS
NC: ---
CHI: ---
ATTENDANCE: 4,786BANGOR, Maine — While police continue to investigate who is responsible for taking the lives of three people found last week in a car that was left ablaze in a dark parking lot, friends and loved ones of the victims piece together the last moments of their lives.
They all say Daniel T. Borders, 26, of Hermon, Nicolle A. Lugdon, 24, of Eddington, and Lucas A. Tuscano, 28, of Bradford — the three homicide victims — were at a small gathering in Bangor and left together in a white Pontiac with Rhode Island plates.
The car was driven by an out-of-state man who comes to Maine on occasion, always in a rental car, the victims’ friends said, using his name, which the Bangor Daily News is withholding because he has not been charged with any crime.
The out-of-state man, who knew Lugdon and Borders, reportedly knocked on the front door of the apartment about 1 a.m. on Aug. 13 and left with the three homicide victims, possibly to go smoke marijuana.
“I don’t know what the hell happened after they left,” the man who hosted the small gathering said, adding he and his family are no longer living at that residence.
The man driving the rental car came to pick up Borders. Lugdon, who wanted to smoke, reportedly invited herself and Tuscano followed her.
“Luke doesn’t even know these people [who hosted the gathering], but he was there just to hang out with Nikki,” said Bangor resident Tiffany Sutherland, who said she left the small party of five people about an hour before the out-of-state visitor arrived. “She’s the only one he knew there, so he went with her.”
A woman on her way to work about 3:30 a.m. Aug. 13 discovered the white Pontiac with Rhode Island plates engulfed in flames in the back parking lot of Automatic Distributors, located at 22 Target Industrial Circle.
After the flames were extinguished, firefighters found the bodies of Lugdon, Borders and Tuscano, who reportedly were burned beyond recognition. Her body was taken from the front passenger seat and no one was in the driver’s seat, according to photos taken by the Bangor Daily News.
A person walking away from the burning car appeared in video surveillance images taken from Automatic Distributors, an employee and Bangor police Sgt. Paul Edwards have said.
Whether the person in the video is the same man who picked up the trio of friends is a question that police are trying to answer. The Maine attorney general’s office took over the case shortly after the medical examiner determined the case was a triple homicide.
Police are not saying a word about what they believe happened and how the three people died.
“The cause of death is being withheld for investigative purposes,” Edwards said on Friday.
No arrest had been made as of Sunday evening, Sgt. Bob Bishop said.
Lugdon and Borders both have young daughters, their Facebook pages and friends have said. Tuscano’s girlfriend is pregnant and due to give birth in a few weeks, a friend said. Attempts to reach family members of the three were unsuccessful Sunday night.
Bangor resident Shannon Lee, who has a 7-year-old daughter with Borders, said her ex-boyfriend did have drug convictions on his record but “he went to jail and he got clean” while they were together.
She said they did not run in the same circles since their separation but Borders often would stop by her house to see his child.
“Dan always wanted to show his daughter off to his friends,” Lee said.
She said they last spoke about 6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 12, just hours before his death.
Borders’ criminal history includes convictions for unlawful possession of scheduled drugs in September 2009, assault in December 2010 and a Massachusetts arrest for trafficking in cocaine in June 2009, according to court listings printed in the Bangor Daily News.
Lee said the trafficking charge later was dismissed.
Lugdon worked at Staples, graduated from Madawaska High School in 2006 and studied at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, her Facebook page states.
She was convicted of possessing marijuana in 2008, when she was 19, and she has a conviction from June 2011 for operating a vehicle while license suspended, the BDN listings state.
Lugdon overcame tragedy throughout her life, according to previous BDN reports.
When she was just 2 years old, her grandmother Leanna Lugdon and uncle Theodore “Robbie” Lugdon were killed in a house fire in Bangor.
Lugdon’s mother died of a heroin overdose in March 2002. Just five months later, Lugdon’s father, Michael Melendez, killed her grandmother Linda Melendez. Both were heroin addicts and the killing resulted from an argument over drugs.
Nicolle Lugdon was in the house and hiding in a second-floor room with her 2-year-old brother while her father stabbed her grandmother 36 times. Michael Melendez is now serving a life sentence in Pennsylvania, BDN reports state.
“Nikki really had nobody in her life,” said Sutherland, a close friend of Lugdon’s who considered her a sister. “She heard her father kill her grandmother and still came out as one of the happiest people alive.”
Sutherland first met Lugdon when they were 7.
Lugdon spent many of her teenage years in foster care, said Kristina Sprague, who said Lugdon was her best friend.
“When she was living in Fort Kent [with her foster family], she did amazing,” said Sprague, 25, of Bradford. “She was going to college, she was working with disabled children, she tried very hard to be a good person up there, but as soon as she came back down this way, she lost it all.”
Lugdon was using pharmaceutical drugs, heroin and cocaine, both Sprague and Sutherland said.
Lugdon, who had a 2-year-old daughter, lost primary custody of her daughter to the girl’s biological father last October as Lugdon became more and more involved with drugs.
“When she lost her daughter, that’s when she started losing control of things,” Sprague said of Lugdon.
Her drug use changed Lugdon, her friends said.
“This is not the person anyone else knows,” Sprague said. “If you met her within this last year and that’s the only way you’ve known her, you don’t know Nikki. … But unfortunately when you’re doing drugs, you are a different person.”Yesterday evening the British Academy of Film and Television Arts held their annual awards ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall for the first time. It was also the first time that John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer of Pixar and Walt Disney Studios, had attended the ceremony. We had the chance to talk to the legendary director and producer about a few of his forthcoming projects, including Cars 3.
He talked about Brad Bird’s work on the forthcoming Incredibles 2 film which is due out next year, saying ‘It’s the one I’ve been waiting on too…I helped make it but I’m a big fan of it.’ We’re yet to hear anything more about Bird’s eagerly-awaited follow up but we’re hoping to see something more at D23 on July 14-16 this year. A poster, and possibly a trailer, is almost certain to be unveiled there.
Lasseter was also keen to talk up the new Cars film. Despite not quite capturing the same lightning as with the likes of the Toy Story films, the Cars franchise is a personal passion project for Lasseter. In the interview he confirmed what we assumed from the first trailers, that this would be a very different film to previous installments in the series. He told us,
We’re really excited about it…Cars 3 is really going to surprise everybody. It’s so emotional, and really funny – it’s stunning. We have a whole new way that we render our images…and the cars look real. It’s [going to be] shockingly emotional for people. When they watch it they [won’t] believe it.
He also confirmed a little more about the future of one of Disney’s biggest recent hits – and what’s in store for Wreck-it Ralph 2. The first image and story details we saw back in June of last year promised a far wider scope for Ralph and his friends. Lasseter confirmed,
This time Ralph and Vanellope go into the internet. A WiFi router gets plugged in, in the arcade…and it is hilarious how the filmmakers have skewered everything on the internet.
We’re assuming that once they are loose on the web mobile devices will be fair game too, bringing the retro stylings of Ralph right up to date.
You can watch the full interviews below,Share This Story Tweet Share Share Pin Email
Just 20 years ago, it was mostly farmland.
When West Bypass ended at Sunshine Street... before Walmart... when folks were just passing through on the way to Republic... the western edge of Springfield was a quieter place.
(Photo: Nathan Papes/News-Leader)
That’s changed some in the last 20 years. It’s much busier and louder now, and in the decade to come, Springfield’s western expansion promises to intensify even more.
Earlier this year, Springfield annexed a piece of land at the intersection of Sunshine Street and Zimmer Road — it’s the future home of Menards.
Just last week, the city approved a second tax district on a 100-acre piece of land west of Walmart. It paves the way for Springfield Plaza, which is expected to draw several national retailers.
Officials believe that will get the ball rolling on even more development.
“I think once Menards is underway and we get some activity at Springfield Plaza, we’ll probably see more interest along there,” said Mary Lilly Smith, Springfield’s planning director.
Why the sudden surge?
For decades, local officials have expected the West Sunshine corridor to be an activity center with a lot of commercial development. In the early 2000s, when West Bypass was extended south and Walmart built a Supercenter, it seemed like more growth would occur.
That hope resulted in a move by the city to annex land next to Walmart. Developers planned additional retail. Subdivisions were expected.
Then the recession hit.
Both commercial and residential development slowed to a crawl. For west Springfield especially, it has not been a fast climb back
This map shows the areas with the most residential building permits issued in 2014. The area northwest of Sunshine Street and West Bypass had the most permits in Greene County. Only an area in northeast Nixa had more permits in the region.
(Photo: Rankin Development, LLC)
“Commercial activity on the west side of town has been relatively slow to grow,” Smith said, noting there’s been growth on Republic Road in the south and at a few other locations along West Bypass, but Sunshine Street hasn’t developed as quickly.
“Back along Sunshine Street (to the east), nothing has really happened until you get to Kansas Expressway,” she said. “Trying to tie all of that back into the center of town may be part of what has delayed some development out there.”
The economy is improving, however, and as is often the case for retail development, new home construction led the way.
Tom Rankin, the developer of Springfield Plaza, said that section of Greene County saw the most residential growth in 2014. That’s backed up by data from the Ozarks Transportation Organization and Greene County.
The census tract immediately northwest of the intersection, stretching west to Haseltine Road and north to Chestnut Expressway, saw 68 new housing units added last year. Since 2000, there’s been more than 800.
Several houses are currently under construction in the Stonehinge subdivision immediately north of the Menards land.
“One thing that drives retail is residential,” Smith said. “The more residential that’s developed, the higher likelihood we’re going to see more retail development.”
Farm Road 129, or Zimmer Road, could see increased traffic with retail development expected nearby.
(Photo: Nathan Papes/News-Leader)
Planning, and bracing, for growth
Turning farmland into a major commercial district takes many years. It will probably be about 2025 before Springfield Plaza is complete.
Sunshine Street and West Bypass are already major roads with heavy traffic — about 21,000 cars pass through each day — and commercial development will only increase that. For Springfield Plaza to complete its project, the developers are required by the city to make about $10 million worth of public improvements.
That includes bigger intersections, better roads and stormwater improvements.
While the city requires those public changes, it also sometimes offers tools to help developers pay for it.
There were no special tax districts for Menards, which Smith said has a company policy of turning down such incentives because it doesn’t want to raise its sales tax.
CLOSE This tour shows the area where a Menards will be built on the city's west side.
Springfield Plaza has been approved for both a Tax Increment Financing District and will likely soon get approval for a Community Improvement District.
The TIF allows the developer to use revenue from incremental tax increases to pay for the improvements. So, as the property value increases and businesses start generating sales tax, a portion of that money will go to the developer.
Smith said the city has been conservative with TIF districts. In fact, Springfield Plaza is the only one the city has approved for the benefit of a private developer.
The pending approval of the CID also provides a safeguard, as a portion of that additional sales tax will go to pay off the TIF.
It’s all designed to jump-start development, Smith said.
New homes are being constructed in the Stonehinge subdivision on Farm Road 129. The subdivision is just north of a planned Menards store.
(Photo: Nathan Papes/News-Leader)
Neighbors deal with change
It’s not just roads that have to adapt to more development. People who have lived in that area for several years have to adjust to a changing environment.
Janet Johnson, who for 46 years has lived on Zimmer Road, right across the street from the planned Menards, was vocal in her opposition to the development.
Janet Johnson talks about the possibility of new retail stores being built in a field across from her home on Farm Road 129 near Sunshine Street.
(Photo: Nathan Papes/News-Leader)
She said her primary issue was the traffic on Zimmer, which she said is already heavy.
“A big concern is this little narrow farm road that has really extremely high traffic right now,” she said. “We have a lot of big trucks that come through. There’s not room for two trucks to meet.”
She said she also is worried about businesses — particularly smaller ones in a strip mall — being built so close to homes.
“It could be a bar, a strip joint, who knows?” she said. “Or it could be some very nice businesses. Either way, it’s a business.”
She said she’s less concerned about commercial development just down the road on Sunshine Street.
“You can’t expect things to not change in years,” she said. “There’s always going to be progress. Though we enjoy what country atmosphere we have left, we know it can’t always be the same.”
What will that change look like?
Besides Menards, the names of specific businesses haven’t been released, but developers have been in talks.
“It’s been ongoing,” Rankin said. “We want signed leases. We’re not going to build and wait for them to come. We also want to meet their specific big-box needs.”
Rankin said he can’t say what businesses he’s been in discussion with, but folks should look to South Glenstone Avenue to get an idea.
This aerial view of the Springfield Plaza development shows where current and future stores could be located. The red shaded area shows the Plaza land, which will be in two special taxing districts.
(Photo: Rankin Development, LLC)
“A lot of those retailers have been desiring a second store to give their current store some relief,” he said. “They want to attract a larger market.”
Some national retailers on Glenstone with only one Springfield location include Target, Pier 1 Imports, Barnes and Noble, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Best Buy, for example.
Rankin said the first phase of the development will include about 150,000 square feet of retail. It will take two or three years to complete, he said.
“One of those retailers isn’t going to go in a project by itself,” he said. “They want co-tenancy. They want that synergy from other retailers.”
Eventually, the space would allow for about 600,000 square feet of retail. Rankin said that will probably take about 10 years to develop completely.
During a City Council meeting in late September, Rankin said the property could eventually produce $30 to $40 million in sales annually, depending on the retailers.
But beyond Springfield Plaza, Springfield could continue to grow west.
How far will it go?
With both Menards and Springfield Plaza, developers came to Springfield and wanted to be annexed in. Those properties had been in unincorporated Greene County previously.
Janet Johnson talks about the possibility of new retail stores being built in a field across from her home on Farm Road 129 near Sunshine Street.
(Photo: Nathan Papes/News-Leader)
If land west of those developments is annexed into the city, it will likely happen in the manner it happened previously.
The state allows for annexation by a vote of the people, but that’s proven unpopular and ineffective in the past.
The only other way for annexation to occur is for 100 percent of property owners to sign off on being annexed.
Based on a 1996 agreement with the city of Republic, Springfield is allowed to extend, on Sunshine Street, to the intersection with James River Freeway. Republic can expand east to the same point.
After 46 years living so close to a burgeoning corridor of development, Johnson knows the landscape will continue to change.
“It used to be all brush on the other side of the street up here,” she said pointing to Walmart. “We know it will change.”
“Whatever will be will be.”Whenever disasters impact an area in modern times, governments play a large role in the cleanup and recovery efforts. People file claims with the state to recover their losses while simultaneously inflicting those losses upon taxpayers elsewhere in the nation. Building codes are enhanced, and because resources spent on one expense cannot be spent on another, the result is less resources available for communication, medical care, and transportation to warn people of disasters, get them away from danger, and treat any injuries or diseases that result. The usual pork barrel spending and high-profile boondoggles will rear their ugly heads among the disaster relief spending.
But there is an even more insidious problem at work here, which we may term the Pax Romana Problem. Students of history will be familiar with the time of relative peace and stability from the time of Augustus (r. 27 BCE-14 CE) until the time of Commodus (r. 177-192 CE). During this time, the economy, the arts, and agriculture flourished because the tribal battles that predated Roman conquests as well as the rebellions and riots that predated the Pax Romana were largely suppressed. But there was a dark side to this, particularly in parts of the empire which were much closer to the border than to Rome. With Roman forces in charge of law, order, and security, many peoples suffered losses in the ability to provide these services themselves. After all, societal organs tend to decay from disuse just as individual people do. When the Pax Romana ended, these peoples were without the stabilizing forces which they had come to rely upon and were out of practice in providing these services for themselves. The end result was that several of these peoples were raided and conquered by various barbarians and empires.
At first glance, this may not appear to have much to do with disaster relief. But there is a similarity between what happens when governments step in during disasters and what happens when a large empire takes over security for formerly independent smaller tribes. Before there was massive government intervention to help disaster victims, people had more of an incentive to plan ahead and be ready for potential disasters because they knew that if something were to happen, they would have to rely upon themselves and the people in their communities to survive and recover. Without the potential for government agents to step in, people were less likely to view disaster relief as someone else’s problem and thus more likely to donate to relief efforts. When one relies upon people one knows for support during hard times, defrauding people is disincentivized due to both the loss of reputation in the community as well as the potential for reprisals. Looting is also less of a problem when security is handled directly by private property owners without involving the state because they and their hired help are both more competent at and more concerned with solving local crime problems than distant bureaucrats and their minions. Of course, these conditions meant a stronger social fabric and less dependence on the state, so governments found it all too tempting to interfere.
Before there was significant government involvement in the insurance industry, insurers would either refuse to insure or charge exorbitant rates to cover properties which were at a continually high risk for being destroyed by floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, and other such periodic catastrophes. This was an important market signal that certain areas are not good places for humans to build permanent residences. Of course, some people ignored those signals and suffered the consequences of their stupidity, but this has better outcomes for everyone else than rewarding such stupidity with government handouts which incentivize people to stay in places where they are likely to suffer disasters.
Now that governments play an active role in disaster relief, all of the problems that one might reasonably expect are present. When politicians have a choice between doing what is best for the people and doing what helps their public image, they will almost invariably choose the latter. Because the state has a coercive monopoly, it cannot be fired or have its funding suspended by normal means, regardless of how terrible its performance is or how much it interferes with private efforts which are trying to help people. To the contrary, failure means that statists can claim that insufficient funding is the reason for failure. There is also the matter of vote-buying, in that the people have an incentive to elect politicians who will deliver them the most funds from the government treasury. Disaster relief is not as reliable a payout method as welfare programs, but it is still a means of legal plunder available to those who live in disaster-prone areas.
We can also see the typical one-size-fits-all policies rather than the more targeted solutions that a private effort would attempt. For example, following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced a program to give away $2000 to every household that claimed to be affected by Katrina, regardless of size or need. Of course, this was subject to much waste, fraud, and abuse. Unlike private organizations who must rely upon voluntary donations, the state has no incentive to actually figure out how much help each household needs, so it overpays some and underpays others.
With government infrastructure management, people are encouraged to live in places which are at higher risk for disasters than would otherwise be economical to inhabit. To use the example of Katrina again, levees held back water from areas which have an elevation below sea level. Investigations into their failure showed cost-cutting during construction as well as poor maintenance. While there is no guarantee that a privately built and maintained system would have been successful, that which may or may not work is better than that which is known to fail. Then again, leaving infrastructure up to the private market could have meant that low-lying areas would have always been underwater and thus uninhabited, meaning that structures and lives would not have been at risk there because they would have been absent in the first place.
Government flood insurance programs also encourage people to take risks which would not make economic sense in a free market. What is incorrectly perceived as a market failure is actually a market success; the process of voluntary exchange and decentralized calculation produces the result that flood plains are inferior places to build a house or business. Rather than people rebuilding communities in unstable locations for the umpteenth time, a free market in flood insurance would cause low-lying areas to be abandoned and returned to a state of nature, as is proper. Perhaps in time, such places which are near coastlines and below sea level could fill in with sediment and become livable lands which do not require levees to keep water out of them.
Finally, government police and National Guard forces have largely displaced private security measures to prevent looting during disasters. Worse than that, they have actively engaged in attacks upon disaster victims who were trying to provide such defense for themselves, causing the very problem they should be trying to solve.
Fortunately, this perverse state of affairs will not last forever. Someday, the United States government will decline and fall, just like Rome and so many other empires throughout history. Just like the outer peoples of the Roman Empire after the Pax Romana ended, the American people will be left to fend for themselves in the absence of the federal government. The degree of government involvement in their lives will leave them weakened in the face of disasters which will not cease to afflict them when the state does. But a return to proper incentive structures will mean that in the long run, behaviors will be positively modified, the attitudes of the people will change to match those behaviors, and the community bonds which support a truly healthy society can be rebuilt.
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Like this: Like Loading...Thank you so much Santa! Such a great package you put together! I just love all of it!!
I mentioned to my Santa that I am trying to learn Calligraphy. I recently have started participating in the SCA (www.sca.org) and I fell in love with the awards handed out at events and really wanted to start trying my hand.
My Santa gave me a huge book on how to learn as well as a set of pens with various tips. Also they sent a quill pen with ink (AWWMAHGAWDILOVEIT) so I can feel like a lady writing to her lord!
Last but certainly not least, a beautiful leather bound journal! It is already calling me to fill it up with my adventures.
Thank you so much Santa, you rock! I can't believe how fast it got to me too, I hope your santa does just as well for you! Thank you!!Thursday April 20, 2017 12:31 PM
At the Penn Street Bridge, the senator says he hopes President Donald Trump fulfills a promise to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure.
Reading, PA —
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey stopped by Reading on Thursday to talk about building bridges - literally and figuratively.
The Scranton Democrat, who has been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, expressed an eagerness to work with the president on his campaign promise to spend $1 trillion over 10 years to rebuild America's roads, bridges, airports and pipelines, and modernize the electric grid and broadband access. He spoke of the possible partnership in front of the historic Penn Street Bridge.
"We don't have time for politics; we don't have time for partisanship. We need to come together to build a better future," he told a small group of local dignitaries and citizens. "We need a plan to invest in our crumbling infrastructure now."
The Penn Street Bridge was an ideal backdrop for the visit.
The $42.5 million project to repair the 1913 bridge, which stretches across the Schuylkill River as the main connection between Reading and West Reading, began in December and will continue through the end of 2019. The bridge has become structurally deficient.
Casey said the Penn Street Bridge is just one example of a larger problem throughout the state.
In 2016, one in five bridges statewide was considered structurally deficient - that's 4,506 by the count of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. Only two states have a higher percentage of bridges classified as structurally deficient.
Berks County is home to 163 of those structurally deficient bridges.
County Commissioner Kevin S. Barnhardt pointed out there are a number of other projects in the works that need funding. He said the urgency to make Interstate 78 less dangerous to travel, the importance of improving traffic patterns on Route 222, the desire to reestablish a passenger rail line between Reading and Philadelphia and the plan to overhaul the West Shore Bypass are all on that list.
"Money gets spent very easily when we talk about these projects," he said. "We hope lawmakers in Washington can come together in a bipartisan fashion to get this done because we really need the help at the local level."
Casey stressed the importance that legislation not get held up by partisan bickering.
"We are decades late on rebuilding our infrastructure," the senator said. "That's why I was hoping the president would have announced a new infrastructure initiative for the nation on the day he took office. He has so far chosen not to do that. I hope he will join us."
Trump promised Tuesday that his long-awaited infrastructure package would soon be unveiled. But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has offered to work with the president on the legislation, said he has heard nothing about the potential bill.
There have been reports in recent weeks that Trump may be considering packaging the infrastructure plan with a GOP-crafted plan to overhaul the health care system as an incentive to gain support from lawmakers across the aisle. Casey said that would be a mistake.
"This issue is too important to get tied up with legislation that even Republicans have problems with," he said.
Greater Reading Chamber and Economic Development Corp. President Randy Peers agreed there is wide consensus on infrastructure spending.
"Rebuilding infrastructure is the one economic development strategy that almost every stakeholder can get behind as a mechanism to grow our economy," he said. "The positive direct impact as far as job creation is clear, but the impact on commerce, on business investment, on human capital, on tourism, on health care represents a path to a stronger and more prosperous country."
Contact Karen Shuey: 610-371-5081 or kshuey@readingeagle.com.Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
A majority of Israelis believe US President- elect Donald Trump will be a pro-Israel president, expect him to follow through on campaign promises and think he could even make peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, according to a poll released by the Ruderman Family Foundation on Monday.
The survey, conducted by polling agency Dialog, asked Israelis a number of questions about their views on the recent US presidential election and its impact on Israel and antisemitism. Their responses indicate a favorable Israeli view of the president-elect.
Of the 500 Israelis who participated in the survey, 83% envision Trump as a pro-Israel leader, while 17% think otherwise.While 48% of respondents said there was no chance of Trump bringing about an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty, 45% said there was a possible chance, 7% a high chance and 1% believe his leadership will undoubtedly lead to a peace treaty.Iran Foreign Minister Zarif hopes nuclear deal is kept once the dust settlesThe poll revealed that a majority of Israelis believe Trump will follow through on both his promise to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as well his vow to nix the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers, which he as slammed as “one of the dumbest deals ever.” While 42% of respondents think there is “no chance” that Trump will scrap the nuclear agreement, 43% said there was a possible chance, 13% a high chance and 2% have “no doubt.”Meanwhile, 3% believe the president- elect will undoubtedly act on his promise to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, 22% see a high chance and 49% a possible chance.An overwhelming majority of respondents (80%) expressed some concern about the increase in reported antisemitic incidents in the US since Trump’s victory on November 8. Of those respondents, 16% are very concerned, 32% concerned and the same number slightly concerned.Only 19%, however, feel that the status of US Jewry will be weakened following Trump’s victory; 32% believe their status will be strengthened and 49% do not expect any change.“Our poll of Israelis regarding the new US administration and its impending impact on Israel and American Jewry shows that Israelis are optimistic that President-elect Trump will be a friend of Israel, while at the same time they are concerned about the growing incidents of antisemitism in the United States and its impact on the American Jewish community,” said Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Family Foundation, which focuses on strengthening the relationship between Israel and the American Jewish community.“Israelis have faith in a strong relationship between the United States and Israel, but are worried about the new reality for their fellow Jews in America,” he added.The margin of error in the poll is 4%.The survey was conducted by telephone from a pool of 500 Israelis between the ages of 18 and 65.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption John Sudworth reports from Shanghai on the rising number of dead pigs
Officials say the number of pig carcasses found in Shanghai's Huangpu River has risen to nearly 6,000.
In a statement, Shanghai authorities said that 5,916 dead pigs had been removed from the river by Tuesday.
But they said water from the river was safe, with water quality meeting government-set standards.
It is believed that the pigs may have come from Jiaxing in the neighbouring Zhejiang province, although the cause of their deaths is still not clear.
In a statement, the Shanghai municipal government said that the water in Huangpu River, which is a major source of drinking water for Shanghai, was safe. It also said that no diseased pork had been detected in markets.
However, the news has been met with scepticism by some users on weibo, China's Twitter equivalent, where the hashtag "Huangpu River dead pigs" has emerged.
"Cadres and officials, we are willing to provide for you, but please don't let us die from poisoning. Otherwise who will serve you? Please think twice," said netizen Shi Liqin.
"This river's colour is about the same as excrement, even if there weren't dead pigs you couldn't drink it," said another, with the username Yuzhou Duelist.
The general mood is of concern, rather than outrage or panic, reports the BBC's John Sudworth in Shanghai, as the Chinese public are well used to food scandals, such as the use of oil scraped from sewers for cooking, and plasticiser found in baby formula.
'Timely data'
The government statement said that the number of pigs being salvaged from the river appeared to be decreasing.
Laboratory tests have identified that some of the pigs had porcine circovirus, a common disease that affects pigs but does not affect humans.
Reports suggest the dead pigs may have been dumped from pig farms in Jiaxing, upstream of Shanghai.
Image caption The scandal comes amid growing concerns about China's environment
"We don't exclude the possibility that the dead pigs found in Shanghai were from Jiaxing. But we are not absolutely sure," Jiaxing local government spokesman Wang Dengfeng told a news conference.
Whilst tags on the pigs' ears indicated that they were from Jiaxing, this only showed the pigs' place of birth.
"It is unclear where the dead pigs were raised," he said.
Jiaxing officials have also said that the pigs may have been killed by cold weather.
In an opinion piece, the state-run Global Times said that the pig scandal comes amid growing concerns about China's environment, including recent record smog levels in Beijing, and water and air pollution affecting villages.
"The country's citizens, including both ordinary people and officials, should bear in mind the necessity of protecting the environment," it said.
It called on officials to publish "timely data regarding the quality of drinking water to reassure the public".The cyberattack included 50 million Uber riders globally and 7 million drivers in the U.S.
Uber is coming clean about its cover-up of a year-old hacking attack that stole personal information about more than 57 million of the beleaguered ride-hailing service's customers and drivers.
So far, there's no evidence that the data taken has been misused, according to a Tuesday blog post by Uber's recently hired CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi. Part of the reason nothing malicious has happened is because Uber acknowledges paying the hackers $100,000 to destroy the stolen information.
The revelation marks the latest stain on Uber's reputation.
The San Francisco company ousted Travis Kalanick as CEO in June after an internal investigation concluded he had built a culture that allowed female workers to be |
activities.”
Honorable Mentions
Am I Trustworthy? (1950). Eddie learns that “people have to show they can be trusted with little things, before they can be trusted with big things.”
Are You Ready for Marriage? (1950). A young couple goes to see a marriage counselor to determine whether they’re ready to get hitched, and he dispenses advice backed by some awesome charts and checklists.
Dating Dos and Donts (1949). A campy Coronet classic.
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Source:
Mental Hygiene: Better Living Through Classroom Films 1945-1970 by Ken SmithPORTLAND — Sen. Olympia Snowe’s primary challengers hope to ride conservative momentum driven by Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s strong showing in Maine’s caucuses.
Libertarian tea party activist Andrew Ian Dodge and self-proclaimed conservative constitutionalist Scott D’Amboise both hope to draw support from followers of the libertarian congressman from Texas, as well as self-avowed conservative Rick Santorum. Together they grabbed more votes than first-place finisher Mitt Romney.
Additional Photos Senatorial hopeful Scott D'Amboise, speaks with an unidentified supporter during the Kennebec County Super Caucus in Augusta, Maine on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Joel Page) Andrew Ian Dodge
Conservatives who’re flexing their muscle in the state party are targeting Snowe, who along with Sen. Susan Collins are among a handful of Republican moderates in the Senate.
During one of his recent stops in Maine, Paul’s state campaign chairman drew cheers when he told 2,000 supporters on a wintry day in Lewiston that it was time for “Snowe removal.”
Snowe, for her part, doesn’t like to be pigeonholed by a label. She considers herself a fiscal conservative while she’s moderate on social issues like abortion.
“While we may have differences, the undeniable common denominator that binds us is the traditional Republican principles of personal responsibility and limited government,” she said, proclaiming that she’s a lifelong Republican who always has supported fellow Republicans in Maine.
Maine’s Republican Party has undergone a shift to the right that became clear last summer when the tea party commandeered the party platform, going beyond traditional conservative staples to propose abolishing the U.S. Department of Education, sealing the U.S. border and taking steps to eliminate the Federal Reserve.
Many of those same conservative activists were energized during the caucuses, and that fact is not likely be overlooked by Snowe as she faces the first primary challenge of her career.
“It registered on her campaign’s radar, I think we can be fairly certain,” said Mark Brewer, political science professor at the University of Maine.
According to the GOP tally from the caucuses, Paul finished a close second behind winner Mitt Romney, and the tally will become even closer if Washington County’s snow-postponed caucus results from Saturday are included. Conservative Rick Santorum had a stronger-than-expected showing despite making little effort.
D’Amboise, who’s raised more than $500,000 for his campaign, said Republicans are enthusiastic about the three-way GOP Senate primary because they have more conservative alternatives to Snowe.
“Everybody’s frustrated and they want change,” said D’Amboise, who visited a party for Paul supporters after the caucuses.
Dodge, for his part, views himself as a libertarian, so he hopes to get votes from Paul supporters. “The fact that Ron Paul is doing well probably bodes well for me,” he said.
Both would be well served to try to tap into Paul’s grass-roots organization, which was active in Maine in 2008 and is even stronger four years later, Brewer said.
But it remains to be seen whether Republicans hoping for more reliable conservative than Snowe see a viable candidate in either D’Amboise, who did poorly in 2006 in his 2nd District congressional race, or Dodge, who said he’s having a tough time collecting signatures needed to get on the primary ballot.
Anthony Corrado, a government professor at Colby College, said conservative activists made their mark at the caucuses but the June 12 primary could be a different story because mainstream Republicans will want to rally around a strong candidate who can defeat a Democratic challenger in November.
“There’s a cohort in the party that’s in favor of conservative principles. Whether this group finds a candidate that it considers to be a viable candidate remains to be seen,” he said.
Snowe, for her part, isn’t taking anything for granted.
“She takes the race very seriously, and as she always has, she continues to travel extensively throughout Maine when she doesn’t have to be in Washington. She relishes the opportunity to make her case to voters in both the primary and general elections and will keep working hard to earn the continued confidence and support of Mainers,” said Justin Brasell, her campaign manager.
ShareTwo of Google’s main focuses, AI and “the next billion users,” are coming together, as the company announced the upcoming availability of Assistant in Hindi.
Google thinks that its growth in the coming years will be coming from the people who are just getting online for the first time, often thanks to affordable smartphones powered by Android. Hundreds of millions of those users live in India, a market that Google has singled out as a major focus for all of its initiatives.
That’s why the next language supported by Assistant, Google’s AI-powered virtual assistant, will be Hindi.
Hindi is the fourth most used language in the world and Google thinks that supporting it in Assistant will help boost the adoption of Allo, its new messaging app. Allo allows users to invoke Assistant in their chats and ask it questions like “how’s the weather” and many others.
A “preview” version of Assistant in Hindi will be made available by the end of the year, Google said. Users will be able to converse with Assistant in English and Hindi and quickly switch between the languages.
Caesar Sengupta, Google’s VP of product management, used the occasion to plug Duo. The executive said Duo has seen “amazing uptake” in India, a market where Google is working with companies including Micromax to pre-load Duo on their devices.MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK
INTRODUCTION
How a Lifelong Obsession with Aging and Health Became My Career
· JOSH MITTELDORF ·
Fear of Death, and Fear of Fear of Death
I was three years old when my father told me that someday I was going to die. I was terrified. The thought that a few decades of life would be followed by an eternity of nothingness obsessed me, drove me frequently into a panic, and sent me crawling into my parents’ bed in the middle of the night. I know now that this kind of fear is not uncommon in young children, but attaching it to something so abstract and distant seems unusual.
I had immediate, firsthand experience with the crippling incoherence that naked fear could evoke. No one had to tell me that fear itself—not death but the fear of death—was a horrible, unbearable plague. But as a small child, I was silenced by shame and embarrassment. I presumed that susceptibility to fear was my peculiar weakness and that I was all alone in having to come to terms with it. I learned to distract myself and put thoughts of death out of my head. I told myself that someday I would face the specter of death, but for now, it was just too uncomfortable. The bargain that I made was that I would allow myself the luxury of distraction with the promise that I would return to this issue of mortality and sort it out when I was thirty-five. Yes, even as a preschooler, I had a certain affinity for numbers, and I thought thirty-five was safely tucked away in the remote future but still only halfway to the age my father told me I might expect to live.
As it turned out, I was off by about a decade. At age thirty-five, I was delightfully occupied with the adoption of my first daughter, but when I was forty-six, a confluence of inner readiness and outer events drew me into the contemplation of death. It began with scientific study, which led not only to other studies and this book but also to a more youthful body, renewed energy, better health, and a feeling of relaxation and empowerment in an area that had once paralyzed me with fear.
Cancer Concerns and Pollution Paranoia
I came of age in the 1960s, just as the term “natural” arrived on the scene. I thought then, as most people still believe, that staying healthy and improving my odds for a long life were the same thing. My ideas about how to stay healthy were to give my body all the things it needed: vitamins, minerals, and complete protein, plenty of rest, moderate exercise, and a low-stress lifestyle. I aimed to sleep nine hours a night for the same reason that I aimed for 120 grams of protein—that’s a pound of lean meat every day—because more is better.
I was afraid. Most of all, I feared cancer. Any tiny dose of radiation, any food additive or pesticide or pollutant in the air might trigger a carcinogenic mutation. I now think of cancer as a systemic disease, but at the time, my belief was that a single rogue cell, just one unlucky break, could spread to kill me at any time. That belief in itself was a recipe for paranoia. The idea that I was being poisoned by modern life supplied a target for my obsession. Air pollution made me nervous, and cigarette smoke drove me to distraction. This was the 1970s, and cigarettes were ubiquitous, even in California.
I was an astrophysics student at UC–Berkeley, using computer models to study the cosmos. Though I was a scientist by temperament as well as profession, it would be years before it occurred to me to look into the science of aging or even to learn what medical science had to say about the lifestyle correlates of longevity.
I ate crunchy granola and whole-grain bread. I tried nutritional yeast and lecithin and spirulina and became enthusiastic with each new health and longevity miracle I read about. Vegetarianism was still confined to a fringe of health nuts and Seventh-Day Adventists. When I began yoga in 1972, I think Berkeley was one of the few places in the country where you could find a weekly yoga class. Over the years, yoga would train me in sensitivity to my own body that provided an experiential knowledge stream that I now think of as complementary to clinical data.
One evening, about six months into my discovery of yoga, I was lying on the floor in savasana (deep relaxation—literally “corpse pose”) when the voice of my revered and beloved teacher suggested to the class that perhaps we might find our practice leading to eating less meat. I was startled awake and sat bolt upright. In previous weeks, she had suggested cutting back coffee and alcohol and TV and marijuana (this was Berkeley) and cigarettes—it all went down smoothly because I had never been attracted to any of those things. But what could she be thinking, lumping meat with intoxicants and mind-altering drugs? I had never questioned that a diet that was ultrahigh in protein might not keep me strong and healthy. The phrase “new age hokum” hadn’t been invented yet, but those are just the words for which my mind was fumbling.
Six weeks later, I was a vegetarian, and I have never looked back. My teacher’s hypnotic suggestion awakened my latent discomfort with the killing of animals. It had nothing to do with science. Now there is evidence linking low meat consumption with longevity, but I certainly didn’t know of any at that time.
It was 1982 when I made friends with Howie Frumkin (now dean of the University of Washington School of Public Health). Even at that time, fresh out of med school, his easy warmth and twinkling eyes coexisted naturally with a commanding intellect. I saw him in his office at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and confessed that I had been losing sleep over worries about cancer for as long as I could remember. “Cancer is a disease of old age,” he told me. He sat me down and showed me the charts. With the exception of childhood leukemia, most forms of cancer were a very low risk for young people, rising steeply and peaking between the ages of seventy and ninety. This was completely new to me and very welcome to hear. I was relieved of an obsession.
Alfalfa and Aflatoxin
In the mid-1980s, Bruce Ames launched another seismic shift in my longevity program with a series of articles in Science magazine about natural pesticides. Ames had been studying carcinogens in the diet and had come to prominence with the invention of the Ames Test, a quick way to screen food additives for carcinogenic potential that has saved billions of dollars for the industry and obviated the slaughter of thousands of innocent rabbits.
I was the stereotypical Mr. Natural, based on my belief that pesticides and preservatives in my food were the biggest threats to my life and health. Along came Ames with a new story. It seems that humans didn’t invent insecticides. For as long as there have been beetles and grasshoppers on the planet, plants have been manufacturing chemical weapons to protect themselves. Some of these pesticides have been found to be carcinogenic in tests on mice and rats. But according to principles of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), they cannot be banned or regulated or even labeled. They come under the category GRAS—“Generally Recognized as Safe.”
For many years after the Ames Bomb, I annoyed and inconvenienced my family (my wife was most patient) by refusing to eat black pepper, beets, alfalfa sprouts, peanut butter (aflatoxin), parsnips, potatoes (solanine), basil, celery, mustard, and spinach (oxalic acid). These items topped Ames’s ranking of hazards in the American diet, based on a combination of lab tests for carcinogenicity and prevalence in our foods.
Broccoli was on that list too … but how could I give up broccoli?
In the spring of 2014, a distant relative appeared from nowhere and e-mailed me with a family tree on the side of my paternal grandmother. She told me that Bruce Ames is my second cousin once removed. I was charmed. At eighty-five, Bruce still runs an active lab at UC–Berkeley, his eyes twinkle more than ever, and he continues to publish innovative research.
I will always have the deepest respect for Ames and his work, but I no longer place so much importance on his approach to toxins in the diet. A modest load of toxins in the diet is actually good for us, and we’re likely to live longer with the toxins than without. We’ll return to this counterintuitive idea—opening onto one of the main counterintuitive messages of this book—in chapter 6.
Epigenetics and an Epiphany
In January 1996, I read a Scientific American article about caloric restriction and life extension. Professor Richard Weindruch, a biologist from the University of Wisconsin, told of his research with animals that lived longer the less they were fed. It wasn’t just a quirk of a lab rat’s metabolism. The experiments included dogs and spiders, yeast cells and lizards, and now Weindruch was working with rhesus monkeys. They all lived longer on a starvation diet.
It was this revelation that began the shift in thinking that has carried me to my current understanding of aging, its evolutionary origin, and its deep relationship to health. Within a few days of reading this article, going for long walks in the park, scratching my head, I knew I had been battling the wrong enemy. Aging is an inside job, a process of self-destruction. I drew this message from the fact that the body is able to forestall aging when it is in extreme deprivation, desperately slashing its energy budget to conserve every calorie. This means that when food is plentiful, aging is avoidable, but the body is not trying to avoid it. Aging, it seemed, must be programmed into our genes.
You can call it a lucky guess, or perhaps it was a big-picture perspective that only an outsider in the field would have. The insight that aging is programmed into our genes has been at the center of my research ever since, and it is also the principal theme of this book. Unknown to me, there was other evidence for this insight even in 1996. There is much more such evidence today. Some of the genes that regulate aging have been discovered, and some of the epigenetic mechanisms that make aging happen have begun to come out. (Epigenetics is the science of how genes are turned on and off.)
This theoretical insight came with a bonus in the form of practical implications for self-care. All that good whole-wheat bread and organic tofu had begun to make its mark, and my midriff had the beginning of a spare tire for the first time in my life. I had been fortunate to have one of those metabolisms that let me pack away food without consequences, but now my weight was about ten pounds over what it had been in my twenties and thirties. I immediately began to cut back, to lose weight by brute willpower. It was harder than I’d thought it would be to lose the weight, but it felt great. I had so much energy that I took up running, and I did my first half marathon that fall. I also experienced, at last, a loosening of the grip in which fear of death had held me since childhood.
I was learning that I had been looking for longevity in all the wrong places. My emphasis on maximizing nutrition and minimizing toxins had been misguided. I had missed a great truth about keeping healthy, but more than this, I had misunderstood the nature of the enemy. All my thinking had been rooted in vague, unformed ideas about what aging was and how it worked. For me, science, health, and aging were beginning to come together for the first time.
The health message was surprising and disorienting, but there was another thread to this story that tickled my intellectual interest. I wondered about the caloric restriction effect (CR) and how it might have evolved. Every function of every cell and organ in our bodies has been shaped by a process of evolution and can only be understood in that context. How could life extension be an adaptive response to starvation?
Many different animal species respond to CR. This can only mean that there is some very general value in living longer when food is scarce. If evolution has produced this same expedient for so many different species, then it must have a purpose, and that purpose must be so general that it applies to yeast cells and to dogs.
But what could that purpose be? I guessed the reason why starving animals should have access to extra strength: it must be to help them survive through a famine. It was still unclear to me why aging would be programmed into our genes, but for some reason, nature prefers a fixed, predictable life span to a life span that is subject to the viccisitudes of chance. If natural selection was favoring a length of life that is not too long or too short, then whenever there’s a famine, it makes sense that aging would get out of the way, since so many lives are already being cut short by starvation. Conversely, aging has to take a big bite out of the life span in times of plenty; otherwise, there would be no room to expand the life span when conditions changed.
From an Age Before Spam
These ideas about caloric restriction and the evolutionary origin of aging were fascinating to me—indeed, the most intellectual excitement I had experienced since encountering the big ideas of cosmology a decade earlier. I put together an essay—concise, naïve, a bit self-important—and sent it to an e-mail list of about a thousand evolutionary biologists that I had found online. Now, this was a time when the World Wide Web was young and text-based. E-mail had begun to expand from government and universities to more general use, but there was as yet no spam. Can you remember a time when the Internet was pristine? There was a gentlemen’s agreement that, even though bulk e-mailing was essentially free, we would not permit the Internet to be polluted with unsolicited commercial messages. So my message wasn’t discarded or ignored.
I received about thirty replies, some of them very generous and solicitous. All of them told me that my thinking was in error, because evolution doesn’t work for the community but only for the individual. People took the time to explain to me that I was making a common error, one that other scientists had made in the past, but evolutionists had corrected their thinking in the 1970s. There is no such thing as “group selection.” Natural selection works solely for the benefit of the individual. They told me to read Adaptation and Natural Selection by George C. Williams.
So here was a genuine scientific mystery dropped into my lap. I rapidly began to take ownership of it and more gradually gave myself over to its exploration.
I had imagined that evolution might arrange for animals to hold some strength in reserve for hard times. How did this require “group selection”? And if it did, what was so unscientific about “group selection”? I had a lot to learn. I was not so arrogant as to doubt that these experts who had graciously answered my question might know something I didn’t know. But I was curious that none of them offered an alternative explanation for the evident paradox: that starving animals are able to live longer, healthier lives than those who have all the nutrition they need. I resolved to keep an open mind about whether my thinking had been flawed in the way that these experts suggested, or whether perhaps I was seeing something the experts had missed.
The Experts Were Right
As a scientist, I’m more of a thinker than a reader. Faced with a new problem, I’m inclined to go for a long walk and allow my thoughts to sift or to scratch equations in a notebook or even to try a stripped-down example represented by numbers in a spreadsheet. Compared with Googling the answer, this process is terribly inefficient. It also leads me astray, and I get things wrong at least as often as I get them right. I continue in this way first because there is no satisfaction so sweet for me as engaging with a scientific puzzle. I rationalize the inefficient use of time with the hope that trying lots of wrong ideas and following them to the end gives conviction to my knowledge and a depth to my understanding of how the world works.
But after many walks in the park, I realized the experts were right to say that if evolution has a preference for aging, this would have to be via group selection. If Darwinian competition were between individuals that live a longer time and individuals that live a shorter time, the ones that live a long time would leave more offspring, and their genes would come to crowd out the short-lived genes. This is not to say that aging cannot evolve—there is still the possibility that a community of individuals with a fixed life span is better adapted in some ways than a similar community where life spans are allowed to vary all over the map. For this advantage to become a factor in evolution would require competition of one community against another, and that is what the experts meant by “group selection.” (You don’t have to understand this now—I certainly took long enough to appreciate it. It will become clear bit by bit.)
But all the walks in the woods that I had enjoyed that summer could not elucidate for me, what was the objection to group selection? Why were the experts so convinced that group selection was not part of evolution’s toolbox? After all that thinking through things on my own, I finally read the book by Williams that so many evolutionists had recommended. I found it stimulating and thought provoking. It opened my eyes to a more concrete and disciplined way of thinking about evolution. But I still didn’t understand what was wrong with group selection. Could this be just a scientific prejudice among all these experts?
Old Darwin and New Darwin
I affiliated myself with the Biology Department at the University of Pennsylvania because it was convenient and close to home. I talked to professors, took courses in evolution, and read books to learn how evolutionary biologists think. I learned that for the last seventy years, the field has been dominated by a methodology known as “population genetics” or the “new synthesis,” or a third name—the one I’ll use throughout this book—“neo-Darwinism.” Neo-Darwinism is not the same thing as Darwinian evolution. Darwin was a naturalist, a student of the natural world who described what he saw and tried to integrate his observations with understanding. His thinking was (appropriately, I think) vague and even modestly self-contradictory at times—his enthusiastic contemporary Samuel Butler even compared it to the “twitching of a dog’s nose”—as he sniffed out the various ways that natural selection can work. Neo-Darwinism arose in the 1930s, and it was an attempt to make Darwinian theory more quantitative and rigorous. In fact, the field was founded by mathematicians who knew little about actual biology. As a physicist, I found myself immediately comfortable with the style and the methods of neo-Darwinism. It is straightforward and logically compelling. But the more I became immersed in the theory, the more I found that neo-Darwinism doesn’t work very well as a description of real life. Several big things about life in general just don’t add up in the context of neo-Darwinism: There’s aging and death—I’ll try to show you in the coming chapters why I don’t think you can account for the basic facts about aging within the framework of neo-Darwinism. But in addition, neo-Darwinism can’t account for sexual reproduction or for the structure of the genome that seems actually “designed” to make evolution possible; neo-Darwinism also does not have a place for the recently established phenomena of epigenetic inheritance or horizontal gene transfer.
* * *
One day in the Biomedical Library at Penn, I looked up a paper by one of the most respected theorists in evolutionary science, John Maynard Smith. The title of the paper was “Group Selection.” Perhaps Maynard Smith’s writing was more lucid than I had encountered before, or perhaps I was finally paying attention and giving the authorities their due. In one of those moments when the vase becomes two faces, I understood why the best theorists in the field had rejected the idea that natural selection could act on groups.
Evolutionary novelty depends on mutations that arise by chance. The mutation appears first in a single individual, and from there, it either spreads through the population or dies like the proverbial flash in the pan. Suppose a mutation arises that is bad for the success of the individual but would ultimately be good for the community if everyone should adopt the trait. A tendency toward cooperation is a good example. It does nothing for the individual and in fact will probably put the individual at a disadvantage if she is the only one cooperating while everyone else is taking advantage of her help but offering nothing in return. Of course, a cooperating community can be vastly more effective at group tasks than a community in which every individual is for himself alone. But how do we get there? The gene for cooperation started out in just one individual, and there is no reason to suppose it can spread to dominate the group. In fact, natural selection is working against it from the start. If such a gene can’t spread through the group—an uphill battle—then we’ll never find out whether it benefits the group or not.
I understood for the first time why the experts were dubious about group selection. I remember feeling queasy in my stomach as I bicycled home from the library.
A Worthy Scientific Puzzle
So I was not to have an easy victory or even the smug satisfaction of knowing that I had seen in an instant what evolutionary experts failed to see. But over the ensuing days, I came to realize that what I had was a genuine conundrum, a worthy scientific puzzle. It was just as clear to me as ever that evolution had chosen to cut life spans short, had installed aging in the genomes of the great majority of animal species. But I now appreciated the paradox: aging is bad for the individual, good for the community. How did the genes that control aging manage to spread and take over any community, a prerequisite for their communal advantage to become effective? How has aging managed to persist in the genome when any rogue individual might mutate away his aging genes and become new ruler of the roost? This was a puzzle with which I might engage deeply and find challenge and satisfaction. With some luck, I would be able to transfer the skills in mathematical modeling that had been so useful in my physics career and apply them in a new area.
That same year, I came across a feature in the Tuesday “Science” section of The New York Times about a professor at Binghamton University who had devoted his career to the study of group selection. It began,
DAVID SLOAN WILSON was a newly minted Ph.D. in his early 20s when he went to visit one of evolutionary biology’s leading theorists and tried the intellectual equivalent of selling atheism to the Pope.
“I just walked into his office and said, ‘I’m going to convince you about group selection,’” Dr. Wilson recalls. He failed. His target, George C. Williams of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, had made his reputation by effectively wiping that very idea off the intellectual map only a few years before, in a 1966 book, Adaptation and Natural Selection.
I wrote to David, and he was gracious enough to invite me to drive up and spend an afternoon with him at Binghamton. In the ensuing months, we collaborated closely together, and it felt like a homecoming for me. Over time, he introduced me to the friendly, cooperative left wing of the community of evolutionary biologists—those who study and advocate the process of group selection. I had a fascinating problem to investigate. I had a mentor. And I had a foot in the door.
Copyright © 2016 by Josh Mitteldorf and Dorion SaganRomulo Avelica-Gonzalez’s arrest by ICE officers back in February drew national criticism.
The video of his arrest—while dropping his daughters off at school, with one daughter sobbing in the background as she watched her father get taken away—went viral.
“It makes me very sad to see how [my daughter] was suffering while I was arrested,” Avelica-Gonzalez says. His biggest fear was leaving his wife and family without financial support.
Avelica-Gonzalez was taken to the Adelanto Detention Facility in California and remained there for six months. The average stay at the detention center is about 30 days. Splinter interviewed him a day after his release.
“The first thing I did when I got out of the detention center...was to run and hug my family,” says Avelica-Gonzalez, who describes the detention center conditions as “hard.” He and his fellow inmates endured verbal abuse, and three people died there during a three-month stretch in 2017.
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Avelica-Gonzalez says he will continue working and “fighting this wave of discrimination against all Latinos.”
Before being released, Avelica-Gonzalez was given an ankle bracelet to track his whereabouts. He’s currently working with a lawyer to try and remain in the country legally.About the author
(NewsTarget) Mitsubishi Motor Company is continuing to refine its all-electric sub-compact car dubbed iMiev (Mitsubishi Innovative Electric Vehicle), and plans to begin sales to the general public in the latter half of 2009.This sub-compact car is about the size of a "light car" in Japan ("keijidousha") with an engine displacement of up to 660cc. It has seating for four, but in reality it's adequate for two medium-sized adults in the front seats and two small children, or better yet a few bags of groceries, in the back seat.Where you'd see the gasoline tank filler cap on an ordinary car, you find the outlet for charging the iMiev. It can be charged overnight from an ordinary home 100-volt outlet; if you have the electric company wire you up a 200-volt outlet (until now used mainly for large electric appliances like large air conditioners and electric ranges), the charging time of the iMiev is cut in half. Special quick-charge outlets at gasoline stations, where you could get about 80% charged in 20 minutes or so, are envisioned for the future. Mitsubishi says you can drive 160km (100 miles) on a full charge under optimal conditions.The iMiev produces no exhaust, and the overall greenhouse gas load produced from the electricity it uses is said to be well under a third of what a typical sub-compact gasoline car produces. The electric engine makes a barely audible whirring sound, so after you turn the key to start it, a chime lets you know that the engine is running and the car is ready to go.At the same time, a few prototypes are already running on the streets of Tokyo where the latest extreme testing is taking place. One involves driving through streets flooded 20 to 30 centimeters (8 to 12 inches) deep in order to see whether anything will go wrong with the all-electric vehicle. It's also being put through extreme cold temperature testing at minus 10 degrees Celsius (about 14 degrees Fahrenheit); the power of any battery is weakened by low temperatures, and especially starting at extremely cold temperatures seems to be a worry for the company.The best part is the cost of running the iMiev: the electricity it uses is estimated to be about one yen per kilometer. One hundred yen for 100km, or about $0.97 (yes, ninety-seven cents at the current exchange rate!) for 62 miles of running. Look at the newest gasoline sub-compact cars in Japan that get up to 50 miles per gallon of gasoline, and you can see that the comparison is mind-boggling (gasoline in Japan right now is "only" about $4.60 a gallon, because a special gasoline tax expired, but will rise again to about $5.50 a gallon when the ruling party holds a re-vote and reinstates the tax). And as the cost of gasoline continues to rise in the future, the difference will become even greater.Of course you can't pack up the family, the dog, and all the camping gear into the iMiev for a weekend getaway, but for a daily commute for one or two persons, or for everyday shopping and other errands, it might be ideal.How much will the iMiev cost? Nobody knows for sure yet, but the first two or three years will probably show a sticker price of around $25,000. That's more than most people are willing to pay for a small car. However, there are rumors that the Japanese government will subsidize 50% of the purchase cost because the vehicle is considered a "zero-emission" car; if this is true, Mitsubishi could see high sales right from the start.As Toyota has been the leader in hybrid technology in Japan, and has had the Prius, the first gasoline-electric hybrid car, on sale to the general public for ten years already, many Japanese are surprised that Mitsubishi will be the first company to sell an all-electric car.On a personal note, I recently gave up my car, which I didn't use so much because I work at home (actually "live at work" is more like it), and bought a bicycle, mainly to help stop polluting the Earth. I'm now enjoying savings of around $300 a month on various car taxes, insurance, parking fees, and gasoline, and am getting a lot more exercise and sunshine than before. If I find I really need a car for commuting in the future, a small all-electric car will be the first thing I'll consider buying.Sources:NHK TV News, Gifu local edition, 21 April 2008The Japan TimesJohn H. Cole has been editing medical manuscripts for publication in mainstream U.S. and European medical journals for the past 15 years in Japan. He also has a small English school in Gifu City, Japan. He believes that natural foods, superfoods, herbs, exercise, sunshine, good sleep, and avoidance of pollution are the answers to most people's health problems. He is a friend of nature.Some global warming'skeptics' argue that the Earth's climate sensitivity is so low that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will result in a surface temperature change on the order of 1°C or less, and that therefore global warming is nothing to worry about. However, values this low are inconsistent with numerous studies using a wide variety of methods, including (i) paleoclimate data, (ii) recent empirical data, and (iii) generally accepted climate models.
Climate sensitivity describes how sensitive the global climate is to a change in the amount of energy reaching the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere (a.k.a. a radiative forcing). For example, we know that if the amount of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) in the Earth's atmosphere doubles from the pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to 560 ppmv, this will cause an energy imbalance by trapping more outgoing thermal radiation in the atmosphere, enough to directly warm the surface approximately 1.2°C. However, this doesn't account for feedbacks, for example ice melting and making the planet less reflective, and the warmer atmosphere holding more water vapor (another greenhouse gas).
Climate sensitivity is the amount the planet will warm when accounting for the various feedbacks affecting the global climate. The relevant formula is:
dT = λ*dF
Where 'dT' is the change in the Earth's average surface temperature, 'λ' is the climate sensitivity, usually with units in Kelvin or degrees Celsius per Watts per square meter (°C/[W m-2]), and 'dF' is the radiative forcing, which is discussed in further detail in the Advanced rebuttal to the 'CO 2 effect is weak' argument.
Climate sensitivity is not specific to CO 2
A common misconception is that the climate sensitivity and temperature change in response to increasing CO 2 differs from the sensitivity to other radiative forcings, such as a change in solar irradiance. This, however, is not the case. The surface temperature change is proportional to the sensitivity and radiative forcing (in W m-2), regardless of the source of the energy imbalance.
In other words, if you argue that the Earth has a low climate sensitivity to CO 2, you are also arguing for a low climate sensitivity to other influences such as solar irradiance, orbital changes, and volcanic emissions. Thus when arguing for low climate sensitivity, it becomes difficult to explain past climate changes. For example, between glacial and interglacial periods, the planet's average temperature changes on the order of 6°C (more like 8-10°C in the Antarctic). If the climate sensitivity is low, for example due to increasing low-lying cloud cover reflecting more sunlight as a response to global warming, then how can these large past climate changes be explained?
Figure 1: Antarctic temperature changes over the past 450,000 years as measured from ice coresThe Internet is filled with oddities and lost gems. We took a dive into YouTube and found that some of the most |
elemental forces, and have a traditional adult rite after which the young people are entitled to have their own guns that accompany them through life.
At the entrance of the mountain village, rows of villagers wearing silver jewelry and playing traditional musical instruments, greet visitors with rice wine in buffalo horns denoting auspiciousness. The Miao people fire their guns into the sky to welcome visitors from afar, just as the government uses a gun salute to welcome State guests.
The adult ceremony denotes Basha boys have entered adulthood and independence. On the day of the ceremony, the boys can invite their friends to hunt birds in the mountain or catch fish in the river. The more they catch, the more achievements they will have in their life. The birds and fish they catch form the main dish of their ceremonial meal. They drink rice wine, sing ancient Miao songs and perform traditional dances in a carnival atmosphere, after which the tribe's wizard or chief cuts their hair with a sickle, transforming them into "independent household owners". They can then carry the gun their father has made for them to hunt in the mountains and earn their own living and start a family.
The tribal chief cuts off all the boys' hair except for an area on top that is later worn in a bun as an indicator of adulthood, and this hairstyle is kept throughout their life. It is said to be the oldest male hairstyle still seen in China today. Some anthropologists call it the hairstyle of a "living terracotta warrior."
Basha men wear a broadsword on the left of their waist and ox horn powder peg and calabash polished with iron sand on the right, as well as lucky belts on the back of their waists, which are given by their lovers. The more lucky belts a man has, the more female pursuers he has.Chrysler is suddenly a contender in the hugely competitive midsize sedan segment, a market dominated by the likes of the Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Hyundai Sonata and Nissan Altima, to name a few.
The 2015 Chrysler 200 sedan isn’t perfect, but it’s a quantum leap forward in terms of style, refinement, and available features compared to the previous 200. In fact, the new base version of the 200 is even slightly cheaper than the outgoing model (by all of $95 bucks).
Starting at $22,695, including destination charge, the Chrysler 200 is powered by a 2.4-liter 4-cylinder engine that delivers 184-horsepower and 173 lb.-ft. of torque to the front wheels.This powertrain delivers a highway fuel economy average of 36 mpg.
For buyers who want more power, there's an optional 3.6-liter V-6 that delivers 295-horsepower and 262 lb.-ft. of torque. An all-wheel-drive system is also available, but only with the punchier V-6 motor. A 200 with the V-6 and front-wheel-drive returns 32 mpg, while the same engine mated to all-wheel-drive dips to a 29 mpg highway average.
The 2015 Chrysler 200S loses the chrome exterior trim of the Limited model, and replaces it with sportier black-out trim around the front grille and headlights. (Chrysler)
All models include a 9-speed automatic transmission, which is controlled by a rotary knob on the lower half of the center console. Staying on the subject of interiors, the cabin of the new 200 happens to be one of this sedan’s best features.
The heavier you go with the options, the more bells and whistles (not to mention real wood trim and “bronze chrome” interior accents) get scattered around the interior. Yet even in base format, minus any fancy ventilated front seats or heated steering wheels, the Chrysler 200 cabin has a very attractive and robust look and feel to it.
The console is especially useful, with loads of cubby holes and storage space. At 5 feet 9 inches tall, I found the rear seat to be comfortable, though some rivals definitely offer more rear legroom. The trunk is not very deep, but offers 16 cu. ft. of space and a 60/40 folding rear seatback.
At the top of the Chrysler 200 range is the 200C, which carries a base price of $26,990. (Chrysler )
My first test car was a 200S AWD model, with the V-6 engine and all-wheel-drive hardware. With extras like 19-inch alloy wheels, navigation, rear back-up camera, upmarket sound system, remote start, and LED daytime running headlamps and fog lamps, amongst other options, the sticker price was $33,460.
The 200 really held its own over some surprisingly twisty and demanding roads outside Louisville, Kentucky, where Chrysler staged the driving event. Uncooperative weather didn’t help, though soggy roads didn’t rattle the composure of the suspension.
The steering was accurate but, like many vehicles in this segment, it isn’t overly communicative – I’ll get back to this point later. In terms of overall comfort and refinement, however, this Chrysler really shines.
After years in the midsize wilderness, Chrysler finally has a sedan to take on the best in the business thanks to the new 2015 200. (Chrysler) Styling is subjective, but we think the Chrysler 200 has some of the sharpest lines in the midsize sedan market. (Chrysler) The Chrysler 200 is available with a choice of two sunroofs, a standard version and optional dual-pane that covers both the front and rear seats. (Chrysler) The Chrysler 200 rides on the same platform that's used in everything from the Dodge Dart, to the new Jeep Cherokee. (Chrysler)
Now if only the 9-speed transmission lived up to its on-paper promise. A 6-speed automatic is normal in this segment, so I had high hopes for this gearbox. For the most part, it’s fine, and its operation fades into the background.
Yet when it gets confused, the transmission shifts abruptly or holds onto a gear way too long. I played with the steering wheel-mounted paddle-shifters, only to discover that ninth gear is virtually useless – power is non-existent, even the punchier V-6 engine is happier one or two gears lower.
For the afternoon drive, I switched to fully-loaded and 4-cylinder-powered 200C. There’s no getting around the fact the 184-hp inline-4 doesn’t have anywhere near the grunt of the V-6. Then again, without the added weight of the larger engine, along with the all-wheel-drive system, this front-wheel-drive 200 immediately felt lighter on its feet.
Chrysler expects up to 40-percent of 200 sedan buyers to opt for the Limited trim level, which starts at $24,250. (Chrysler)
The steering had a little more verve to it, and with less power on tap, the transmission didn’t hunt as much for the perfect gear.
Stuffed full of features, the 200C FWD model was priced at $31,460. That’s only $2-grand less than a V-6 and AWD version I’d driven in the morning.
This car included a laundry-list of options, however, including the larger alloys, upgraded seating, LED lighting, and 8.4-inch touchscreen with navigation found in the V-6 model. The Premium Group ($995) interior trim, featuring wood trim and bronze chrome accents, is quite classy too.
Some have criticized the 2015 Chrysler 200's exterior for looking similar to a typical Audi sedan (especially at the rear, and in the shape of the tail lights). We doubt Chrysler will mind that comparison. (Chrysler)
Electronic stability control and eight airbags are standard across the 200 lineup. Yet it’s the SafetyTec Package that stands out as an exceptional value.
Only available on the 200C trim level (which starts at $26,990), this includes adaptive cruise control, brake assist for emergency braking, blind spot and cross path detection, front collision warning, lane departure warning and lane keep assist, rain sensing wipers, along with parallel park and perpendicular park assist.
That is an absolute hoard of safety content, all for an incredibly reasonable $1,295 – and the extra outlay needed for the 200C model, of course.
The Chrysler 200's optional Premium interior adds wood trim, ventilated seats, and bronze chrome accents. (Chrysler) The cabin of the 2015 Chrysler 200S is a classy and comfortable environment, with plenty of room for four adults. (Chrysler)
You don’t need to add more than $10,000 to the base price to enjoy the Chrysler 200. Pick and choose your options carefully, and you’ll still walk away with one very good midsize sedan.
It doesn’t rewrite the rulebook, but the Chrysler 200 thrusts the American automaker right back into the thick of the midsize sedan segment – and far higher towards the top-of-the-class than anyone, myself included, had expected.
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Welcome to the Daily Gossip: your daily stop-off to find out who in the world of music has been up to what.
Today’s top gossip:
Builders digging up the garden at John Lennon‘s former Weymouth home, Kenwood, have found a leather holdall containing what fans are saying is a long-lost stash of LSD. Lennon is said to have buried the stash – contained in a series of glass bottles – just before The Beatles‘ transcendental meditation trips to India in 1967, in a bid to renounce drugs. Upon returning from the country, Lennon reportedly changed his mind and set about recovering the holdall – but he was unable to find it. Despite the find, it’s unlikely that any proof of the drug will be confirmed, as only one bottle from the holdall remained intact and that had a cracked cork (The Sun).
From the papers:
Arctic Monkeys‘ Alex Turner and girlfriend Alexa Chung mooched around Coachella festival (various).
Amy Winehouse is officially back with Blake Fielder-Civil. The couple were pictured strolling hand-in-hand in London (The Sun).
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Mark Owen was seen out with his wife and child for the first time since news of his affairs broke (various).
The Kills‘ Jamie Hince took a series of photos of girlfriend Kate Moss wearing nothing but a German Kaiser helmet (The Sun).
Brian McFadden bought Stereophonics tickets in Sydney (Daily Star).
Check back tomorrow for the next Daily Gossip. E-mail your spots to news@nme.com.Despite investment from BSkyB and growth in number of sets, limited audience will actually watch in 3D, forecasts report
Despite the expectations generated by the huge success of the film Avatar and the tens of millions invested by companies such as BSkyB, 3D TV will "struggle" to take off and will not become part of mainstream viewing, according to a report.
Last year 125,000 UK households bought a 3D-ready TV set and almost 90% of them were "active" viewers of 3D shows, according to research from Informa Telecoms & Media.
Such a high adoption rate is likely to have buoyed broadcaster expectations in the future potential of 3D TV – particularly for BSkyB, which has pushed the technology hard.
In March the satellite broadcaster said it had shown more that 100 sporting events including golf's Ryder Cup, darts and the Champions League, as well as more eclectic fare such as Sir David Attenborough's award-winning Flying Monsters, and the final of talent contest Got To Dance.
But despite BSkyB's enthusiasm the report forecasts a patchy future for 3D TV.
While the number of households in the UK with 3D TV sets will climb to almost 11 million by 2016 – about a third of the total number of homes – only 42% are expected to actually use them to watch any 3D programming on a regular basis.
"3D TV has the backing of the major UK broadcasters like Sky and Virgin, and most recently the BBC," said Adam Thomas, senior analyst at IT&M. "However despite this public reaction has been mixed, due to both a lack of content and a simple failure of the public to engage."
BSkyB is far ahead of rivals in the 3D market. It launched Europe's first 3D TV channel in October, while Virgin Media has argued that the technology is likely to be of limited interest to customers, possibly as an on-demand offering only.
BSkyB has been providing the service free to Sky HD customers and IF&T says that 3D has been pushed as "the next big thing" in mainstream TV viewing and a "natural successor" to HD.
Sky has had huge success with HD with 3.7m customers, close to 40% of the satellite company's total customer base, signing up.
"Instead of a USP [unique selling point], 3D is now often marketed as just one of the set's benefits along with features such as internet-connection capability and LED backlighting," said Thomas.
However, if Sky can continue to dominate the 3D TV market then it will still be tapping significant revenues from the approximately 4.6m households expected to be "regular" viewers of 3D content in 2016.
Virgin offers 3D movies on demand to viewers with a compatible TV. The BBC is to make its first foray into 3D TV with its coverage of the men's and women's Wimbledon finals this year.
• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediatheguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".
• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/mediaguardian and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/mediaguardianSaidi Mwema, Inspector General of the Tanzanian Police Force, enters a medical tent and takes a seat. The nurse sat in front of him pulls out a needle and draws blood. Saidi is undertaking an HIV test in one of Africa's worst affected regions- by doing so he encourages another 118 of his rank, followed by some 9500 police offers and their families to undergo a test.
Tanzania's police force is more than twice as likely to have HIV/AIDS than the general population. As a study by Marie Stopes International (MSI), the leading organisation in family planning and reproductive health has revealed, this is likely to be linked to long periods away from their partners, contact with injured victims and the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS which prevents people from getting tested, and dealing with the disease.
Increasingly, development organisations are recognising the link between poor family planning provisions, the spread of HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health. The benefits of using family planning methods, to decrease unwanted pregnancies, are incontestable. Pregnancy-related health risks, infant mortality, the spread of HIV/AIDS to infants, unsafe abortions, teenage and youth pregnancies and the disempowerment of women to control their own bodies- are all directly linked to the lack of access to family planning methods.
The right to family planning, as identified and endorsed by the UN, includes access to contraception. There are 13 different forms of contraception, as identified by the World Health Organisation, and yet over 200 million couples in the developing world, who would like to be using family planning, are not.
Reasons behind these high levels are complex and interrelated, whilst also differing between regions and socio-economic status of those affected:
"The greatest obstacles to family planning are linked to the poor, the remote and the young. All of which centres to an extent around education" explains Michael Tirrell, spokesman at MSI.
Poverty, as a barrier to family planning is no more clearly identified than in the poorest areas of Africa. International Planned Parenthood Federation reports show little change since the mid-1990s as one in five women of childbearing age continue to have an unmet need for contraception. Figures for unmarried women, unable to access or use contraception are hazy- as little attention has been paid to this group. Nevertheless, as of 2008 reports show that an estimated 818 million women in developing countries want to avoid pregnancies.
Poverty creates practical barriers to family planning: healthcare costs money, but Michael also identifies socio-cultural factors:
"Unmarried people are often unwilling to discuss family planning and their reproductive needs with service providers, due to the common cultural attitude that unmarried people shouldn't, and so don't, have sex. This is not the case anywhere in the world, at any time in history."
Even if access to contraception is improved, without the necessary education into how to use it, it remains untouched. Confusion over contraceptive use, and what methods exist, is a world-wide problem, yet in underserved areas- this translates into myths and misconceptions:
"In Sierra Leone, there is one brand of condom which is offered for free, it comes in a white packet. Rumours, untruths and gossip have developed into the belief that this condom causes HIV/AIDS." Such rumours need dispelling, if change is to happen, he adds.
Although the majority of contraceptives are made for female use, family planning has to remain a concern and priority of both genders. Without male understanding of why family planning is intrinsic to the development of societies- then concerns over the status of a large family, coupled with concerns over side effects and changes to the body due to contraception- will prevail.
Political initiatives, entangled with socio-cultural beliefs, have a very real role in family planning. In the Philippines, where premarital sexual activity is increasing, there exists a complex political approach to family planning. The Arroyo government uses the national budget to provide modern natural family planning- approved by the Catholic Church but does not support 'artificial' contraception including the use of the pill, the injection, IUDs or condoms. Instead methods such as withdrawal and fertility awareness are advised- which are neither reliable nor do they protect from STIs.
The Philippines has also been negatively affected by the withdrawal of US funding to public contraceptive services, upon which the industry was greatly reliant. PhilHealth, the national health insurance programme which now exists covers very few methods: the tying of the fallopian tubes, vasectomy and the IUD. It is also made more available to the upper echelons of society, failing to address the link between poverty and poor family planning.
Although it is in the developing world that inadequate family planning has the worst affects. The failure to prioritise family planning, sexual and reproductive health in Western international development agendas is a failure to tackle poverty, and so a failure to tackle at least six of the Millennium Development Goals.
In the United States, 14 states allow some health care providers to refuse to provide services related to contraception, whilst 18 states allow some providers to refuse to provide sterilization services- reasons for refusal include religious objections. If the need isn't recognised as a real one in a home country, then it is unlikely that it will be budgeted for in international development.
By adopting a 'client-centred' approach through outreach teams in rural communities, inner city slums and with the underserved- alongside spreading knowledge and education across the West, MSI is working to improve access and understanding of family planning, to those who need it the most.
"We will travel in vans, on horses or motorbikes, to make sure our clients are at the forefront of our work" says Michael.
"It's important that development organisations don't just jump on a plane, deliver condoms and fly home again- it needs to be sustainable."
"Our work is staffed and run by local people, who work with respected members of the local community. It is invaluable to have a complete understanding of an area, before addressing cultural barriers to family planning."
This feature was written for the Guardian International Development Journalism competition before 13 June 2011.This is a guest post by cookbook author, professional model, and fashion editor Heather Green.
Colors have changed on the trees and even though my state can’t decide what climate to be, it’s definitely autumn. In the spirit of Halloween and the oncoming holiday/insanity season, I decided to cook up some seasonal dessert.
Note: As a rule, I don’t cook dessert. Not since I was twelve and baking cupcakes with my dad. For some reason, ever since I got back from Italy and started cooking more pasta and entrees than I ever had in my then twenty year life, I’ve burned practically everything with sugar that I put in the oven. I have an inkling that that may have had something to do with the oven at my first apartment being made circa 1955; still, my dessert-making ego was shattered for some time.
I’ve had a decent oven for years now, but it’s only been recently that I’ve had the nerve to cook anything but pizza in it. These came out great a few weeks ago, and I’m thinking about working up the courage to do it again. They were great out of the oven and don’t get hard and crusty as they cool—they remain chewy for some time. That’s mostly thanks to the flax seeds, but you can choose to go without and they still taste good!
Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 1/3 cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons molasses
1 cup canned pumpkin or cooked pureed pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon ground flax seeds
1 cup walnuts, finely chopped
½ cup raisins
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 350° F and lightly grease two baking sheets. Combine flour, oats, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a mixing bowl.
In another bowl, thoroughly mix sugar, oil, molasses, pumpkin puree, vanilla, and flax seeds. Add contents from other bowl into this one and fold. Fold in walnuts and raisins.
Use a tablespoon to size each cookie on the greased baking sheets, about an inch apart from one another (they don’t spread a whole lot, so you’ll have to flatten them into cookie shapes!).
Stick them in the oven for about 15 minutes, rotating the baking sheets for an even outcome. You’ll make about four dozen cookies.
After 15 minutes, remove them carefully from the oven and place them on a wire rack to cool. Grab a cup of milk and enjoy!
Heather is a freelance writer and the resident blogger for Gocollege.com, a free informational website offering tips and advice about colleges online.The Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro suffered from less than ideal disk read and write speeds despite having a Samsung PM961 SSD onboard. A BIOS update is now available that enables full x4 bandwidth on the NVMe SSD PCIe lanes, leading to increased read/write speeds.
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The Xiaomi Notebook Pro garnered a good review from us for its performance, battery life, and affordability. We also featured the notebook as one of our 10 best multimedia laptops to buy for the holidays. One of the most pertinent complaints with respect to the Mi Notebook Pro was the slow SSD speeds posted by the Samsung PM961 SSD. In our review of the Mi Notebook Pro, we found the read and write speeds of the SSD to be disappointing and definitely not of the PM961 class. Back then, Xiaomi seemed to have intentionally limited the SSD speeds to PCIe x2 instead of allowing the full PCIe x4 bandwidth leading to a lot of frustration among buyers. Now, the company seems to have heeded to the complaints and has released a BIOS fix to enable full PCIe x4 bandwidth on the NVMe SSD.
The BIOS fix was posted by a user on Xiaomi's Chinese bulletin board and it seems to have fixed the SSD speed issue with multiple users reporting positive results. After flashing the firmware, the SSD scores have seen an increase from 1.8 GBps read/1.2 GBps write to 3.2 GBps read/1.5 GBps write — inline with what is expected from the PM961.
The issue originally affected Mi Notebook Pro users running 0200 version of the BIOS. Newer Mi Notebooks will come factory installed with the 0401 version that already includes the above enhancements. Users on Xiaomi's bulletin board report that flashing the 0300 BIOS will reset the Intel Management Engine to its old version, thereby, affecting fingerprint logon in the process (the Trusted Platform Module 2 is integrated into the Intel ME rather than being a dedicated chip in the Mi Notebook). However, it is possible to get the Intel ME reconfigured post flashing the BIOS to 0300.
In case you own a Mi Notebook Pro with 0200 firmware, be sure to read the source link first for detailed instructions, especially the comment section, before attempting to flash the new BIOS. As always, flashing the BIOS carries a little risk and it helps to have data backed up and a full battery (or AC power) before attempting it.Brett Williams signed for Forest Green in January after his contract at Stevenage was terminated
Forest Green Rovers have the advantage in their National League play-off semi-final after a narrow, hard-fought victory in the first leg at Dover.
Brett Williams, who scored the only goal in Forest Green's win at Dover in their final match of the regular season on Saturday, curled the visitors ahead.
The hosts almost levelled late on when Stefan Payne struck narrowly wide.
Dover must now win Saturday's second leg at the New Lawn to reach 15 May's final at Wembley.
Grimsby host third-placed Braintree Town in the first leg of their semi-final on Thursday.
Forest Green, who sacked manager Ady Pennock just one week before their first leg to give the side the "best possible chance in the play-offs", according to chairman Dale Vince, are looking to reach the Football League for the first time in their history.
Caretaker boss Scott Bartlett has now led the Gloucestershire club to two victories in his two games in charge - both away to Dover - ending a seven-match winless run.
Rovers, who lost to Bristol Rovers in last season's semi-finals, had suffered an early blow when an injury to Marcus Kelly saw him replaced by Williams on 12 minutes.
But after the hosts twice failed to clear a right-wing cross into the box, substitute Williams had time to curl an exquisite effort into the top corner from the edge of the area.
Dover's best chances came just before half-time but Forest Green defenders Charlie Clough and Dale Bennett did well to block Ricky Miller and Payne efforts respectively.
The scoreline could have been better for the visitors - who completed an entire league season without failing to score away from home - but Elliot Frear volleyed over.
Forest Green Rovers caretaker boss Scott Bartlett told BBC Radio Gloucestershire: "There are no wild celebrations because we all know there are twists and turns in play-offs.
"I wanted to come here and win. We're in a great position. We need to prepare properly now for Saturday.
"I'm confident we'll actually get promoted. I've got to be, because it rubs off on the players. But they're confident as well."A television commercial for St-Hubert BBQ reinforces stereotypes of Quebec’s Chinese population, says Cathy Wong.
The ad entitled “Competition Crusher,” which is embedded below, shows a Chinese restauranteur upset about a special promotion at the Quebec restaurant chain. He tells his wife in Cantonese about how he just renovated his Chinese food restaurant and replaced the oven.
The ad irritates me because the storyline is based on a false competition between Chinese restaurants and local product. - Cathy Wong
He crushes a fortune cookie in anger, unveiling a message that reads, “For a limited time.”
Wong, a Plateau-Mont-Royal resident, sent a letter to the Quebec company saying as much and was on CBC Daybreak Thursday morning to talk about her position on the ad.
“The ad irritates me because the storyline is based on a false competition between Chinese restaurants and local product, and uses stereotypes from a minority group to brand St-Hubert’s products as cool and funny,” Wong told Daybreak host Mike Finnerty.
She said it raises ethical questions regarding members of a majority group in Quebec mocking minority groups and said the ad, while not racist, reinforced stereotypes that often portray Chinese people in Quebec as dépanneur and restaurant owners and little else.
Listen to the whole Daybreak interview here:
“It is not a negative stereotype, but because the fact that there are so [few] Chinese on TV and every time that they go on TV, we see them in cliché roles, and those stereotypes are extremely lazy or reductive and they’re repeated constantly,” Wong said.
“They’re so deeply rooted in popular culture that we actually use them as punchlines to sell, and that’s exactly what bothers me about this publicity,” she continued.
St-Hubert responds
The company declined requests for an interview from CBC News. However, it responded in a statement Wednesday that reads:
“We truly apologize if this television advertisement has offended or insulted you. At no time did we want to portray the Chinese community in a negative way, and we don't believe that we have done so. We simply wanted to show the impact that our new offer has on the competition. We chose a Chinese restaurant because there are hundreds in Quebec. This is not a question of stereotyping as it is in fact, a reality. Furthermore, the actors who played in the advertisement agreed to do so good-heartedly and knowingly, without ever feeling exploited, insulted or ridiculed. Thank you for your understanding and again, we are sorry you felt that this advertisement was demeaning to the Asian community.”
Wong said she’s disappointed that more Quebec companies and television programs don’t take the opportunity to think outside the box and cast Chinese people, and members of other ethnic and racial minorities, in more positive roles.
She said she was also disappointed by the people who criticized her online for expressing her feelings about the ad. She said the commercial may have been funnier had it been French-Canadians making fun of French-Canadians.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Canadian National Council and the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations are getting involved.
The two organizations plan to submit a formal complaint to St-Hubert together and are asking the company to pull the ad and issue a formal apology to Quebec’s Chinese community.Getty Images
49ers inside linebacker Patrick Willis was ruled out of Monday night’s game at St. Louis with a toe injury.
Rookie Chris Borland replaced Willis in the third quarter.
The nature and extent of Willis’ injury are not known. The 49ers were already without their other star inside linebacker, NaVorro Bowman, who is recovering from a knee injury suffered in the 2014 NFC Championship game.
A seven-time Pro Bowler, Willis has missed just six games in his first eight NFL seasons. He entered Monday night with 31 tackles in five games.
UPDATE 10:39 p.m. ET: The 49ers have announced Willis is out. ESPN had first announced Willis wasn’t returning for the second half.
UPDATE 11:15 p.m. ET: The injury appears to be to Willis’ left foot. According to the Sacramento Bee, Willis is sporting a walking boot on the foot.In the last post, we added another API method to query ticket blocks by respective events while extracting the availability of the tickets in the block. In this post we will take a step back from the back end and give our user interface an overhaul using CoffeeScript-driven React components, replacing our current reliance on server side templates.
As before, the source code for this tutorial series is available on github with the code specifically for this post here. Since the code builds on the previous post, you can grab the current state of the project (where the previous post finished) here.
Why client side rendered UI?
The Twirl template system included in Play is powerful, but it is not the only method to create a front end to our system. We already saw how to make basic UI changes with JavaScript in our first post, we will be expanding on that now.
One reason you may consider building a browser rendered front end is that decoupling the back end API from the user interface completely allows the front and back to grow and change at their own pace. By having a disconnected front end, you can have a totally different team (or totally different company) focused on each aspect of the system.
This is not to suggest that server-side templates should not be used, in fact there are a lot of cases where server-side templates may be preferable. Server-side templates are easier for SEO and accessibility. That said, we will continue using client side UI moving forward.
CoffeeScript
Out of the box, the Play framework supports several client side preprocessors including a CoffeeScript to JavaScript transpiler. Since CoffeeScript compiles to JavaScript, existing JavaScript libraries and utilities will easily interoperate with any code you may write. If you have not used CoffeeScript before, you may get the same initial feeling you had when you first started to learn Scala, there is generally a lot less cruft in the language.
To allow the asset compiler to find the CoffeeScript files, they need to be placed in the app/assets directory and have the.coffee extension.
There are some discussions on the internet about CoffeeScript popularity waning as ECMAScript version 6 supports several of the features that make CoffeeScript nice to work with. As there is no standard ES6 transpiler for sbt as of yet, although there are some experimental ones, we will continue working with CoffeeScript. I personally find the CoffeeScript code snippets shorter and easier to read.
React
The React framework will be used to generate the client side layout of our application. React was created at Facebook and has been growing in popularity. React allows for composable modules for the display of UI components that are responsible for their own state. It is a bit of a departure from the HTML + jQuery model of client side scripting we did in the first section, but React code tends to be easier to maintain, especially if you were not the original author.
React has a helper language named JSX, which allows for XML like entities embedded inside of your React code. This is to reduce boilerplate code in a JavaScript codebase. There are ways to make this work inside of CoffeeScript, but I have found there is less of a need for JSX, as the CoffeeScript code is terse to begin with.
A last dance with the templates
Before we can dive into client rendered UI, we need to prepare our templates. We will add support for RequireJS to manage our client side dependencies. If you have not used RequireJS before, it is a JavaScript library that allows for modularization of other JavaScript code, making it clear which dependencies exist in each module, while handling the retrieval of the other required scripts. The config driven nature of RequireJS can also be helpful when it comes to testing, as some modules may be mocked easily for tests.
Get Them There Dependencies
We have already identified we are going to need React and RequireJS. We will add these dependencies now. Open up build.sbt and update your library dependencies to include React and RequireJS. You can always check for the latest version of the libraries on webjars.org. Even if the version has changed, you are probably best off using the listed version for this tutorial, otherwise you risk the information and code in the post being obsolete and nonfunctional.
Note that we will also update jQuery to the latest current version at this time too. It is worth noting that we have been using the 2.x series of jQuery which does not support IE8 and below, if you are building a site that requires legacy browser support, you may prefer the 1.x branch currently at version 1.11.4.
libraryDependencies ++= Seq ( specs2 % Test, cache, ws, "org.webjars" % "jquery" % "2.1.4", "com.typesafe.play" %% "play-slick-evolutions" % "1.0.0", "com.h2database" % "h2" % "1.4.187", "com.typesafe.play" %% "play-slick" % "1.0.0", "org.webjars" % "requirejs" % "2.1.18", "org.webjars" % "react" % "0.13.3" )
Start by opening up app/views/main.scala.html and remove the links to jQuery and the stock hello.js script. Underneath the link to our jsRoutes from part one, we will add a script reference for RequireJS.
@helper. requireJs ( core = routes. Assets. at ( "lib/requirejs/require.js" ). url, module = routes. Assets. at ( "some_module" ). url )
The helper module loads the RequireJS library and initializes it with the indicated module. You can have a universal module for all configurations in one place, but it would be nice to be able to identify different modules based on the template referencing main.scala.html. We can do this by making the name of the module an argument to the main template.
@( title : String, requireJsModule : String )( content : Html ) @*... < snip >... *@ @helper. requireJs ( core = routes. Assets. at ( "lib/requirejs/require.js" ). url, module = routes. Assets. at ( s "js/$requireJsModule" ). url )
We can now open up app/views/index.html.scala and update the call to main() to reflect the new requirement. While we are in there, we will delete all of the logic from part 1. We have a div with an id of “mount”. This is where our react components will be generated.
@() @* This view uses a module named "index" for RequireJS *@ @main ( "Ticket Overlords", "index" ) { < div id = "mount" ></ div > }
It is convention to have the base file for RequireJS be main.js, but we are going to ignore convention for now. Create a file under app/assets/js named index.coffee.
If you are using eclipse, you may find it kicks you into an external editor, that is perfectly acceptable. Add the following to your index.coffee :
require. config shim : react : exports : 'React' paths : react : '../lib/react/react' jquery : '../lib/jquery/jquery'
If you load the application at http://localhost:9000/, you will see an empty page. If you inspect the page with your browser’s developer tools you will notice the empty “mount” div. Under the “sources” section of your browser development tools, you will also see the page loads |
upset.
Story continues
3. Byron Buxton, CF, Minnesota Twins, Double-A: Absent injuries, Buxton probably would be in the major leagues by now. Instead, he’s toiling two levels down, still hitting for power, still running, still with a great glove, still throwing lasers. The timetable, not the talent, changed. And even if he’s not the flavor of the moment, give it time. He’ll be so again soon enough.
4. Julio Urias, LHP, Los Angeles Dodgers, Double-A: It’s Urias’ third year in a full-season league, and he’s still the 10th-youngest player in all of the minors right now. Because of his age and performance, he is the best pitching prospect around, a combination of polish, performance and promise unmatched otherwise. Urias’ numbers are unfair for anyone and unbelievable for an 18-year-old: 2.48 ERA over 32 2/3 innings with 26 baserunners and 39 strikeouts. Urias, Seager and Joc Pederson arriving to the same team within a year or so doesn’t seem fair, and with Yadier Alvarez expected to sign with the Dodgers on July 2 and a monster international class joining him, the rich are only getting richer.
5. Alex Reyes, RHP, St. Louis, High-A: The breakout star of 2015 has 52 strikeouts in 32 1/3 innings and, better yet, is controlling his walks, issuing just one each in his last two starts. If Reyes develops even a modicum of control, he’s got No. 1-starter upside, with a fastball that sits in the 100-mph range. One scout has his doubts. “I think he ends up a closer,” he said.
6. Jeff Hoffman, RHP, Toronto, High-A: Hoffman still hasn’t thrown a pitch in an official game. He’s set to debut May 20 in his first appearance since Tommy John surgery last year at East Carolina. Still, one scout said, “The buzz is insane.” There are the reports of Hoffman hitting 99 mph in side sessions and this video of his curveball, which was immediately banned in 31 states and Puerto Rico.
7. Blake Snell, LHP, Tampa Bay, Double-A: One of these days, he is going to give up a run, and that will be all well and good. Starting a season with 40 consecutive scoreless innings, as Snell has, gives the ERA a decent-enough cushion. The 22-year-old Snell is perhaps the best hope for one of the Rays’ 10 first-round picks in 2011 to pan out. Tampa Bay almost always takes prospects slowly, especially pitchers, and Snell, in his fifth year of professional baseball, is no exception. He still needs to work on his command, but the stuff will play, especially for a lefty, and with Drew Smyly and Alex Cobb out for an extended period, Snell should get a call sometime next year.
Steve Matz (AP)
8. Steve Matz, LHP, New York Mets, Triple-A: “I like him better than Syndergaard,” one scout said, comparing Matz to Noah Syndergaard, the Mets’ farmhand making his major-league debut Tuesday. Drafted in 2009, Matz didn’t pitch regularly until the 2013 season due to injuries. Now, he gives an already deep Mets starting cache even more firepower. Said another scout: “Matz is a No. 2 for me.”
9. Rafael Devers, 3B, Boston, Low-A: One of the nine players younger than Urias, the 18-year-old Devers continues to floor scouts with his pure hitting ability. “Might be the best DR bat since [Robinson] Cano, with similar swing,” one scout said. “If I were to pick a future batting champ from the low minors, it’s him and it’s not close.” Devers may soon have some competition for best teenage hitter on his team. The Red Sox plan on Yoan Moncada playing with Devers in Greenville.
10. Trea Turner, SS, San Diego Padres/Washington Nationals, Double-A: His trade to Washington will be official in mid-June, ending the farce that has kept him with San Diego because players can’t be traded within a year of a team drafting them. Turner has been a pro, hitting.321/.398/.491 and playing passable-enough defense at shortstop that when Ian Desmond leaves this offseason, the Nationals will have a ready-made replacement.
11. Kyle Schwarber, C/OF, Chicago Cubs, Double-A: Catcher or outfielder? Catcher or outfielder? The answer, quite simply, is hitter. Schwarber is slashing through the minor leagues like he did last year, and the Cubs will keep riding his 1.000-plus OPS behind the plate even if the industry sees him roaming the outfield grass eventually. “If he’s a catcher three years into his career,” one scout said, “I’ll eat this phone I’m talking into.”
12. Billy McKinney, OF, Chicago Cubs, High-A: Hell of a throw-in. The second piece along with Addison Russell in last summer’s Jeff Samardzija/Jason Hammel trade gives the Cubs another outfield option – or some elite trade bait. McKinney’s.340/.432/.544 is pretty. The best part: In a whiff-happy era, he actually has walked (17) more times than he has struck out (13) at High-A. Worth mentioning that Dan Vogelbach, the professional DH for a team that doesn’t need one, has put up almost identical numbers to McKinney’s:.333/.432/.552 at AA.
13. Daniel Mengden, RHP, Houston, Low-A: Sleeper alert. While Mengden is old for the Midwest League at 22, one scout said the stuff is legit: fastball topping out at 94 with a plus changeup for the Quad Cities River Bandits, who have won 12 in a row. Mengden is part of the Astros’ maligned 2014 draft, and even though the Brady Aiken debacle unfolded, they could easily salvage it with him, outfielder Derek Fisher (.337/.422/.607 at Low-A) and A.J. Reed (.266/.388/.578) and J.D. Davis (.339/.390/.569) at High-A Lancaster.
14. Lance McCullers, RHP, Houston, Double-A: Another gem in the Astros’ organization. Big, strong, throws hard, strikes guys out (37 in 25 innings) and keeps getting better. The only question is starter or reliever and, like Schwarber, the Astros are going to keep him at the more valuable position until his performance forces otherwise.
15. Jon Gray, RHP, Colorado, Triple-A: Onto the ugly portion of the proceedings. “I’m not panicking,” Gray told the Denver Post, even though the No. 3 overall pick in 2013 – one slot behind Kris Bryant – sports an 8.16 ERA and is allowing nearly two baserunners an inning. His last two starts have been promising, if not dominant, and scouts are waiting to see the triple-digit fire that made him such a valuable commodity out of Oklahoma.
16. Alex Jackson, OF, Seattle, Low-A: Contact issues are haunting the No. 6 pick in last year’s draft, with 34 strikeouts in 104 at-bats. The good news: He’s 19 and has plenty of time to figure things out.
Trevor Story (AP)
17. Trevor Story, SS, Colorado, Double-A: Should Troy Tulowitzki go anywhere in a deal, his replacement is biding his time in the Eastern League, dropping a.361/.466/.639 line. The power is there – Story hit 18 home runs during his first full season in the South Atlantic League – and he has cut down on the strikeouts, though whiffing in 30 percent of his at-bats remains a monstrous red flag.
18. Peter O’Brien, OF/1B, Arizona, Triple-A: Evan Gattis 2.0. Older than preferred (O’Brien turns 25 in July). Stupid power (eight home runs and a.644 slugging percentage). Awful plate discipline (four walks against 25 strikeouts in 118 AB). Definitely not a catcher (the left- and right-field experiments aren’t going particularly well, either). The power will get him to the big leagues. The other stuff will help him stay.
19. Michael Conforto, LF, New York Mets, High-A: The Mets are taking their sweet time with last season’s first-round pick, and one scout wonders why. Conforto “could come quick,” he said, because the Florida State League is a “very tough place to put up numbers,” and that’s just what Conforto is doing:.281/.343/.461 with six home runs. How deep does the respect run for the 22-year-old? He’s already been intentionally walked a minor-league-leading five times.
20. Luis Ortiz and Ariel Jurado, RHP, Texas, Low-A: The Rangers are babying Ortiz, their first-round pick last year, while stretching out Jurado, who’s actually younger but in his third pro season. They’re different pitchers – Ortiz a power guy and Jurado more polish than stuff – but have combined for a pretty strikeout-to-walk differential: 48-to-7. As the Rangers know from the last two seasons, there’s never such a thing as too much pitching, even if it’s a long way from the major leagues.
21. Adam Plutko, Cleveland, RHP, Double-A: During the spring, one pitching evaluator said to keep an eye on Plutko, a 23-year-old taken in the 11th round out of UCLA in 2013. “Guys swing at his 88 like it’s 97,” he said. The lesson: Listen to people who know pitching. Because even though Plutko’s profile sounds ugly – right-hander who struggles to crack 90 – the stuff does play. His 31-to-3 strikeout-to-walk differential is among the best in the minors, and his 1.23 ERA ranks in the top 10. Another Indians starter to watch: right-hander Cody Anderson. “Might be the biggest surprise of the year,” one scout said of the 14th-round pick from 2011 in his second go-around at Double-A.
22. Sean Newcomb, LHP, Los Angeles Angels, Low-A: Time for the 15th overall pick in last year’s draft to move up a level. He leads the minor leagues in strikeouts per nine at 11.8 because he’s far too good for the Midwest League.
23. Oliver Drake, RHP, Baltimore, Triple-A: Mitch Harris is in the big leagues already. How about another midshipman? Drake is in his eighth season with the Orioles’ organization and off to his best start, with 24 strikeouts in 14 2/3 innings. He broke out after a move to the bullpen in 2013 and could break with Baltimore in case of bullpen emergency.
24. Josh Ravin, RHP, Los Angeles Dodgers, Triple-A: As if the Dodgers need another power arm out of the bullpen. In his 10th minor league season, Ravin is almost sure to get a call to the major leagues at some point, with his high-90s fastball leading to 19 strikeouts in 10 1/3 innings.
25. Pedro Severino, C, Washington, Double-A: Sleeper alert. The bat is starting to play a little (.291/.333/.405) and the arm is deadly, with a 60 percent caught-stealing rate. Severino looks the part at 6-foot-2, 200 pounds. “The defense is near-elite and the body is athletic,” one scout said. “If he can keep making progress with the bat, he could be... legit.”
More MLB coverage:Image caption Tornado GR4s from RAF Lossiemouth took part in the Waddington air show
Two people have been picked up by helicopter after two RAF Tornado jets crashed in the Moray Firth.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the Tornado GR4s, which each have a crew of two, were from RAF Lossiemouth, on the Moray coast.
One of the aircraft had been seen in the water and the other was classed as "missing", the MoD added.
The search for two missing crew stopped for the night at 10:45 BST due to bad weather, and will resume on Wednesday.
An MoD spokesman said: "The intention is to go back up tomorrow when the weather clears."
The RNLI said Wick, Invergordon and Buckie lifeboats were used to search for the missing pair.
Aberdeen Coastguard was alerted to the incident at about 13:50.
An RAF helicopter picked up two people and flew them to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.
Image caption A search is taking place in the Moray Firth
The three lifeboats have been searching an area 25 miles (40km) south of Wick, in the Beatrice oil field, for the two crew who remain missing.
The field has an oil and gas platform and two experimental offshore wind turbines.
Lossiemouth's station commander, Gp Capt Ian Gale, said he could not give out any information at this stage on the condition of the two who were rescued.
He said: "It is with regret that I must confirm the loss of two Tornado GR4 aircraft from this station in an incident in the Moray Firth.
"The circumstances remain uncertain, but clearly this is a very serious incident.
"The thoughts from everyone here is with the families and friends of those involved."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Group Captain Ian Gale: "It is with great regret that I must confirm the loss of two Tornado GR4 aircraft"
Scotland's first minister issued a statement following the crash.
Mr Salmond said: "This is clearly a very serious incident and my thoughts are with the loved ones of those affected.
"I understand rescue services have done all they can to help with the situation and offer my thanks to all those involved."
There have been previous accidents involving RAF Tornado aircraft.
In January 2011, an uncontrollable engine fire caused a Tornado GR4 to crash into the sea off north west Scotland.
The aircraft - based at RAF Lossiemouth - suffered a problem in its right engine while on a training mission.
The crew in that incident managed to eject to safety and were treated in hospital in Inverness.
Tornado incidents 2011 - A Tornado crashed into the sea off Gairloch, in the Highlands, and another had landing problems at RAF Lossiemouth, in Moray. Crews ejected safely in both incidents
2010 - Tornados travelling at more than 500mph (800km/h) narrowly missed each other over the Scottish Borders. Two jets also avoided crashing head-on over Lochaber
2009 - Two crew were killed when their Tornado F3 crashed into a hillside near Arrochar, Argyll
An RAF board of inquiry investigation said they had acted calmly and professionally.
The following month, a Tornado crew was forced to eject after experiencing problems landing at RAF Lossiemouth.
They were taken to hospital, but were not thought to have been seriously injured.
Developed in the 1960s and 1970s, the Tornado jet has seen decades of service with the RAF.
The jet has undergone several upgrades.
The aircraft were flown in action during operations in Libya last year.
Tornado crews fly out of Lossiemouth on hundreds of training sorties every year.Kevin Wimmer was thrilled to be involved in a Premier League title chase during his first season in English football.
The 23-year-old centre-half joined us from German side 1. FC Köln last summer and played 21 times in all competitions, including a crucial 10-game spell in the Premier League between January and the start of April that saw us put real pressure on eventual champions Leicester City at the top of the table.
Ultimately we ended up slipping to third place but Kevin, who is gearing up for this summer’s Euro 2016 finals with Austria, is already licking his lips at the prospect of what’s to come in 2016-17 after such an enthralling campaign.
“It’s true, when you think now that we nearly won the title, for me personally in my first year in England, it’s unbelievable,” he said.
“I knew Tottenham Hotspur as a club that fights for the top four – this was also our target this season and we did well. Then we also had the chance to win the title – in the end we were very close but I think we’ll just get stronger out of this and hopefully next season we can do a little bit better.
“When I arrived here last summer I felt very good and very comfortable. I was welcomed by everybody, by the players and the staff as well. I felt very good from the beginning and I think we have done very well this season. I’ve enjoyed it a lot here and I’m already looking forward to next year.”
Frequently operating alongside fellow new recruit Toby Alderweireld, Kevin also featured heavily in our run to the last 16 of the Europa League in 2015-16. He admitted the campaign was gruelling at times, but he believes the hard work will be worth it in the long-run.
“It started from the pre-season – it was very hard, very tough and maybe the first few games of the season were not that great but then we had a very good run,” he said, referring to our club record-setting 14-game unbeaten spell on the domestic scene.
“After that we played a lot of games but we played very well. Also I think we did well in the Europa League and I think overall we can be happy with most of our performances this season. It was a long season, a hard and very tough one, but we played well and we’re looking forward to next year now.”Source: Originally posted on 31 October 2017Source: Denfaminico Gamer
Interview with Makoto Shibata and Keiichiro Toyama (3/10/2016)
The accepted principles of game design don't apply to horror!? An interview discussing the peculiarities of horror with the developers of Zero and Siren, leading J horror games (Makoto Shibata x Keiichiro Toyama)
Within Japan's entertainment industry, the most successful genre worldwide has been horror movies.
Famous horror films with which Japanese people are very familiar, such as Ring and Juon, actually receive high praise overseas, too, as part of their own unique genre of "Japanese horror". For example, The Juon, which became number one in terms of attendance two weeks after opening nationwide across America, was the first film by a Japanese director to surpass $100 million at the box office, and that record still stands to this day.
On the other hand, what about games? Horror games are of course said to have been pioneered by foreign computer games, but it is without a doubt that Japanese game creators of the 90s paved the way for this epoch. Among these is the global hit Biohazard, released by Capcom in 1996, which opened up the possibilities of horror in a game.
Since then, beginning with Silent Hill - turned into a film which garnered many Western fans - Clock Tower, and Corpse Party, made using RPG Maker, Japanese-made games have steadily gained fans overseas, too. Nonetheless, horror is still clearly a peculiar genre of game. It is a fact that it has been treated as somewhat of a niche.
However, looking around us now in 2016, perhaps horror games have made a big mark on the world. For starters, there has been an increase in the number of particularly zombie-focused horror games amongst worldwide hit tittles and indie games overseas. We also cannot overlook games such as The Last of Us, which have skilfully used elements of zombie games to move gamers with deep, Hollywood movie-like human drama.
When talking about Japan, the most remarkable thing must be the influence of let's plays. This genre, once part of the underground of entertainment within such realms as internet radio, was brought to prominence and achieved its peculiar sense of popularity alongside let's plays of free horror games such as Ao Oni and Ib.
For today's Game no Kikakusho, we spoke with Keiichiro Toyama, developer of Silent Hill and Siren, and Makoto Shibata, developer of the Zero series, which received high praise from horror fans and also became popular let's play choices. We asked them about the unique world of horror games, a genre which rarely conforms to the standards of normal games. Despite being quite different from the usual Game no Kikakusho, we hope that people who would not usually describe themselves as horror fans will also experience this unique world.
What is the definition of 'horror'?
―For today's discussion, I'd like to hear about the horror game genre, which is unique in many ways, as people who have actually worked on them. I think, though, that the horror genre itself is a very special genre, not limited only to games.
Keiichiro Toyama (below, Toyama): The first tricky thing is just what constitutes a horror work. Even if you don't explicitly call something horror, there are things that are really scary. It's also really vague in terms of distinguishing it from mystery as a genre, and you can't just say that "it's horror if there's a murderer".
Makoto Shibata (below, Shibata): For example, Alien※ is first contact sci-fi, but there are people who think it's a horror. If you're going to classify that sort of story composition as a horror, then it would be bloodsucker horror. Once night falls, people are killed one by one... something like that.
※Alien
An American film released in 1979. It is a sci-fi classic, set in the gloomy, closed-off environment of a large spaceship, portraying the terror of the crew as they are attacked one by one by an alien. The characteristic shape of the alien, said to have been modelled after male genitalia by H. R. Giger, drastically changed the image conjured up by the word "alien" after the film's release. The series' protagonist, Ellen Ripley, has garnered popularity as a fighting woman in Hollywood movies.
―Alien is supposed to be sci-fi, but some things that occur mean that it always appears on lists of horror movie staples.
Toyama: Which is why it's not as simple as saying, "It's horror if you have this gimmick." If anything, the only way to differentiate might be how conscious the creators are of the context within which horror is set up.
Shibata: Their consciousness of the horror genre?
Toyama: The genre... or maybe I should say the way they handle unrealistic things. For example, in Stephen King※ you've got homages to horror works he's experienced, and Ring is based on traditional Japanese ghost stories. We think about past works like this in the context of horror... But being asked up-front whether a sci-fi film like Alien is a horror film is tricky. A lot of things deal with aliens in a way that resembles horror.
Well, I tried to come up with something since you asked (laughs), but that's about it. One of the marks of a horror-lover is looking back on history. Unlike with action movies, if someone recommends a series to them they'll start watching from the very first one, rather than the newest release or a remake.
※Stephen King
An American horror author born in 1947. He became known as the standard-bearer of modern horror, setting itself apart from traditional horror, with his portrayal of the fear lurking within everyday American life. He is the most important person in modern horror, who has turned out such huge bestsellers and film adaptations as The Shining and The Green Mile.
Shibata: I understand that. When someone recommends something to me, whether it be a film or a game, I faithfully go off and buy it up on Amazon no matter how old it is. It doesn't matter that filming techniques and CG are better these days.
Toyama: That's not what horror fans are after, though, is it? If you ask them for a recommendation, they'll casually recommend you a film from the 70s. I heard recently that Siren on the PlayStation 2 (below, PS2) was still in print up until very recently (laughs). They've stopped it now, though, because it's on Game Archives.
All: (in surprise) What!?
Toyama: It looks like Rule of Rose※ is still in print, too. Horror fans really will buy something once they hear about it with no regard for current trends.
※Rule of Rose
A psycho mystery adventure released for the PlayStation 2 by SCE in 2006. It became very popular for its unique worldview.
―...Hmm. Saying that makes horror maniacs sound like a very unique bunch. Actually, even with horror games it might be less about horror as a genre and more like an assembly of people obsessed with the pleasure of being scared around the world of the horror genre, and they just so happen to have games as their medium. Do you have a strong sense of camaraderie as creators of horror games who work within the same genre?
Shibata: It may not be kabuki or something like that, but it's a category that's gradually turning into a sort of traditional entertainment (wry smile). I don't know about consciousness of it as a genre, though. Of course, it's a genre containing things like Biohazard (below, Bio) which everyone is aware of that are making it huge.
Toyama: Myself and other horror game creators get together for drinks and things like that. We have people coming like Twilight Syndrome's Goichi Suda※, Clock Tower's Hifumi Kono※, Akira Yamaoka※ and Masahiro Ito※ who do Silent Hill's music and art, and Siren's Naoko Sato※, who does the scenario.
※1. Goichi Suda
The CEO of Grasshopper Manufacture, born in 1968. He is a game designer, director and scenario writer. He has worked on games such as the Twilight Syndrome series and Killer7.
※2. Hifumi Kono
The representative director of Nude Maker, born in 1969. Famous works include Clock Tower.
※3. Akira Yamaoka
A composer, sound director and game designer born in 1968. He is primarily known for his work on the Silent Hill series' music.
※4. Masahiro Ito
An illustrator and designer born in 1972. He is in charge of scenery and creature designs for the Silent Hill series. His unique creature designs have many fans.
※5. Naoko Sato
The scenario writer for the Siren series. She is currently working on the scenario for the Gravity Daze series alongside Mr. Toyama.
―Quite the drinks party (laughs).
Shibata: Nanashi no Game's Takashi Tokita※ has come in the past, too. I've never drunk with Bio's Shinji Mikami, by the way.
※Takashi Tokita
A game creator born in 1966 who works for Square Enix. He has directed Chrono Trigger and done game design for Final Fantasy IV. More recently, he served as executive producer for Nanashi no Game.
Toyama: Huh, that's surprising. Well, Mikami isn't the type to go out much, but I do see him here and there. We have a game industry go kart-racing club where Mikami happened to show up and win, after which he went home without attending the party afterwards (laughs). Things like this happen.
―Just taking his prize and gallantly departing (laughs). Do you ever have earnest discussions about horror games in those kinds of situation, though?
Shibata: No, not really. Toyama never wanted to make horror games, after all. He says that he just ended up pulled into the J horror culture even though he had no intention of making one!
―Well... I mean, I don't see how that's possible with things like Silent Hill and Siren (laughs).
Toyama: Really; when we were making the games they were based around making something revolutionary and fun, and horror was just added as part of the scene setting. I guess it acts as a hook, or makes it sell better. It's easier to design the kind of games you want if they seem like they'll sell (laughs).
Shibata: See, this is how he is. I do develop games with the intention of making a horror game. What Toyama is after is actually different, which is why people say they turn into such scary games. When I hear people saying this I think, "Toyama is loved by horror, whereas I'm just somebody making horror-related content because I like it."
―I see. Mr. Toyama is a natural horror writer blessed by the divine, and you are a horror writer who loves horror and makes it as a theorist - is that the gist of it? (laughs)
What is horror?
―May I ask one more thing of you, who are such polar opposites? Why do people enjoy horror? There's something that seems a bit strange about the mentality of enjoying an unpleasant experience.
Toyama: Hmm... Sorry for such a vague answer, but I guess it feels good (laughs).
―I see.
Toyama: For example, I absolutely love scary stories you find online. I just love the chills they give me. I wonder if maybe this is a faculty from a time when people were monkeys, before we became human, that we're using in a way it wasn't intended for.
Shibata: A professor at Tokyo University said something like that in a Denfami feature, right? Humans feel discomfort in the face of a threat, but also a pleasantness.
―Yes. To explain it briefly for our readers, it appears as though the human brain secretes a substance that makes us feel good when we're in some kind of discomfort. According to evolutionary biology, this is because we need to suppress pain when fleeing from a threat. Training in this situation, much like those who are masochistic in B.D.S.M, causes pleasure to exceed the discomfort.
Toyama: Well, some kind of mistake might have made this happen to me, but it's clearly pleasurable. I can't even understand how there are people who don't enjoy horror (laughs).
Shibata: This is one way of thinking about it, but I think about it in a slightly different way.
I'm not a riaju, which might be why I think this way... but I think that at times when people are at rock bottom in a terrible mental state, coming into contact with something even worse makes them feel like they can finally breathe. Riaju having a good time want to have an even better time. When people are struggling and in mental pain, though, they want to learn of a world of even greater pain or be hurt by something, which somehow lets them be at peace for the first time.
I do think there are actually a lot of horror fans who look to horror for relief. This is one of the reasons why I myself continue to make traumatic games.
Toyama: You might be right. I think that one of the most striking traits of horror works is how fable-like they are...
―You mean that traits of stories like Aesop's Fables and fairytales can also be found in horror?
Toyama: Yes. Horror seems to be governed by the logic of necessity.
Nasty people will have a tragic end, and those you want to be saved will indeed be saved. In this way it resembles the world of fairytales, and that's why I think you feel like you've just read a fable when you finish watching horror, like you've received some kind of lesson in morality. The way it's expressed is more complicated than it is in fairytales, but I guess you could say that humans have very simple wishes at our cores... In any case, it acts as a good reliever of daily stresses.
Shibata: Basically like a couple getting it on being cut up by Jason※'s axe (laughs).
※Jason
A fictional person who appears in the Friday the 13th series of horror movies. One of the staple scenes is Jason showing up to kill a couple who are getting hot and heavy.
All: (laugh)
―Aside from karmic stories like the ones in fairytales, there is also a kind of irrational horror within the genre. I think these tend to show up in Japanese horror movies, where things are really unreasonable and awful things happen...
Toyama: It's not uncommon for things to have nothing at all to do with karma either, though. With none at all, it ends up like a David Lynch※ movie. Well, with things like Juon, it's not like the people living in the house did anything wrong...
Then let's just say that this is the fairytale element where bad things happen to unlucky people...! (laughs)
※David Lynch
An American film director, scriptwriter, producer, musician, artist and actor born in 1946. He likes to employ surrealist techniques, with enthusiastic fans of such fantastical films as Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive all over the world. One of his most famous works is Twin Peaks, a TV series for which a sequel was recently announced to be in development.
―Th... Hey (laughs).
Toyama: Fufufu. Jokes are definitely part of the essence of horror, though.
Specifically bringing up things you could never talk about in daily life like taboos and corruption that are suppressed gives you a feeling of liberation. It's like laughter. There's definitely a sense of pleasure to it, like an elementary school kid happily saying, "Poop, poop!"
―True; I do feel like comical scenes are a staple of splatter movies. I suppose that laughter and fear are very compatible.
Toyama: Yes. If you laughed at someone who died a tragic death in real life, you'd be treated like a madman by society. Within a fictional setting, however, you're allowed to laugh at a messed-up corpse. It's much like the way elementary school kids say, "Poop, poop!"
Shibata: To speak as a non-riaju again (laughs), I feel like the kind of people I mentioned before who are suffering mentally want to experience taboos and corruption as "beautiful things". I guess you could say that you can't be at ease unless you have that feeling of "poop, poop!" that lacks a sense of rawness.
Because of this, the ghosts in the Zero series don't bleed too much, and they aren't too corrupted... Not only that, but if humans are creatures that take discomfort as pleasure, death would be the ultimate pleasure. I wonder if this appearing as a vaguely recalled simulation might be a beautiful utopia.
―It doesn't seem like horrors with absolutely no element of death - whether it be vampires or zombies, aliens or mad scientists - are very common.
Shibata: When humans are on the verge of death, they want to shout, "I don't want to die!" and feel a range of "final emotions". This is a very important point of view in terms of the way I think about horror. I think people will have wildly varying answers with regards to this, though.
What are horror games?
―One last thing I want to ask before we get into talking about your own games is to do with when you think about "horror" as a game. Is there any kind of way of expression horror that's unique to games?
Toyama: Games have been good at depicting space since the rise of 3D, so I think there are times when just being in a place makes it into a horror.
―The first Bio did depict 3D spaces. Even though there were precursors such as Otogiriso※, true horror games didn't make their debut until after the release of the PlayStation.
※Otogiriso
A game released by Chunsoft in 1992. It was the game that established the genre known as "sound novel". It was also one of the pioneering horror games aimed at consumers before Bio.
Toyama: With horror in other media, you need to prepare in terms of the flow of the story. It's difficult using the text of a novel alone to make someone scared simply of being in a place, and films depict an axis of time, so you need a story.
Recently, though, it's true that the experience of a place has been progressing in novels, manga and films, and you can finally experience the fear of a space depending on the game. 3D was a particularly large part of this, and now you can directly express fear without it being directly set in a scary context, meaning that you can even find scenes in Minecraft※ frightening (laughs).
※Minecraft
A sandbox game released in 2011 by Notch (Markus Persson) and the staff of his company (Mojang AB). By placing blocks in midair or on the ground, you are able to freely create objects and buildings. Its popularity is not only limited to game-loving adults, but also extends to middle-schoolers and children all around the world. It is compatible with let's plays and mods, and is an important modern work on the forefront of pioneering the way we play games.
―In that sense, VR might represent that kind of evolution in the future.
Shibata: Yes. These days, you can create a horror game just by walking around in a scary place without even having fights with zombies or anything like that.
I'm expecting great things from VR myself. At least, if you go to something like VR Zone※ you can experience things like a fear of needles or heights which have been difficult to express in media up until this point.
※VR Zone
A limited time "experimental facility for virtual reality entertainment content" by Bandai Namco in Odaiba's Diver City. You can experience a variety of entertaining experiences using VR there between 15 April and 10 October 2016.
―That seems like a kind of fundamental fear using the senses which precedes any kind of context. By the way, Mr. Toyama, what was the first work where you felt the kind of fear that only a game can create?
Toyama: In terms of games that don't take place in a simulated space, the one that made the most intense impression on me as the player experiencing it has to be Otogiriso. I guess... you could call it the fear of not being able to see the bottom.
―Not being able to see the bottom?
Toyama: It's not in a neat package like a film or |
the adaptation of his compositions in the 1953 musical Kismet, by Robert Wright and George Forrest, notably in the songs "Stranger in Paradise" and "And This Is My Beloved". During 1954, Borodin was posthumously awarded a Tony Award for this show.
Borodin's music is full of romantic charm and enticing melody, and much of it also rings with the pageantry and landscape of old Russia; of onion-domed churches, richly decorated icons, and the vastness of the land. (Betty Fry)[This quote needs a citation]
Subsequent references [ edit ]
The Borodin Quartet was named in his honour.
The chemist Alexander Shulgin uses the name "Alexander Borodin" as a fictional persona in the books PiHKAL and TiHKAL.
and. In his book Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame (1974) Charles Bukowski wrote a poem about the life of Borodin entitled "the life of borodin".
Honours [ edit ]
On November 12, 2018, Google recognized him with a doodle.[29]
References [ edit ]The former Fox News host, who joined NBC's broadcast news division earlier this year, had hoped to land an interview with the Russian leader.
It's official: Megyn Kelly will interview Vladimir Putin one-on-one for the first episode of her Sunday night NBC series.
Kelly herself made the announcement on NBC's Today Thursday morning, reporting live from Russia.
Kelly is moderating the plenary session of an economic forum in St. Petersburg on Friday (June 2), where Putin will be one of the panelists, and her team had hoped to land a one-on-one interview with the Russian president.
On Thursday, Kelly announced that Putin had agreed to sit down with her at the end of the forum. The interview will air on the debut episode of her new newsmagazine show, Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly, which premieres on June 4 at 7 p.m. ET.
Kelly, who signed a multiplatform deal with NBC in January, leaving Fox News, will also host the 9 a.m. hour of Today, starting in September. Her appearance on Thursday's edition of the NBC morning show was her first since she started working for the network last month, which hosts Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie acknowledged in their introduction.
In her report, Kelly said the panel marked the first time Putin will take questions from an American journalist since a special counsel was appointed in the U.S. to look into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election. In her interview, Kelly indicated she'll ask the Russian president about possible meddling and the prospect of the U.S. and Russian working together.
Even before the interview was locked down a segment on Putin was expected to be a major part of the one-hour premiere, executive producer David Corvo told The Hollywood Reporter, with other segments devoted to interviews with Erin Andrews and author J.D. Vance.
Speaking with THR, Kelly was quick to deny the media rumors that she's angling for a spot on the 7-9 a.m. block of Today.
"I've had my own scrutiny in the press, but this is a weird new kind," Kelly said. "We all know the truth," she continues. "Savannah and Matt and I text each other and continue to — as these articles come out — and laugh. Savannah said to me early on, 'Welcome to the NFL. You've got to let it go.' And they're experts at it."
The news comes as Putin insisted, in a meeting with editors from international news agencies, that the Russian state has never engaged in hacking and dismissed allegations that hackers could influence the outcome of elections in the U.S. or Europe, the Associated Press reported.
Putin also indicated the U.S. focus on the possibility of Russian meddling in the 2016 election has made it "somewhat inconvenient [for the two countries] to work with one another or even to talk."
"It's having an impact, and I'm afraid this is one of the goals of those who organize it are pursuing and they can fine-tune the public sentiments to their liking trying to establish an atmosphere that is going to prevent us from addressing common issues, say with regard to terrorism," Putin said, according to the AP.
Still, Putin said he was encouraged by Trump's offer to improve relations, AP reports.
June 1, 7:30 a.m. This story has been updated with Putin dismissing allegations that Russian hackers could influence U.S. elections.WASHINGTON ― When Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, thought Hillary Clinton was going to be president, he could barely wait to start investigating.
“It’s a target-rich environment,” he said in late October. “Even before we get to Day One, we’ve got two years’ worth of material already lined up.”
But now that it’s President Donald Trump’s administration Chaffetz is charged with monitoring, he’s willing to sit back and wait.
“Give it a few days, for goodness sake!” Chaffetz told The Huffington Post this week. “All the flailing before he was even sworn in was a bit silly, if not purely immature.”
Chaffetz ― a fresh-faced, calmly spoken 49-year-old who was a placekicker for Brigham Young University in the late ‘80s ― was one of President Barack Obama’s most outspoken critics. He won the oversight committee’s chairmanship in late 2014 by promising aggressive investigations but also a more bipartisan approach than the deeply politicized style of his predecessor, Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).
Two years into his tenure as chairman, Chaffetz has proven he can work better with Democrats than Issa. But that is maybe the lowest standard of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill. And in the early stages of the Trump presidency, there are hardly any signs Chaffetz will work with Democrats to conduct any real oversight of Trump.
“Everything I’ve seen so far, doesn’t sound like he feels there is much to investigate,” the top Democrat on the oversight committee, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, told HuffPost this week.
“Before, he was saying he was waiting for him to get sworn in,” Cummings said. “He got sworn in. Then he said he was willing to give him a chance to get his cabinet set. So we’ll see.”
If the committee’s organizational meeting in late January was any indication, don’t expect much.
Democrats offered seven Trump-related amendments — covering issues ranging from the Trump Hotel lease with the General Services Administration to legal restraints on the president’s ability to issue executive orders ― to the committee’s oversight plan. Chaffetz and Republicans on the committee adopted zero of them.
Democrats insist it is not normal to have foreign interference in a presidential election, that Trump’s financial conflicts of interest are unprecedented, and that robust oversight is necessary when you have a president who seems intent on doing whatever he wants. They openly wonder how is it that the oversight committee has no current plans to investigate Trump.
Constituents are wondering too.
Chaffetz got thrashed Thursday night during a town hall meeting in his district. Voters quickly filled up a 1,000-person school auditorium, and police had to turn away more. The crowd went after him for traditional Republican positions like repealing Obamacare, but they also attacked him for not looking into Trump’s more questionable conflicts of interest. They chanted “Do your job!” and ended the night by screaming “Your last term!”
After Chaffetz was such an aggressive watchdog of Obama, and after he looked poised to attack Clinton at every turn, Chaffetz’s hands-off approach to Trump is smelling like hypocrisy. But that’s not how Chaffetz sees it.
“He’s days into his presidency,” Chaffetz told HuffPost. “I laid out an oversight plan that will lead to lots of investigations.”
Bloomberg via Getty Images
On Thursday, to his credit, Chaffetz did take a hard stance against the administration. Earlier in the day, Kellyanne Conway promoted Ivanka Trump’s clothing line during a morning Fox News hit from the White House. Later in the day, Chaffetz said the endorsement was “clearly over the line” and “unacceptable.” He and Cummings eventually sent a scolding letter referring Conway to the Office of Government Ethics for an investigation.
The other issue the media has given Chaffetz credit for looking into is the unprecedented situation with Trump Hotel, where Trump is both the tenant and now, technically, as the head of the federal government, the landlord. Trump is leasing the Historic Old Post Office from the government, and the contract clearly states that no elected official “shall be admitted to any share or part of this lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom.”
When HuffPost asked Chaffetz about the Trump Hotel lease in late November, he said the tenant-landlord situation was “true of every president,” pointing to payments the Secret Service makes when agents are housed on the property of their protectees. Chaffetz suggested he saw no difference between those situations and a contract explicitly prohibiting an elected official from being party to a $180 million lease.
But Chaffetz recently asked the GSA for an unredacted version of the contract, suggesting he might actually see a problem there, that maybe he’s interested in real oversight of Trump after all. Or maybe not.
“I wouldn’t term it an investigation,” Chaffetz said, “but I am curious as to what the GSA plans to do, if anything, about it.”
And if you didn’t think Chaffetz saw this as a minor issue that the GSA, not Trump, needed to resolve, he also said there was “probably an easy, simple remedy.”
“But I’d like to hear from them what they think that is,” he continued.
Democrats point out they have already sent GSA multiple letters asking for additional information about the Trump Hotel lease. If Chaffetz were really serious about aggressive oversight and working through this issue, they charge, why did he only ask for an unredacted version of the lease and not the other information committee members sought? Why aren’t lawmakers holding a hearing?
Part of the reason may be that Chaffetz believes the president, as Trump told the New York Times, can’t have conflicts of interest.
“The president is exempt from conflicts of interest,” Chaffetz said. “He is exempt. That’s the law. And Democrats are flailing and that’s about all they have at this point.”
A short report issued by the Congressional Research Service in late November concluded that, yes, presidents are not subject to the same rules on financial conflicts of interest as the rest of the executive branch. But that same report also said Trump is “potentially” subject to the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution, which prohibits officeholders from taking any gift from a foreign state.
Chaffetz, however, appears dead-set on not poking around into Trump’s finances. He notes he never did a personal investigation into Obama or Clinton ― that he only probed issues surrounding their government service ― and he doesn’t sound eager to go after Trump.
In fact, the person who Chaffetz has seemed to go after most aggressively this year is the director of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub. Chaffetz sent Shaub a stern letter accusing him of “blurring the line between public relations and official ethics guidance” when Shaub’s office tweeted about Trump’s potential conflicts of interest. Chaffetz demanded a meeting with Shaub, even threatening to subpoena him when a meeting did not work out. (Emails between Chaffetz’s office and OGE seemed to show that the botched sit-down was more Chaffetz’s fault than Shaub’s.)
In a scrum with reporters during the GOP retreat two weeks ago, Chaffetz downplayed his feud with the ethics chief. “I just think he stepped out of bounds a little bit,” he said. But he made it clear during that session with the press just how uninterested he is in investigating the president.
When he got a question about the White House demanding to review scientific reports before they are sent out publicly, Chaffetz dismissed the question by noting he had not heard about the issue. When he got a question about Trump using an unsecured phone, he said he didn’t know about that either, and he wondered what Obama had done. When a reporter answered that Obama had a secure BlackBerry, Chaffetz made a joke.
“BlackBerry? What’s that?” he said, moving on to the next question.
When another reporter asked about Trump’s insistence that there was massive-scale voter fraud, Chaffetz did say he saw no evidence of that, but he also added that Trump was free to use the Department of Justice to investigate. When a reporter asked whether that might be wasteful, and whether Chaffetz could do an investigation on that waste, he shrugged.
“I’ve kind of given you my position on it. It’s not something I’m pursuing,” he said.
On Tuesday, Trump summoned Chaffetz to the White House for a meeting. Chaffetz said he had no idea why Trump wanted to see him, but Chaffetz later reported that Trump made it clear he didn’t want to talk about oversight.
“Before my bum even hit the chair, the president said, ‘No oversight. You can’t talk about anything that has to do with oversight,’” Chaffetz said. Instead, they talked about Chaffetz’s reform agenda, including civil service reform and the Postal Service, an aide told HuffPost. But first, they began the meeting by discussing the Bears Ears Monument in Utah.
Over the objections of local politicians, Obama designated roughly 1.35 million acres in San Juan County, Utah, as a national monument. Chaffetz and the rest of the Utah congressional delegation want Trump to reverse that action, as locals worry that the designation might prevent them from collecting firewood or visiting sacred sites to perform religious ceremonies.
Trump could help Chaffetz by reversing Obama’s decision — and win a favor down the road. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with a member of Congress advocating for the interests of his state. But Trump’s transactional view of the world might present problems for the lawmakers who are supposed to keep him in check. And it’s just remarkable to see a relationship developing between Trump and Chaffetz, given where they were a few months ago.
On the day that a recording came out of Trump bragging he grabs women by their genitals and forcibly kisses them without their consent, Chaffetz was the first congressional Republican to say, “I’m out.”
“My wife and I,” Chaffetz told a local news station on Oct. 7, “we have a 15-year-old daughter, and if I can’t look her in the eye and tell her these things, I can’t endorse this person.”
He called Trump’s words on that “Access Hollywood” tape “some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine,” and he said he didn’t know who he’d vote for, only that it wouldn’t be Trump or Hillary Clinton.
That’s not the end of the story, though. Less than three weeks later, Chaffetz had a change of heart.
He tweeted that while he wouldn’t “defend or endorse” Trump, he would vote for him. He had apparently figured out how to look his daughter in the eye.
“I asked her who she’d vote for and she said Donald Trump,” Chaffetz told HuffPost this week.
He again reiterated that he saw a difference between endorsing someone and voting for them, and he expressed his relief that Clinton had lost.
“I’m just thrilled beyond anything that it’s not Hillary Clinton,” Chaffetz said. “I’m just thrilled that we’re not calling her President Clinton.”
Chaffetz punctuated that point on Inauguration Day, when he posted a picture on Instagram of he and Clinton shaking hands with a caption that read: “So pleased she is not the President. I thanked her for her service and wished her luck. The investigation continues.”
As much as Chaffetz clearly despises Clinton, some members of the House have a different theory on why Chaffetz re-endorsed Trump: They think he was angling to become speaker.
Had Clinton won, and had House Republicans taken the beating that many were predicting, conservatives were preparing to block Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) from another term in the speakership, with the idea that someone like Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) ― now Trump’s CIA director ― could take the job.
Another plausible contender for the job? Chaffetz.
The member who recounted the discussions to HuffPost in December was clear that Chaffetz was not involved in any of the coup planning before the election. But Chaffetz’s move to re-endorse Trump before November was seen by some members as political positioning. Chaffetz, they believed, had correctly calculated he could never become speaker if he had openly opposed the Republican nominee.
Chaffetz had, after all, run for speaker in October 2015, before Ryan got into the race, back when it was just Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) and heavy front-runner Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Chaffetz’s decision to run against McCarthy was a bit surprising to the majority leader. Chaffetz was the keynote speaker for his re-election kickoff less than five months earlier, and he considered Chaffetz a friend. But once Chaffetz was in the race, he was relentless, even suggesting that McCarthy was incompetent. He told Republicans they needed “a speaker who could speak.”
Chaffetz dropped out of the race once Ryan got in, but the whole episode illustrated his “Game of Thrones” view of politics.Sarah Palin loves American Sniper. She paid tribute to the Oscar-nominated film, while zinging Hollywood, in a Facebook post.
God bless our troops, especially our snipers.
Hollywood leftists: while caressing shiny plastic trophies you exchange among one another while spitting on the graves of freedom fighters who allow you to do what you do, just realize the rest of America knows you’re not fit to shine Chris Kyle’s combat boots.
May the epic “American Sniper” bring nothing but blessings to Taya and the children of this true American hero.
Thank you Bradley Cooper and Clint Eastwood for respecting the United States Military.
– Sarah Palin
The Clint Eastwood-directed film stars Bradley Cooper as Kyle, who was killed after returning from Iraq in early 2013 at a Texas shooting range by a former soldier with PTSD whom he was mentoring. The movie about his life scored Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screening Oscar nominations.When it comes to McDonald’s and the company’s innovations, perhaps no one deserves a mention more than the late Al Bernardin. During his decades-long associations with the fast food giant — sometimes as a corporate exec, sometimes as a franchise owner — he developed many of the items still on the menu today. He’s credited with the creating the Filet-o-Fish, pushing the company to add apple pies to the menu, and pioneering the switch from fresh french fries (which had to be cut on site) to frozen ones.
Most of those were team efforts, but one other innovation was almost entirely his. In 1971, while running one of his two franchises in Fremont, California, Bernardin postulated that some customers wanted more meat for their money. His idea: a burger with a hefty beef patty — 4 ounces (or 113 grams), pre-cooked, which was more than double the size typical McDonald’s beef patty at the time. (A current Mickey D’s burger patty is about 1.6 ounces, uncooked.) He called the burger the “Quarter Pounder” and the next year, McDonald’s corporate team added Bernardin’s creation to the national menu. It’s been a trademark product of the burger chain since.
And it’s seen some competition — with, in one case, comical results. Because of the customers.
In the 1980s, A&W Restaurants — a fast food chain with 1,200 stores currently — wanted to be part of this “bigger is better” burger movement. (As an aside: the restaurant chain was originally related to the root beer of the same name and branding, and still highlights the soft drinks on its menu, but is now owned by an entirely separate company.) So A&W introduced a competitor to the McDonald’s quarter-pound offering with something called the “Third Pounder,” featuring a third-pound of beef — an obviously superior product.
Except that the Third Pounder wasn’t so obviously superior. The New York Times explained:
With a third-pound of beef, the A&W burger had more meat than the Quarter Pounder; in taste tests, customers preferred A&W’s burger. And it was less expensive. A lavish A&W television and radio marketing campaign cited these benefits. Yet instead of leaping at the great value, customers snubbed it. Only when the company held customer focus groups did it become clear why. The Third Pounder presented the American public with a test in fractions. And we failed. Misunderstanding the value of one-third, customers believed they were being overcharged. Why, they asked the researchers, should they pay the same amount for a third of a pound of meat as they did for a quarter-pound of meat at McDonald’s. The “4” in “¼,” larger than the “3” in “⅓,” led them astray.
Unable to overcome customers’ inability to deal with elementary-school math, A&W changed its menu. The menu still offers a burger with a third of a pound of meat, but it’s called a “Papa Burger.”
Bonus Fact : In the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction, Vincent (played by John Travolta) tells Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) that in France, they don’t call the “Quarter Pounder with cheese” by that name, because, as Vincent points out, “they’ve got the metric system” and therefore “they wouldn’t know what the [expletive] a quarter pounder is.” Vincent then explains that instead, the French call the “Quarter Pounder” the “Royale with Cheese.” It makes sense — but according to Wikipedia, that’s incorrect. In France, per the omnibus online encyclopedia, a Quarter Pounder with cheese is a “Royal Cheese.”
From the Archives: McHotDogs: Why it’s so rare to find hot dogs on McDonald’s menus.
Related: A “McDonalds Quarter Pounder Changeables Tranformer Robot.” As of this writing, there’s only one left in stock, and if I can talk myself into it, there will be none left in stock by the time you read this.STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - House buyers in Sweden have never had it so good, at least by some measures. But cheap credit and spiraling prices may be creating a bubble - one that could send the country’s economy reeling when it bursts.
The Swedish national flag flies in front of a house near the town of Sodertalje, south west of Stockholm, Sweden, in this June 5, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton/Files
Sweden now has one of the fastest growth rates of any developed economy. Inflation is near zero and official interest rates are below zero. Home buyers can take advantage of interest-only loans and a variety of tax breaks.
On the other hand, consumer debt is about 175 percent of disposable income, one of the highest rates in Europe. Housing prices keep rising - apartments in Stockholm cost around $6,350 per square meter, on a par with London’s $6,750. Most Swedes would take a century to repay mortgages at current rates.
“The prices are just crazy,” said 37-year-old Cathrin Wentzel.
She was looking at a one-bedroom, 44-square-meter flat built in the 1930s in the chic Kungsholmen area of Stockholm. It featured a fireplace and balcony and had a view of the water. Asking price: 3.8 million crowns ($446,000). Wentzel reckoned she would need to offer at least 500,000 crowns more than that.
“I won an auction last week, but even though I offered 900,000 crowns more than the starting price, the seller withdrew the apartment,” said Wentzel, who runs her own marketing company. “They did not think the bid was enough.”
The Riksbank’s decision this week to keep rates lower for longer just extends a bonanza of cheap money that has fueled the real estate prices and borrowing. But the central bank is caught in a dilemma.
Leaving rates so low only encourages home buyers. But raising them enough to tamp down the housing frenzy would also slow an inflation rate that is already flirting with zero and has dipped into outright deflation.
The concern is that Sweden might end up with a local version of the 2008 financial crisis. Homeowners saddled with enormous mortgages might see the value of the homes plummet. They would cut back on spending, try to save more - and hobble the economy.
In the last few months, concerns about a bubble have reached a fever pitch as house prices shot up still further. A government failure to clamp down on lending criteria has fed a 20 percent annual rise in the cost of apartments.
Most bidding in Sweden for flats and houses is done by text messages. Potential buyers scurry off from office meetings or dinner parties to punch in their latest offer - often upping their bids by $10,000 to $20,000 a text. Mortgage borrowing grew at its fastest pace in more than 4 years in September
Even so, the Riksbank has slashed rates to record low -0.35 percent to rekindle inflation and may go even lower.
“We have scored an own goal of sorts in not dealing with the housing market properly in Sweden, and in the long term that threatens the economic development,” Riksbank Governor Stefan Ingves said.
BUBBLE, BUBBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE
Flush with borrowed money, buyers often snap up properties before public viewings, sometimes based only on photographs.
Some talk of being “addicted” to Hemnet, Sweden’s most popular online real estate site. They pore over adverts many times a day hoping to find the perfect home.
John Hassler, chairman of the Fiscal Policy Council, a government advisory body, used not to be worried about the housing market. Now he is.
“Accelerating, inexplicable price increases in combination with speculation in the market is a bad sign,” he said. “That is what makes me worried, which I wasn’t a few years ago.”
Not everyone sees a bubble forming. Skeptics say the market has been distorted by lack of building in past decades rather than too-easy credit.
Stockholm authorities estimate 16,000 homes must be built per year for the next decade to catch up with population growth. Half a million people are expected to move to the region by 2030 - not counting record numbers of asylum seekers.
At the same time, rising incomes and falling unemployment mean Swedes feel richer than ever.
“Even though apartment prices have gone up by 15 to 20 percent the last year, people can still afford it,” real estate agent Tommy Langsten said.
A heavily regulated market means a decades-long wait to get a rental flat in Stockholm, making buying the only option.
Reforms to reduce the risk of a bubble have been uneven. Until 2010, Swedes could borrow 100 percent of property purchase prices and some borrowed more to fund renovation. A new 85 percent limit is often bypassed by unsecured loans.
Four of 10 Swedes still do not pay off their loans at all, encouraged by tax breaks. The center-right, in power from 2006 to 2014, sold off public housing and abolished real estate taxes, helping to push up prices.
The Riksbank and retail banks have called for a reduction in mortgage tax breaks and other steps. But even small measures - such as a government proposal to tightening mortgage rules for new borrowers - has run into legal difficulties.
Buyers are ignoring talk of a bubble to grab a dream home before the window of opportunity closes.
“I talked with a real estate agent about that and he said it was just talk,” Wentzel said.This article is over 3 years old
Sheikh Ali Bin Jassim al-Thani was co-owner of a nursery in a Doha mall where the fire happened. Thirteen children died, including two-year-old triplets
A judge in Doha has dismissed convictions against several people, including a Qatari ambassador, for a 2012 shopping mall fire which left 19 dead, including 13 children.
Sheikh Ali Bin Jassim al-Thani, Qatar’s ambassador to Belgium, was among those acquitted of a charge of involuntary manslaughter by the Qatar Court of Appeal.
A Qatari government website also says Thani is the country’s “head of mission to the European Union”.
Thani was co-owner of the “Gympanzee” nursery at a well-known Doha shopping mall, the Villagio, where the fire happened in May 2012.
Many of the children suffocated after a blaze broke out at a nearby Nike sports store, caused by faulty wiring.
The victims included two-year-old triplets from New Zealand. Children from France, Spain and Japan also perished as did teachers from the Philippines and South Africa.
Thani was among four people appealing a 2013 involuntary manslaughter conviction imposed by a criminal court in Qatar.
That conviction left the four facing a maximum of six years in prison, according to Doha News, an English-language news website.
But in a five-hour long ruling on Monday, the convictions against the individuals were thrown out.
The judge did find the mall’s owners guilty of involuntary manslaughter, which means family victims of the tragedy could receive “blood money” as compensation.
Doha News reported that relatives of the victims stormed out of the court after hearing the verdict.
None of the accused were in court.
Monday’s verdict prompted a furious reaction on social media in Qatar, with one Twitter user, @MoeFahkro, posting: “Disappointed but not shocked. This is the state of our justice system. Incredibly sad.”
The blaze made headlines worldwide and had prompted the issue to be raised by New Zealand Prime Minister, John Ke,y when he met Qatar’s emir earlier this year, according to media reports.Mother Jones has released the full video of the private May 17 fundraiser where Mitt Romney made his now-infamous remarks suggesting that 47 percent" of Americans are freeloaders.
The Romney campaign is already reeling from the video, segments of which were posted by Mother Jones and other news sources Monday. In addition to the "47 percent remarks," the clips also featured Romney making unusually candidate remarks about foreign policy and campaign strategy.
Most of the video's inflammatory clips have already been posted, including Romney's unusually candid remarks on the Middle East peace process, and about his wife's role on the campaign.
But the full video does include some new gems that reveal a side of Romney not often seen on the campaign trail.
Here are the highlights:
Noting recent positive signs for his campaign, Romney tells donors that "women are open to supporting me," he tells the audience. But, he adds "we're having a much harder time with Hispanic voters."Donate
AlMasdarNews reports: Occupied with the battle for Mosul and solidifying the Raqqa fronts against a potential assault from the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Islamic State terror group has been relatively inactive in eastern Homs.
However, this would change when the notorious terrorist group would send a car bomb to target a Syrian Army patrol team on the outskirts of Qaryatayn, an ancient Assyrian desert town southwest of Palmyra, only to be prematurely destroyed before reaching the army checkpoint foiling a potential assault on the town which ISIS lost shortly after their symbolic defeat in Palmyra.
In a separate development, the Syrian Army destroyed four technical vehicles in the vicinity of the Mahr Oil Field. This area in northern Palmyra, often dubbed the Uqayribat bastion, contains a noteworthy ISIS presence that endangers many of the government-held supply routes that run through Syria. Notably, it makes any movement towards Raqqa -the self proclaimed caliphate’s capital, many times harder as witnessed by the failed early summer offensive on the Euphrates city from the direction of Ithriya.
Nevertheless, the eastern fronts of Palmyra had seen no rest as the SAA pushed two kilometers east of the Silos in order to widen the buffer zone around the city’s outskirts where the extremist group maintains dangerous proximity. Russian airstrikes continue to target terrorist movements spanning the Syrian desert as ISIS continues to reportedly shift its assets from its waning Iraqi territory into Syria where it still enjoys some leeway.
DonateScott Neuman
NPR
February 15, 2014
A quarter of Americans surveyed could not correctly answer that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around, according to a report out Friday from the National Science Foundation.
The survey of 2,200 people in the United States was conducted by the NSF in 2012 and released on Friday at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.
To the question “Does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth,” 26 percent of those surveyed answered incorrectly.
Full article here
This is for those Americans:
This article was posted: Saturday, February 15, 2014 at 9:46 am
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Comment on this articleABUJA (Reuters) - At least 21 people were killed when a suspected bomb tore through a crowded shopping district in the Nigerian capital Abuja during rush hour on Wednesday, police said, adding to the toll of thousands killed in attacks this year.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the blast and no one claimed responsibility. However, militant Islamist group Boko Haram has increasingly targeted civilians in its bloody five-year insurgency.
The suspected bomb would be Abuja’s third in three months and comes as the Nigerian government and military face rising public anger over their inability to protect citizens from daily gun and bomb attacks across Africa’s most populous country.
The explosion rocked a crowded district near the popular Banex Plaza shopping centre in the upscale Wuse 2 neighbourhood just before 4 p.m. (1500 GMT).
“After a preliminary investigation, we can confirm that 21 people were killed and 17 injured,” police spokesman Frank Mba told reporters at the scene, adding that one suspect had been arrested.
Another suspect was killed by soldiers as he tried to escape on a motorcycle, the spokesman for Nigeria’s National Information Centre said.
Witnesses said the blast shattered windows, sent smoke billowing into the air and carved out a large crater.
One local man, Shuaibu Baba, was in a shop making photocopies when the blast hit, killing his taxi driver who was waiting for him outside.
“I lost a driver. And why? Because I came to photocopy for 10 naira ($0.06) a page,” he said.
“I begged him to take me here and this is the end.”
Officials said the explosion hit while the district was at its busiest, packed with shoppers and rush-hour commuters.
“I heard a loud blast, it shattered the windows of the shop. We ran out. A lot of people ran too, some with bloodstains,” said Gimbya Jafaru, who was shopping nearby.
Policemen walk towards burnt vehicles at the scene of a blast at a business district in Abuja June 25, 2014. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde
DAILY ATTACKS
Nigeria has been racked by almost daily bomb and gun attacks, widely suspected to be the work of Boko Haram, a group that has killed thousands since 2009 in its drive to carve out an Islamist state in the north.
A separate blast rocked an area in the northeastern Adamawa state on Wednesday, but no one was injured, local police spokesman Othman Abubakar said.
Abuja has been a target for bombs. A suspected car bomb in May killed at least 15 and an attack on a bus station a month earlier at least 75.
Boko Haram, whose name roughly translates as “Western education is sinful”, initially attacked government and security targets, as well as churches and Muslim leaders who rejected its brand of Islam.
Recently it has begun targeting ordinary civilians more, apparently emboldened by the global publicity that followed its kidnapping of more than 200 girls from a school in the remote Borno village of Chibok in April.
Nigerian media reported this week that northeast Borno state had been hit by another mass abduction over the weekend. However, the government said on Wednesday it had found no proof of a fresh large-scale kidnapping.
Slideshow (7 Images)
“Based on available facts before us there was no abduction of 60 persons in Borno state,” the National Information Centre said in a statement.
Security forces launched an investigation after the reports that as many as 91 people had been kidnapped over the weekend when gunmen raided villages in Borno.Marc Stein breaks down which players could be traded before the deadline and if a blockbuster trade is in the works. (1:29)
February is almost here. The NBA's annual trade deadline is less than three weeks away.
Perfect timing, in other words, for an assemblage of the latest chatter from the personnel grapevine, culled from a number of well-placed insiders (executives, coaches, agents and players) around the league.
To the trade buzz...
• The Chicago Bulls' frontcourt logjam has been unjammed by injuries.
Editor's note Remember our encyclopedia-length Weekend Dimes back in the day? On Fridays, whenever the schedule allows, we like to try to recapture the spirit of the WD thing with a mini Son of Weekend Dime... because you know what nostalgic saps we are here at Stein Line Live.
First Joakim Noah was lost to a potentially season-ending shoulder separation. Now Nikola Mirotic is out until after the All-Star break thanks to emergency surgery this week to remove his appendix.
Those injuries, sources say, have greatly increased the likelihood that Taj Gibson will be staying put now, because Chicago suddenly doesn't need to make a trade to create more playing time for promising rookie Bobby Portis.
The reality is that rival executives have maintained for some time that the Bulls preferred to deal Noah, in the name of making sure they didn’t lose their longtime emotional spark without compensation as he completes the final year of his contract, rather than parting with Gibson.
As for Pau Gasol, sources say that the Bulls hope to re-sign their Gasol brother this offseason when Pau joins Noah in free agency. Questions about how Gasol fits in first-year coach Fred Hoiberg's offense have occasionally made the rounds lately because of the Bulls' up-and-down play, generating curiosity about whether the Spaniard might be made available, but he also happens to be the first player in league history at age 35 (or older) to be averaging at least 16 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks.
Gasol, of course, missed a starting spot in the All-Star Game by the infinitesimal margin of 360 votes... and ranks as the biggest snub in the East after the |
will use the apps for that purpose, rather than what they were put out there for.FBI Director James Comey has broken the sacred trust of the American people.
He conducted a faux investigation into the State Department email scandal in which dozens of confidential and top-secret emails passing through an unsecured, private server put our national security at risk.
He handed out immunity deals to most of the major players involved in the investigation. He ignored evidence to protect the Clinton Team from prosecution. He put President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton’s political legacy ahead of the law.
He made secret deals to destroy evidence, thwarting congressional subpoenas. That’s called obstruction of justice. It’s a crime. James Comey violated the law. He violated his oath of office. It’s corruption at the highest level.
Enough is enough.
The FBI Director’s job is to uphold the law, not break it. His job is to investigate crimes, not commit them. It’s time for the Obama Administration’s FBI Director James Comey to resign. If not, Congress should impeach him and remove him from office.
The Constitution is clear about impeachment.
Article I, Section 2 dictates, “The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment.” Article I, Section 3 further includes, “The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States: but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.”
Article II, Section 4 details who is subject to impeachment: “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
FBI Director James Comey is a civil officer of the United States subject to impeachment by Congress.
Here are the plain facts – if anyone else had done what the FBI did in this faux investigation, they would be subject to felony convictions and decades in prison. If that’s not high crimes and misdemeanors, I’m not sure what is.
Here are the facts:
On July 5, 2016 FBI Director Comey delivered a statement conceding that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had engaged in “extremely careless” behavior by transmitting classified information through her unsecured personal email system. The FBI’s investigation was initiated because of a referral from the Intelligence Community Inspector General. The FBI sought to determine whether there was evidence that classified information was improperly stored, transmitted, mishandled or, alternatively, whether such information was knowingly removed from appropriate systems or storage facilities. FBI Director Comey conceded that at least 100 emails in 52 email chains on Mrs. Clinton’s email system contained classified information at the time they were sent or received. After admitting that there is evidence that Mrs. Clinton and her aides were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information and after finding evidence that potential violations of the statutes regarding classified information occurred, Director Comey declined to make a criminal referral to the Department of Justice. He stated that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” Despite mountains of incriminating evidence, and despite the March 2015 issuance by Congress of a subpoena to Mrs. Clinton to produce documents, Director Comey stated that criminal charges could not be brought because the evidence failed to support an inference of intentional misconduct.
This is an outrage and the passage of time shows that the FBI and the Justice Department were actively complicit in ensuring that this investigation was never going anywhere. As it turns out, the FBI engaged in conduct that prevents Congress from exercising its constitutional duties.
It was a faux investigation from the very beginning. The relevant statute (18 U.S.C. 793(f)) does not have an intent requirement. That’s why the FBI never reviewed former Secretary of State Clinton’s sworn testimony to Congress despite the fact that any reasonable prosecutor knows that false testimony constitutes circumstantial evidence of intent.
After the New York Times reported in March 2015 that Secretary Clinton had a private email system, Clinton aide Cheryl Mills engaged in affirmative behavior that led to the destruction of relevant evidence. There was already a congressional subpoena outstanding relating to the Benghazi investigation, but that didn’t stop members of Clinton’s team from deleting emails from the server. We also know that other Clinton aides destroyed some mobile devices with hammers.
You can’t make this up. But every day, every hour, it seems we find out yet even more details that make this even worse. How could FBI Director James Comey have turned a blind eye to all of this? Because he was a part of the cover-up.
Now we know that the FBI signed secret side deals with Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson – the two lawyers in charge of sifting through Clinton’s emails – to not only give them immunity for their laptops, but to also destroy the laptops and evidence after the investigation concluded. But the investigation wasn’t even thorough BECAUSE they promised them they wouldn’t look at any data after January 31, 2015, meaning they wouldn’t look at anything after the news of the private email server became public.
So the FBI couldn’t have ever found any evidence about obstruction of justice or destruction of evidence. And now Congress can’t find it as part of its investigations – because the FBI destroyed the evidence as part of the immunity deal and side deal with Clinton aides.
The latest reports involve missing “bankers boxes” filled with former Secretary Clinton’s emails and evidence of tampering with those emails to try to change classification designations. Not surprisingly, one of the lawyers involved in this latest report was at the State Department during the email scandal and had previously served at the IRS during the Lois Lerner scandal.
And now there is evidence that the Obama White House coordinated with the Clinton campaign in early 2015 regarding how they would all handle any fallout from the revelations about former Secretary Clinton’s private email server.
This is not difficult. It’s clear that the FBI was compromised and more concerned with politics than following the law.
How else can you explain the FBI destroying evidence subject to congressional subpoenas? 18 U.S.C. § 1519 deals with the destruction of evidence:
Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
18 U.S.C. 1512(c) deals with obstruction of justice:
Whoever corruptly alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
It is clear that FBI Director Comey participated in actions that sabotaged both an ongoing Congressional investigation and an impartial criminal investigation into former Secretary of State Clinton’s use of an unsecured server to transmit classified information. Since the FBI actively participated in both the obstruction of justice and the destruction of evidence relating to a constitutionally recognized congressional subpoena, and since it is clear that every other American who engaged in such conduct would face criminal charges within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. section 1519 or 18 U.S.C. section 1512(c) for destroying evidence, impeding an ongoing investigation or impairing the integrity of an official proceeding, this leaves Congress with only one solemn alternative.
Congress should expeditiously consider bringing impeachment proceeding against Director Comey for his role in commencing and sabotaging this investigation. The American people must be assured that the system isn’t rigged.
Our senior litigation team is working with Congress, demanding the removal of Director Comey. We’ve already filed four federal lawsuits to hold the Obama Administration accountable for its lawlessness.
Defend the Constitution from corruption. Join us in demanding President Obama’s FBI Director resign or be impeached and sign our petition below today.And that is where the complexities arose that Judge Griesa seems not to have understood.
The order he issued earlier this year said that — assuming Argentina does not make good on the old bonds — it should not make interest payments on the exchange bonds, and banks should not help it do so. That sounded as if it covered all the exchange bonds, even those not issued under New York law.
But the opinion explaining the order discussed only the dollar bonds issued under New York law. It ignored the existence of other exchange bonds.
So did the ruling apply to those other exchange bonds, including those issued under Argentine law? Would a bank that processed interest payments on those bonds be in trouble with the judge?
Citibank’s Argentine branch, which is the trustee for bonds issued under Argentine law, some denominated in pesos and some in dollars, asked the judge for a clarification, and on June 27 he provided one. Citibank could process interest payments on those bonds. They were not covered by his order.
This week’s hearing was largely about changing that ruling, and the judge initially made it clear that he saw no reason for a change. He saw the bonds as domestic ones, owned by Argentine citizens. “From a practical, common-sense standpoint,” he asked a lawyer for the hedge funds who was trying to have the order modified, “why do they have to get dragged into this?”
It turned out that he did not know much about those Argentine-law bonds. He said his June order provided “a rather minute exception” to his original ruling, and told the hedge funds’ lawyer, Edward A. Friedman of Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman, “It is my understanding that the bonds being talked about in your motion are not part of the exchange.”
Told that the bonds in question were exchange bonds, and that they accounted for nearly a quarter of all the exchange bonds, he said he had not realized that and reversed course.BuzzFeed News / Facebook
David Cameron and three other leading members of the Remain and Leave campaigns took part in BuzzFeed News and Facebook's live EU referendum town hall event on Friday. The prime minister, Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon, armed forces minister Penny Mordaunt, and UKIP leader Nigel Farage answered readers' questions in a series of sessions streamed on BuzzFeed UK's Facebook page using Facebook Live.
BuzzFeed News / Facebook
Making his pitch for a Remain vote with less than a fortnight to go before the referendum, Cameron warned that the decision is "so important for our country – it's bigger than a general election".
BuzzFeed News / Facebook
But he said it was "absolutely right" to have held a referendum on the issue, because in the UK "the people are sovereign". The prime minister admitted it would be a "challenge but not impossible" to bring the Tories back together again in the aftermath of either a Remain or Leave vote, but that he didn't want the campaign to turn into the "Dave versus Boris show", referring to Leave's most-high profile campaigner Boris Johnson. "I think it’s very competitive out there," he told the audience. "It’s a huge debate, a lot of people making up their mind. I think people really haven’t decided." Watch the David Cameron town hall event in full:
The prime minister said that "even a flinty-hearted Conservative like me" was taken aback by the pacifying effect the EU had had on Europe when he met with the leaders of the other member states.
Quoting Winston Churchill, he said: "We may not be of Europe, but we’re with Europe."
BuzzFeed News / Facebook
Rejecting accusations Remain had presided over "Project Fear", Cameron said: "We are making legitimate points from independent forecasters about things that could happen if we leave."
It was enough to win over at least one voter for Remain, even though she said the Tories had "fucked everything".
Appearing before the prime minister, Farage said Labour votes would be key to the outcome of the referendum. Earlier in the day Labour MPs John Mann and Dennis Skinner announced they were voting for Brexit.
BuzzFeed News / Facebook
The UKIP leader said Jeremy Corbyn, campaigning for Remain, appeared “confused” about the EU.
“He gave the speech about how awful the EU is but we should stay part of it,” Farage said. “The polling shows a lot of Labour voters just don’t know what the party’s position on this referendum is.” Watch the Nigel Farage town hall event in full:
Farage said the EU as it currently stands is not about cooperation, but “assimilation”.
Predicting a domino effect if Britain votes to leave, Farage said: “I’m fighting for Brexit because I hope it leads to Denmark leaving, Austria leaving, Sweden leaving. I’d be very happy to be a true European and work in that structure.”
BuzzFeed News / Facebook
Farage, who during one exchange on students and universities described Europe as “dull”, was repeatedly asked whether UKIP has tarnished the Leave campaign, with accusations of xenophobia being levelled at the party's members.
Saying the only thing he was guilty of was forcing Cameron to have a referendum, Farage said: “We’ve been demonised by a media establishment scared of a different argument.”
BuzzFeed News / Facebook
Addressing a voter who said he wanted to vote Leave but was embarrassed to be on the same side as UKIP, Farage said: “Don’t be ashamed, be proud. You want your country back, you want democracy.”
Farage said he hoped Brexit would be an "amicable divorce". "The worst-case scenario is better and cheaper for us than the current and rotten deal we currently have," the UKIP leader said.
Answering questions from the live audience and those asked on Facebook, Sturgeon accepted that Scotland could keep England in the EU against its will, but also that the reverse was true.
BuzzFeed News / Facebook
She urged voters outside Scotland not to “cut off your nose to spite your face”. “Don’t take a decision on the future of the UK based on a gripe or grievance you have with Scotland, the SNP, or me," Sturgeon said. “I believe in the family of nations – I just believe we should be independent nations and cooperating on that basis. “I do care what happens in the rest of the UK, because it affects Scotland, and what happens in Scotland affects the rest of the UK.” Watch the Nicola Sturgeon town hall event in full:
She said Scotland and the UK is not the same as the UK and Europe.
“The EU is an organisation made up of independent member states. I would like Scotland to be one of those independent states.” Sturgeon refused to answer whether Cameron had run a good campaign, but did confirm that even in this context, she was not a unionist.
BuzzFeed News / Facebook
“I’m living proof that you don’t have to believe everything that comes out of the mouth of David Cameron or George Osborne,” Sturgeon said.
“I wouldn’t call myself a unionist, I’m a europhile, a proud Scot, and a proud European. “For a long time we’ve had these multiple identities most of us are quite comfortable with.”
Sturgeon asked if she'll be supporting England at the Euros? "I hope all the home nations will do really well." â½ï¸
BuzzFeed News / Facebook
She told the audience "none of us here have a veto on that, except in this referendum". "That’s the only chance we’ll have to have our say on this issue and many others. You and I do not have a veto; we only have our say in the referendum." Watch the Penny Mordaunt town hall event in full:
Mordaunt said there was a treaty provision to veto the accession of new members but the UK “cannot use it”.
“For many, many years we have been saying to Turkey we want it to join, and we have been making preparations for it to join," she said. "It’s a key NATO ally. To change your policy, to do a U-turn and say no, against the backdrop of the migrant crisis, that will not happen.”
BuzzFeed News / Facebook Penny Mordaunt (centre) with BuzzFeed UK presenters Emily Ashton and Jim Waterson.
Mordaunt answered questions on a range of topics, including security, sovereignty, the potential for an EU army, and the contested claim that Britain gives £350 million to the EU every week.
"The British public want sovereignty," she said. "So it is really important that we keep control of our armed forces." She added: "The problem with the EU is you can never really trust it. This is our opportunity to say we want to cooperate with Europe but we want to do it on our own terms."
BuzzFeed News / FacebookMany of President Donald Trump’s critics are grappling with the reality the U.S. government will actually build the much-ballyhooed border wall Trump had pledged to repeatedly during his campaign.
However, those critics are still arguing the money put toward the project would be a waste.
The main question now is how the government will pay for it, to which Trump had said throughout the 2016 presidential campaign that Mexico would be responsible for the project’s financing.
On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell estimated the cost would be between $12-15 billion. Similarly, House Speaker Paul Ryan had put the price tag at between $8-14 billion.
Assuming the cost is on the high end of those estimates at $15 billion, the total cost of the border wall would constitute nearly 0.4 percent of the federal government’s $3.8 trillion FY 2015 budget.
While there are many other big ticket items on the federal budget, many of them dwarf the cost of a U.S.-Mexico border wall. Here are a few:
1) The War on Poverty: On the 50th anniversary of the so-called War on Poverty in 2014, the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector estimated taxpayers have footed a $22 trillion bill for the effort.
As Rector also points out, however, is that in that 50-year timespan, the poverty rate was the same that was when President Lyndon B. Johnson began the “war on poverty.”
“The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its annual poverty report,” Rector wrote. “The report claims that in 2013, 14.5 percent of Americans were poor. Remarkably, that’s almost the same poverty rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty started.”
In case you were wondering, the cost of this ongoing war would be enough to foot the bill for 1,466 border walls.
2) The Lockheed Martin F-35 Stealth Fighter Jet Project: According to Reuters, the cost to build the fighter jet program is estimated to be $379 billion, which would be roughly the cost of 25 border walls.
Back in December in a tweet, Trump criticized the costs of the project, which have been plagued with problems and cost overruns, and said he was asking Lockheed Martin competitor Boeing to price out a similar project.
Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016
Early on, some anticipated that throughout the lifespan of the F-35, the federal government could spent up to $1 trillion overall in building the fighter jet and for its maintenance.
3) A Day and a Half of Running the Federal Government: The federal budget is currently around $3.8 trillion. If you take there are 365 days in a year, 24 hours in a day and 60 minutes in an hour, that comes to a total of 525,600 minutes per year. Divide that $3.8 trillion by 525,600 and you will find the U.S. government spends about $7.2 million per minute.
At $7.2 million per minute, that is $432 million per hour and nearly $10.4 billion a day. With the wall at a cost of $15 billion, that would be roughly a day and a half of operating the federal government as a whole.
4) Medicare, Medicaid Improper Payments: A 2015 Government Accountability Office report estimated in 2014 the federal government made $59.9 billion in improper Medicare payments and $17.5 billion in improper Medicaid payments for a grand total of $76.4 billion, or roughly the cost of five border walls.
That same report found that when the $76.4 billion figure was combined with 122 programs, including the EITC, that number in FY 2014 comes out to $124.7 billion in improper federal government payment, which was up from $105.8 billion a year earlier.
5) Maintenance of Vacant and Unused Properties: The federal government reportedly spent $25 billion annually in 2009 on maintaining vacant and unused building.
The figure was cited in a 2009 Heritage Foundation report, which was calculated by then-Senate Oversight Subcommittee chairman Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK):
Unused Federal Property: $25 billion wasted per year in unused federal property. (At $21 per square foot occupancy cost, 1.186 billion square feet of excess space)
Federal buildings worth tens of billions of dollars sit empty around the country. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has set a goal of reducing the inventory of all real property by 5%, or $15 billion, by 2009. Based on this goal, it appears that OMB considers this amount– at the very least—to be excess.
DoD spends $3-4Billion on maintenance of unused buildings each year.
The figures have been revised downward over the year, to $8 billion in 2013 and to $1.7 billion in 2016. However, the cumulative amount over the past decade would have been more than enough to finance a border wall.
6) The Littoral Combat Ship Program: The U.S. Navy’s controversial Littoral Combat Ship program comes in with a price tag of $29 billion.
The project, which includes ship prototypes built in Mobile, AL and Marinette, WI, has been fraught with problems and targeted for those problems and cost overruns on a bipartisan basis by the ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, chairman Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and ranking Democrat Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI).
“Until these actions are taken, we will have significant concerns about supporting the procurement of additional LCSs,” McCain and Reed wrote to Navy officials last fall in a letter according to Bloomberg News.
7) Earned Income Tax Credit Program Improper Payments: The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is regarded by its critics as nothing more than wealth transfer program that exists under the guise of eliminating poverty.
According to the Brookings and Urban Institutes’ Tax Policy Center, in 2015 the ETIC provided an estimated $69 billion in benefits to 28 million recipients.
However, as the Washington Examiner’s Byron York pointed out, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration stated, “The IRS estimates that 23.8 percent ($15.6 billion) of EITC payments were issued improperly in Fiscal Year 2015.”
Cost of building wall roughly equal to one year's worth of improper payments in Earned Income Tax Credit program. https://t.co/nvuIPnfwXH — Byron York (@ByronYork) January 26, 2017
At $15.6 billion, that is roughly the cost of the border wall.
8) U.S. Postal Service: Even though the postal service generates revenue by charging for certain services, it still loses money that is absorbed by the taxpayer.
The U.S. Postal Service has fallen on hard times given more efficient means of communication have replaced the need for the agency’s first-class mail.
For FY 2012 alone, the USPS lost $15.9 billion. Although they have shrunk over the last four years, the agency has continued to post losses, including $3.9 billion in 2013, $5.5 billion in 2014, $5.1 billion in 2015 and $5.6 billion in 2016 for a grand total of $36 billion since 2012.
The USPS also enjoys a federal government-imposed monopoly on access to mailboxes and is exempt from local regulations and taxes that its privatized competitors do not enjoy.
9) NASA: Even though the last U.S. manned space flight was in 2011, NASA still has an annual budget of $18.5 billion.
A sizable chunk of that budget is dedicated to the agency’s Earth sciences division estimated at $2 billion, which has been at the forefront of climate change research.
However, a recent Guardian article by Oliver Milman anticipates funding on climate change to stripped and rededicated to deep space exploration under President Trump.
For the time being, NASA has been reliant upon the Russians to send U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station, which came at a $457.9 million cost in 2014.
10) Farm Subsidies: According to Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute, the federal government through the Department of Agriculture spends at least $25 billion on farm subsidies.
“The particular amount each year depends on the market prices of crops and other factors,” Edwards wrote last October for DownsizingGovernment.org, a project of the Cato Institute. “Most agricultural subsidies go to farmers of a handful of major crops, including wheat, corn, soybeans, rice, and cotton. Roughly a million farmers and landowners receive federal subsidies, but the payments are heavily tilted toward the largest producers.”
To Edwards’ point, farm subsidies often go to those not necessarily of financial assistance from the government. Among those receiving those subsidies according to a 2015 Economist magazine piece are Walmart heirs Alice, Jim and Rob Walton, rockers Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen and CNN founder Ted Turner.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poorFox’s Peter Johnson, Jr., was wowed, just wowed on Fox & Friends this morning by a guest accusing the U.S. military of capitulating to jihadists for stopping an anti-Islamic extremist from teaching classes to military officers. Johnson was so enthralled by the accusation, he forgot to tell the “we report, you decide” network’s viewers the nature of the instructor's views. For example: calling Islam “a barbaric ideology” that “will no longer be tolerated,” and saying, “Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction.”
The discussion was about Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley’s threatened lawsuit against the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, for shutting down Dooley’s elective class to military officers and for being given a negative Office Evaluation Report. Johnson, a lawyer himself, announced that the military had refused to respond for the segment. Apparently, Johnson felt that his obligation to do any research ended there.
But a simple Google search would have told him – and possibly his viewers – that Dooley was promoting an extremist view of Islam and President Obama. As Danger Room recently reported:
The course instructed senior officers at the lieutenant colonel, commander, colonel and Navy captain level that “there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam,’” and that wartime protections against civilians of Islamic countries were “no longer relevant.” Materials distributed by Dooley’s guest lecturers suggested inaccurately that President Obama is a Muslim. Similar material taught to the FBI in 2011 compared Islam to the Death Star in Star Wars. Dooley himself taught, “Your oath as a professional soldier forces you to pick a side here.”
Instead, Johnson said Dooley “is in trouble for teaching about Islam and radical Islam” and accepted without question Dooley’s accusations against the military.
Dooley’s “cause” has been taken up by the Thomas More Law Center. Richard Thompson, president of the Center was the Fox guest who advocated for Dooley and smeared the military this morning. Danger Room also notes that these are the same folks who defended Koran-burning Pastor Terry Jones.
PETER JOHNSON: Let’s talk about (Dooley’s) promotions. His promotions are going to be blocked as a result of this. And your organization has taken a very strong position against General Dempsey. You’ve basically said that he’s abdicated to the forces of sharia and Islam in the world in not allowing Lt. Col. Dooley to teach at the Joint Chiefs School. Is that correct? RICHARD THOMPSON: That is correct. In fact, we see the political correctness permeating the upper echelons of the military throughout. Apparently, we have not learned our lessons from the Ft. Hood massacre and now we attempt to appease these Muslim organizations and in doing so, we are jeopardizing our national security. In fact, one Middle East expert said that the final defense against jihadists, the Pentagon, has now capitulated and is teaching our military in accordance with the Muslim Brotherhood’s teachings.
As Johnson nodded in concerned agreement, Thompson went on to say that a nuclear attack on the U.S. was a certainty: “These officers one day will find themselves in a position of a nuclear attack on, let’s say the City of New York, and the President turns to this officer and says, ‘What should be our response?’ And this officer can’t say, ‘Give me two weeks and I’ll come back to you.’ This officer has to have a response. And that’s what Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley was teaching.”
This is probably not the last time we’ll see Dooley cast as a free speech and terrorism-fighting martyr on Fox. Johnson asked his guest to “keep track on this going forward because it just seems incredible to me and probably to a lot of America that a man who’s dedicated to fighting for us in a war on terrorism is being held back in this way.”An election worker checks a voter's drivers license as North Carolina's controversial "Voter ID" law goes into effect for the state's presidential primary election at a polling place in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. on March 15, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Keane/File Photo
(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court issued an order on Thursday denying North Carolina’s motion to stay the court’s decision last week striking down the state’s voter ID law.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said staying its ruling now “would only undermine the integrity and efficiency of the upcoming election.”
On Friday, the court ruled that the North Carolina law, which required voters to show photo identification when casting ballots, intentionally discriminated against African-American residents.
Attorneys for the state in a written motion earlier this week asked the court to put its ruling on hold while the state appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court and seeks to overturn the decision ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.
The court’s move to strike down the state’s voter ID law was a victory for rights advocates that will enable thousands of people to vote more easily and could boost Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s support in the state going into the election.
The decision by the U.S. appeals court also canceled provisions of the law that scaled back early voting in the potential swing state, prevented residents from registering and voting on the same day, and eliminated the ability of voters to vote outside their assigned precinct.
The order noted that North Carolina officials already said they could conduct early voting at Board of Election offices for each county, in line with the ruling.
“Finally, we observe that our injunction merely returns North Carolina’s voting procedures to the status quo prevailing before the discriminatory law was enacted,” the order denying a stay said.It has been almost a month now since our last official BGWFans Verbolten picture update. Hard to believe it has been that long, but it has. The good news? We have a huge, and, if I may say so myself, awesome Verbolten update for you today. Now, some of these pictures were actually taken last weekend; however, they were never posted because another big story got in the way. Very little has actually changed on the outside of the ride since last weekend so I hope no one hates me for merging the updates together. If you do, hopefully the testing video will make up for it. Enjoy!
What do you think of the progress on Verbolten? Discuss it and just about anything else about the park in our forums!Young and happy, pilgrims from the four corners of the Earth are gathered in Spain for the Roman Catholic church’s third World Youth Day, presided over by Pope Benedict XVI.
However many in Spain are irritated at the invasion of the happy clappers at a time of austerity and a decline in church attendance.
On arrival the young faithful are greeted by the organisers with a veritable goody bag of kit to help them enjoy the festival, a rucksack brimming with discount vouchers for lodgings, transport and food at a total cost of over four million euros.
In all the event is budgeted at 50 million euros, and it is estimated it will generate 100 million in revenues for the state.
The organisers say 70 percent of the costs will covered by pilgrim’s subscriptions, and the rest by business donations.
The price for a pilgrim depends on where they come from, but assuming a 100 euro average, with 450,000 people attending, that raises 45 million euros. The price includes free board and lodging and cut-price public transport. Sponsors’ donations are 90 percent tax deductible.
The obvious shortfall and hidden costs to the taxpayer is upsetting many Spaniards, who have just seen their bus and metro tickets rise by 50 percent. The question being asked is – with all the freebies how is the state going to make a 100 million euro profit?
Plus there are other costs. Policing the event will need extra personnel who will get big bonuses, and the cleanup operation will not be cheap, either.
In addition 450,000 extra visitors will put a strain on infrastructures, and the young are not noted for having a lot of disposable income to splash around.
Opponents of the Papal visit and the Youth Day say the figures are all wrong, and are also opposed on other grounds.
Luis Vega, head of Spain’s Association of Atheists and Free Thinkers “We do not agree with our taxes being used to pay for this. We do not agree that in a secular country the administration can give an exaggerated amount of assistance to a religious representative, whatever the religion.”
Above and beyond criticisms due to the current financial climate, the cold wind of crisis is blowing over Spanish Catholicism. Although nearly three-quarters of the population says it is Catholic, only 13 percent go to mass, and only seven percent of young people. In just the last decade, the number of those calling themselves atheists has doubled. Among the young that figure is 42 percent.
Spain, one of the Catholic church’s European jewels, is starting to slip from the fold, and the voices of those demanding a clear separation between church and state are growing in number, and volume.Donald Trump has told members of the US military positioned across the globe that they are winning big under his presidency.
Mr Trump said in a teleconference with the troops on Thanksgiving Day that more progress has been made in recent months in Afghanistan and in fighting the Islamic State group than had been made in years of the previous administration.
He said of the situation in Afghanistan that: “Everybody’s talking about the progress you’ve made in the last few months since I opened it up.”
Mr Trump accused the previous administration of not allowing soldiers on the ground to do their jobs. But he said that now, “We’re not fighting anymore to just walk around, we’re fighting to win”.
“We’re being talked about again as an armed forces. We’re really winning,” he added. “They weren’t letting you win.”
Mr Trump described the troops as “very, very special people” to him and everyone else in the US during the conference call from his private club in Palm Beach, Florida.
He tweeted before the call that he would be speaking to soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq, on the USS Monterey, and in Turkey and Bahrain. He also tweeted that he would be visiting a Coast Guard facility in Florida later in the day
HAPPY THANKSGIVING, your Country is starting to do really well. Jobs coming back, highest Stock Market EVER, Military getting really strong, we will build the WALL, V.A. taking care of our Vets, great Supreme Court Justice, RECORD CUT IN REGS, lowest unemployment in 17 years….! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 23, 2017
Earlier on Twitter, Mr Trump boasted about his achievements so far in the White House.More than two decades ago, a football video game on the Sega Genesis that featured robots, aliens and skeletons became a cult classic.
Released in 1993 and published by Electronic Arts, "Mutant League Football" was a game in which victory could be achieved not only by outscoring an opponent but by killing off enough players to force them to forfeit. The fields were filled with a variety of dangers and referees could even be bribed. Fans have long awaited a successor to the game — and that day is finally near.
In an interview on the Press Row Podcast, the creator of the original "Mutant League Football" as well as the now in-development "Mutant Football League," Michael Mendheim, joined to discuss the new game, the history of mutant football, development challenges now compared to the early '90s, and plans to engage fans and reach new ones in the current ultra-competitive market for entertainment dollars.
MORE: "Madden," "NBA 2K" face early eSports growing pains
"Mutant League Football" wasn't just a popular game; it became a part of pop culture at the time. Now that the number of arcade-style sports video games has dwindled to near extinction, "Mutant Football League" looks to offer something completely different from other options on the market.
"The original game was a No. 1 hit, spawned a television show and a sequel called 'Mutant League Hockey,'" Mendheim said, going on to explain how it has always had a strong fan base. "The community has wanted us to bring the game back."
There have been other sports games remembered fondly in the past that have attempted remakes and reboots to mixed success, from "NBA Jam" to "Tecmo Bowl." What will be the strategy with "Mutant Football League" to break through a difficult gaming landscape?
"We decided we were going to re-envision this game, and bring it back as an 'NFL Blitz'-style game," Mendheim said. "We re-imagined the whole product, a different game for a new generation. It's on steroids compared to the older game."
It's not easy to make a video game these days. Not only has the cost of development soared, and publishers have been forced |
. Should go down easy."
Answering him with a nod, I gave one last peek over the table at the metal-armored stallion, before giving my wings a flap and coasting silently over to the far end of the basement. Okay Strikey, you just wait for Static and then things'll be cushty. Watching from behind another table covered in syringes and flasks and stuff, the earth pony crawled himself up close to the stallion, who thankfully was more preoccupied with adjusting his armor around the flamethrower. Pulling Thumper off my back, the dragon's breath round slid into the breech, myself waiting and watching for the earth pony before closing it. Almost there...
The earth pony rose onto his hind hooves and let off a small yell as he swung the pike end of the axe down into the tank, a loud 'pfffffssssh' noise coming from the hole. Snapping Thumper's breech shut, I jumped up from behind the table, watching as the armored stallion wrestled to get Static off as Static wrestled to get his axe free, both of them succeeding at the same time. The stallion stumbled in his heavy armor, Static rushing over towards me and diving for the floor as I squeezed the trigger handle, Thumper resounding with a loud bang as the searing hot flechettes flew across the room and sparked on the stallion, the spray of gas turning into a steady jet of flames as he screamed and struggled to right himself. Ooh, think I landed one of those in his eyes... that ain't pretty.
Static pulled himself to his hooves wearing a weak grin that seemed to translate to 'I can't believe that worked'. The spray of flames writhed with the stallion, myself chucking and fitting a buckshot round into Thumper, closing the breech shut. Static turned and started making way for the stairs, breathing easy, myself taking one last look at the flamethrower stallion in flames... and the very large tank of gas that was being bathed in flames as well. Too early for celebrations, Static!
"Fuck me, we gotta get out of here, this place is gonna blow!" Static blunk a few times at me in confusion, myself grabbing him and rushing for the stairs. Okay, so, if you're confused about this, here's a refresher; when you heat a liquid, it tends to turn into gas. Most flamethrowers and chemical burners use liquid fuel that turns into a vapor and is then ignited. Now, if you superheat a large sample of this liquid for long enough in a sealed container, or even a mostly sealed one, all that liquid starts turning into vapor, and the vapor starts to compress. And if it can't find a fast enough way out... it'll make one. And you don't want to be around it when it does make a way out.
Rushing up the stairs and out into the back alley, we were greeted mostly by chaotic screams, and the sound of something very big, nasty, and metal letting off an inequine roar. Boy, I'm so glad I don't wear pants. Static rushed alongside me as we came out of the alley and were met with a large group of raiders all screaming for their lives, weaponless and fleeing in all directions but the right one. The earth pony beside me looked back for a moment, myself watching our breaths turn into large clouds from the cold air. A small thump was heard from the basement of the place - yeah, gonna bet that was mister flamer-stallion's tank going. Which means now the big tank is covered in flames...
Rushing along the road leading away from the pizza place, I kept on leading the way away, trying to suss out just how big this thing was going to be. Looked like an old railroad tanker tank, or boiler, or something, and... oh, this'd be a lot easier if I could know how much fuel was in it. Jumping over another pile of rubble, a loud wooshing sound filled the air behind us, myself taking the second to throw myself against Static, driving us both into the snowbank. We landed stomach to stomach, my forelegs covering over his ears as we brushed cheeks together, myself bracing us both.
The pizza place instantly went up in a massive fireball, wind blowing over us towards the blast before the shockwave blasted us both with snow, leaving my ears ringing with a high-pitched noise. Aw, fuck, not my tinnitus again... lifting myself from the snow to look over at it, the debris began falling soon afterwards, myself huddling close against the earth pony as wood and brick fragments landed all around. Giving a few more moments, I finally lifted myself up again, greeted by the sight of a massive mushroom cloud over where the pizza place once was, and Static's heavy breathing in my ear. Looking back at him, our eyes met, a weak smile growing on his muzzle.
"Why does every time I try to do things sneakily it ends in explosions?" He let loose a weak chuckle, myself joining him in it, laying on top of him. He let his head rest back in the snowbank for a moment, our breaths condensing into small wispy clouds that intertwined, myself leaning closer to him. Wearing a smile, I placed a long kiss against his lips, the earth pony's eyes going wide in response. Breaking it after a moment, I released a giggle of my own, nuzzling him lightly.
"Because you always have me nearby, duh. Always will, too~"
---
"You're tuned in to Radio KAOS, and we've got some breaking news... seen firsthand here, actually. Up towards the north on the mainland tonight, my assistant and myself both caught eyes of a massive fireball coming up from the coast, cooling off into a mushroom shape. It took a little while for the sound to hit us, but I kind of doubt that kaboom was megaspell in nature. Looks like it came out of the town of, um... Hornsworth, no word on casualties but if anyone was living there before I doubt it has that many inhabitants now. Considering the Five were supposed to be headed that way anyways... three guesses to who caused that blast, and the first two don't count. Sure they had a good reason for it.
"We'll bring you back to your scheduled music, you're listening to Radio KAOS on Radio KAOS. Goodnight, and enjoy."
Full Story Arc
Fallout: Equestria created by kkatmanThe club has turned a slow start around and looks to continue its momentum as the Fall Season progresses
Photo credit: Tony Lewis/FC Edmonton
With a fresh opportunity in the Fall Season, forward Tomi Ameobi and FC Edmonton are determined to take it.
The veteran Englishman, who is approaching 100 NASL regular-season appearances, has been a catalyst in the club’s recent surge. Ameobi assisted on Ben Fisk’s goal in the 1-1 draw with Puerto Rico FC before scoring one himself in the recent 2-1 win on the road against the San Francisco Deltas.
The Eddies, after a slow start to the 2017 season, still have plenty of work to do if the club is to return to the postseason, FC Edmonton has ground to cover in the Combined Standings, while the club is also in a position to chase for the Fall Season title.
“It makes us realize we’re on the right track, and if we keep doing what we’re doing then we’re going to be there at the end of the season,” Ameobi told NASL.com. “This Fall Season is up for grabs, and we’re going to do our best to make sure we’re up there at the end of the year.”
The Eddies dropped the first game of the Fall Season in a 2-1 loss to Indy Eleven, but since then the club is unbeaten in its last four contests. The results are putting more confidence and joy back into the game for the club.
“You can see the change around the training ground,” Ameobi said. “There’s a jovial mood and guys are enjoying their football and it’s translating into the games as well. We go into each game pretty confident that we can get a positive result, and that’s going to be the plan this weekend.”
While the NASL veteran’s form has been on the rise of late, Ameobi is quick to point out the role his teammates have been playing in recent weeks.
“I can’t really take much of the credit,” he said. “It’s a team sport and all the guys from back to front have put in a good shift, and whoever’s on the end of things that’s because the team is working to put attackers into those positions.”
The club now takes its newly-found confidence back on the road, where the club has earned both wins of the Fall Season. FC Edmonton faces North Carolina FC on Saturday night at Sahlen’s Stadium.
“Taking home wins on the road in this league is very difficult, so we’ll take as many of them as we can,” Ameobi said.As of June, New York City buildings and addresses have been fully imported to OpenStreetMap. While we are tackling remaining cleanup tasks I wanted to share a full recap of the effort. I am very happy with the overall result. There are lessons to be learned here from what went well but also where we could have done better - read on for the details.
More than 20 people - volunteers and members of the Mapbox team - spent more than 1,500 hours writing proposals, discussing, programming, uploading, processing and reviewing. Between September 2013 and June 2014 we imported 1 million buildings and over 900,000 addresses. We fixed over 5,000 unrelated map issues along the way.
Here are screenshots of the resulting work:
Building coverage on Manhattan island, the southern tip of the Bronx to the northwest and Wards island to the right.
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JFK airport buildings in Queens, bordering on the Hamilton Beach neighborhood to the left and South Ozone Park to the north.
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Coverage around Battery Park and Wall Street in Manhattan. This is an area that already had many buildings. We filled in the gaps and replaced buildings where the New York City data set was clearly better.
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We imported over 900,000 addresses. Here is an example of the Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn.
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Buildings contain height information and render nicely as seen here on this example of downtown Brooklyn on Fmap.
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The import covers all of New York City’s five boroughs
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Overview
This is a full writeup sharing my experience with the New York City import in the hope that there is one or the other valuable lesson, good idea, or line of code for you to walk away with. Note that this post is very specific to the work in New York City. If you’re planning to do an import, make sure to check out the Import Guidelines for a more universal checklist of how to go about imports.
If you’re looking for the 30 seconds version, I’d summarize my take aways like this:
Importing is a lot of work, make sure you have the time to commit.
Be prepared to continuously improve your conversion scripts and already uploaded data throughout the import.
Importing is a skill. It looks easy at first, but everyone involved uploading will need proper support, advanced knowledge of mapping practices and data validation by peers.
Involve community where possible, clear and frequent communication is clutch.
Invest in your tools
Read on for the deep dive.
OpenStreetMap as a collaboration space for citizens and government
Using New York City’s data for OpenStreetMap became possible thanks to the then-mayor Michael Bloomberg’s open data policy. Local Law 11 of 2012, releases all New York City government data “without any registration requirement, license requirement or restrictions on their use” (23-502 d). This effectively puts the data in the public domain, making it compatible with OpenStreetMap’s contributor terms.
Both, address point data and building data fall under this law and are available for download on New York City’s open data web site:
The way we used this data in OpenStreetMap is an illustration of how Bloomberg’s plan to stimulate the economy with open data is starting to pay off. This data in OpenStreetMap is now benefiting everyone using OpenStreetMap and this includes the New York City based startup Foursquare which is using OpenStreetMap data on its Mapbox powered maps.
But the relationship between OpenStreetMap and New York City should be ideally a two way street. How can the creator and maintainer of the building and address datasets - New York City’s GIS department - benefit directly from their work being imported in OpenStreetMap? The vision of edits in OpenStreetMap directly helping improve a crucial government dataset is very promising. OpenStreetMap is a unique data collaboration platform while datasets like building or address catalogs are incredibly hard to maintain - even for a large municipal government like New York’s. How can government become a part of OpenStreetMap?
OpenStreetMap’s share alike license means that OpenStreetMap data can’t be taken over directly into New York City public domain datasets but we can use OpenStreetMap to find out where changes happened. We set up a daily change feed flagging modifications to buildings and addresses to subscribers. Here’s a copy of a change notification email how New York City GIS receives it every day:
Daily change notifications from OpenStreetMap, flagging building and address changes to New York City government.
The notification contains a list of relevant changesets from the previous day with a link to each modified building and address. We are right now assessing the utility of these emails. Another way of leveraging OpenStreetMap as a change signal would be to periodically extract all building and address data and identify all changes in a certain time frame at once.
All code powering the change feed is available as open source on Github. If you’d like to receive the New York City change feed notifications, please let me know. Happy to subscribe you.
Import procedure
To import New York City data we had to convert it to OpenStreetMap format first and cut it into byte size chunks so we could review and import it manually, piece by piece. Once it was imported, a different person than the original importer would validate the data. This means reviewing it for errors and cleaning it up where needed.
Selecting a task on the tasking manager, opening existing OpenStreetMap data and opening importing data in JOSM.
Each participant would set up their workspace according to documentation we provided on Github. In the same document we laid out the actual import procedure. Some of the key items of the import procedure were:
Use a separate import account
Run full JOSM validation, fix all conflicts with existing data
But also fix all existing unrelated issues in area
Spot check data - for instance, do street names line up?
Merge POIs where appropriate
In case of duplicate data, keep the best data if there is a clear difference. In case of any doubt, keep the local data.
Add a note where a local mapper could solve a problem
As we imported, we ran into a series of recurring issues that we shared in a common issues guide - a useful resource for training new mappers and agreeing on fixes for unclear situations.
Community import or not?
From the beginning, the import was planned as a community import. There is no standing definition of this practice, but the rough idea is that uploads to the map would be done predominantly by members of local community familiar with the areas uploaded. Once started into the import, we quickly ran into a series of issues.
For Mapbox data team members participating in the import full time it was very easy to outpace local volunteers by a huge factor. In addition, I underestimated the complexity of the actual review and upload work. While not hard, there was a certain learning curve which meant that every new individual joining required significant training and support to get started - which meant plain and simple time that someone had to spend. Add to this that the individual time commitment is huge. I estimate we spent about 1,500 hours among everyone involved - and this is on the conservative side. Assuming 20 people work on the import, each one of them would look at 75 hours on this project. Very few people spend this much time on OpenStreetMap in a year.
The pace of uploads turned out to be key friction point. At the same time a series of data quality issues arose. This is why a couple of months into the import the loosely formed group around the project including community members and myself decided to pause the import and when we restarted a month later, slow it down and stop billing it as a community import. This would allow everyone to participate better and it would set expectations straight as to who was doing the uploading work. I think this adjustment was a good one. Overall it took us 10 months to get the job done - longer than I thought but still a pace that I was comfortable with to commit help finish the job. In the end a vast majority of uploads, validations and programmatic updates were done by the Mapbox team and I’m glad we had the opportunity to contribute.
Still, community involvement was clutch. The incredible input everyone gave, the many reviews, advice and personal time people invested was crucial to make this import a success. Everyone weighing in has helped make the resulting map better.
Sh** happens
We dealt with data corruption and conversion script bugs all using Github issues. Over the course of the import, we opened and closed 120 issues flagging suspicious data found in data reviews and sometimes working through protracted problems with New York City’s head of GIS directly chiming in and helping interpret data correctly.
Some of the issues we discovered required updates to data we already imported. Once we were into the import even a couple of days, updating existing data manually quickly wasn’t an option anymore. This is where automated edits came in, updating OpenStreetMap data programmatically. We captured all scripts for automated edits in the same code repository as the data conversion scripts. Some examples of programmatic updates are:
We fixed wrong tagging on school buildings where we tagged amenity=school instead of building=school.
instead of. We added ordinal suffixes like “th” in “4th”.
We expanded abbreviations we had overlooked like “Ft” to “Fort”.
We prepared this import well and we had good peer reviews on the imports list running up to the first uploads. We could head off many issues before we started importing. But in the end, the amount of issues we encountered after we started was still an unpleasant surprise. Having gained a lot more experience with this import I am sure the next time we can avoid a series of pitfalls - but the need for being able to programmatically update data after it’s been uploaded is crucial for a successful import. You simply cannot plan for all eventualities and you need to be prepared to apply fixes as you go.
From this perspective, the next time I would want us to write data integrity tests from the get go. These tests would assert data quality on data before it is uploaded. This would allow us to be much more agile in updating and refactoring conversion scripts as we go.
Another set of tests would assert data quality of already uploaded data. This would help to identify existing systematic problems and catch data issues due to negligent uploads fast.
So far, we have a rudimentary directory with validation scripts we started to build up during the import. There is a real need across the OpenStreetMap community to further develop and share easy to use tools to test and validate data. What if we could reuse the validators available in JOSM from the command line on arbitrary portions of OpenStreetMap data?
Data processing
To get source data ready for upload, a conversion script would download the data, split it, convert it and store the resulting files in OSM XML format on Amazon S3. We set up a tasking manager job that would expose each file as a task for people to import. To upload a dataset, a mapper would select a task, download OpenStreetMap data and load OSM data. We used the excellent JOSM editor to merge and review data before uploading to OpenStreetMap.
The entire data processing script is captured in a Makefile and can be run from download to upload to Amazon S3 with a single command. In sequence, the processing script would perform the following actions:
Download and unpack buildings (polygon data in shapefile format)
Download and unpack addresses (point data in shapefile format)
Reproject and simplify building geometries
Reproject addresses
Split buildings and addresses into byte size chunks
Merge: Where only a single address is available for a building, merge the address attributes onto the building polygon.
Convert: Map attributes to OpenStreetMap tags, convert street name formatting and house number formatting and export in osm format
Put to S3
All code is open source under a permissive BSD license - feel free to lift where convenient.
Repeatable conversion
The conversion script is repeatable with a single command and it is organized in stages: Each significant processing step creates files on disk and can be run separately. All that’s needed are the output files of the previous processing stage. Running the entire script would take on the order of several hours on an extra large Amazon EC2 instance. Being able to run steps like the merge stage or the convert stage separately was saving important debugging time. Throughout the import, we wound up reprocessing the data countless times as we fixed issues.
# Download, convert and push to s3 make &&./puts3.sh # Download and expand all files, reproject make download # Chunk address and building files by district make chunks # Generate importable.osm files. # This will populate the osm/ directory with one.osm file per # NYC election district. make osm # Clean up all intermediary files: make clean # Put to s3./puts3.sh # For testing it's useful to convert just a single district. # For instance, convert election district 65001: make merged # Will take a while python convert.py merged/buildings-addresses-65001.geojson # Very fast
Reprojecting and simplifying
New York City data comes in its own special projection and it is way too detailed for OpenStreetMap, so we reprojected and simplified it using ogr2ogr:
ogr2ogr -simplify 0.2 -t_srs EPSG:4326 -overwrite buildings/buildings.shp buildings/building_0913.shp
Splitting into byte size chunks
We couldn’t upload all data in one go, it had to be cut into byte size chunks for manual review and upload. For splitting up the data we used New York City voting districts. This was an arbitrary choice, it just so happens that New York City voting districts are of a manageable size for manual uploads. There are 5,285 voting districts, the processing script generated an OSM file for manual upload for each one of them. The script chunk.py uses the great Shapely and Fiona libraries for doing this. It is nicely reusable for any task where you need to split up one geospatial dataset by the polygons of another geospatial dataset.
Merging
In OpenStreetMap, addresses tend to be merged onto building polygons where only one address is available for the building. We wanted to follow this convention and thus merged addresses where only one was available onto the corresponding building. The python script merge.py uses Shapely, Fiona and Rtree to do this. The script also converts data into geojson format - which was extremely useful for debugging as we could inspect them in any text editor. Here is an example output file of the merge stage.
Most of our fixes during the import happened on later stages so we could always work off of the merged files, saving about 50% of the total processing time.
Conversion
This is where most of the actual conversion is happening - this is also the part of the script that was the most significant time investment. It captures the full complexity of the conversion and handles hairy problems like house number conversion, street name conversion, cleanly merging geometries, generating multipolygons and more. The script convert.py uses Shapely and lxml for attribute mapping and exporting data in OSM XML format. OSM XML is directly readable by JOSM, so the resulting files of this stage could be opened and directly uploaded to OpenStreetMap with JOSM.
One tricky problem we’re solving on this stage is merging T-intersections. OpenStreetMap’s data model is unique in that it allows for sharing vertices between polygons. In the picture below, you see a typical T intersection. The node with the arrow is supposed to be part of the two ways describing the corner of one building but also part of the ways describing the straight walls of the other building.
It took us a while into the import to notice unmerged T-intersections. What makes this issue vexing is that OpenStreetMap’s native decimal precision is lower than our source data. The result was that data we uploaded to OpenStreetMap looked fine, but once we downloaded it again it came back with truncated precision, moving nodes just far enough to place some within neighboring buildings.
Nodes on T-intersections between buildings need to be part of both buildings.
Our conversion script merges all incidents of T-intersections. This requires truncating decimal point precision to OpenStreetMap’s native 7 positions and buffering - the technique to test not only whether a point sits on a line, but whether a point is in the close vicinity of a line. Read up on appendBuilding() in convert.py for details.
Pushing to S3 and exposing the data in the tasking manager
For exposing tasks to mappers we used the OSM Tasking Manager - a great tool for coordinating mapping tasks among large groups of individuals. We used a patched version that allows for tasks shaped as arbitrary polygons - instead of the usual squares. Each task polygon pointed to the file we’ve made available on s3, and the tasking manager exposed two buttons: one for loading OpenStreetMap data into JOSM, the other one for loading the import data into JOSM. We labeled those buttons “JOSM” and “.osm” which doesn’t make all too much sense, but hey!
Loading data into JOSM from the tasking manager.
Reusing and the elusive import toolchain
Writing these scripts we avoided overthinking the problem. Creating generalized solutions for these functionalities is hard and we simply didn’t have enough data points to do so. Now having gone through this import, I see a couple of opportunities to solidify a toolchain for import:
Generalize a command line script for splitting data (like a properly abstracted chunk.py )
) Generalize a library for converting Simple Features to the OpenStreetMap data model, including XML export
Consider using PostGIS - I avoided it intentionally here, but built in spatial operations and indexing is appealing
Identify a pattern for reusable validation scripts that can be used to assert data quality before and after uploads
Continuously improving the map
Here is the full time line of the import:
We are not done yet. While all data has been imported to OpenStreetMap, there are final cleanup tasks we are tackling as we speak. Help us further improve the map: if you find a building or address related issue on the New York City map, please let us know by filling an issue on Github. As soon as new data is available from New York City, we will also take a look at updating OpenStreetMap where it makes sense.
Thank you
Huge thanks to all who have helped make this import happen. Through your work reviewing, coding, organizing mapping parties and doing data uploads you have helped make this import better than it would have been without you: Serge Wroclawski, Liz Barry, Eric Brelsford, Toby Murray, Ian Dees, Paul Norman, Frederick Ramm, Chris MacNally, and many others. A special thanks to Colin Reilly from New York City GIS who has helped on many occasions fully understand the source data and find the best decision translating it to OpenStreetMap. A big shout out to my colleagues who’ve put a ton of work into this endeavour: Ruben Lopez, Edith Quispe, Aaaron Lidman, Matt Greene, and Tom Macwright among others. Say hello if you bump into them on the internet, or maybe at one of the next conferences.
Cheers to making the best map in the world.Shomi is planning its end credits on Nov. 30 after only two years in operation.
The web streaming service, which was co-owned by Rogers and Shaw, attributed the decision to a challenging online video marketplace.
It’s an online world where, at the end of the day, you just have to be creating your own content, like Netflix has found a way to do. Shomi wasn’t doing that, so the future, frankly, was bleak.
This could, however, open the door for Amazon coming to Canada.
"We’re really grateful to Canadians who enthusiastically invited us into their living rooms and took us with them on their phones, tablets and laptops," said David Asch, Shomi’s senior vice-president and general manager, in a statement.
"The business climate and online video marketplace have changed markedly in the last few years. Combined with the fact that the business is more challenging to operate than we expected, we’ve decided to wind down our operations. We’re proud of the great service we created and the role we played in the evolution of Canada’s video landscape."
Shomi was made available to all Canadians — regardless of which Internet provider they used — last year.
“The beta has been a huge success and we’re excited to now bring it to all Canadians,” Asch said at the time. “We’ve taken the time to work out the kinks so members can enjoy a great user interface and viewing experience.”
The term "huge success" obviously was overstating it. If it had been a huge success, Shomi would not be shutting down.
Bell’s CraveTV went “direct to consumer” on Jan. 1 of this year. That service is facing many of the same challenges as Shomi, but CraveTV is bolstered by a lot of content deals for programming that airs on Bell’s own premium channels, such as HBO or The Movie Network, which airs programming from Showtime.
Shomi had an exclusive deal to air Amazon’s Transparent, which is not available legally anywhere else in Canada. But primarily Shomi was stacked with past seasons of shows that already had been available in Canada on traditional TV. And that alone just isn’t enough, even if we’re talking about shows as critically acclaimed as Jane the Virgin or American Horror Story.
Plus, after Shaw sold its TV channels to Corus, Shaw’s enthusiasm for the Shomi project obviously waned.
There had been rumours at one point that Shomi might try to seek a U.S. streaming partner, but if those whispers were true, they obviously have not amounted to anything at this point.
Streaming is going to have to find a way in Canada. It’s the way of the future, so everyone says. But as often is the case in media, making a go of it financially north of the border is complex, to say the least.THIS IS PSYCHIC POWER!
Although taking your clothes off for the sake of making people laugh is by no means a new thing in Japan, the past couple of years have been a particularly nude time for the Japanese comedy scene. Just on Japankyo alone, we’ve talked about UesP, Tonikaku Akarui Yasumura and Akira 100%. And now there’s another “naked comedian” to add to that ever-growing list. His name is Kikku and his schtick is that he’s a “naked psychic.”
Like the majority of Japanese comedians, Kikku is not particularly well known. Although he belongs to a major Japanese talent agency called HoriPro com and has been in the industry for 13 years, the average Japanese person has utterly no idea who this guy is. However, recently he got a chance to appear on a weekly Japanese variety show broadcast on Abema TV, a Japanese video streaming service. Called HImura ga Yuku, this show, which is hosted by the popular Japanese comedian Yuki Himura, is wonderfully wacky and thus the perfect place for someone like Kikku to get some exposure (no pun intended).
Meet Kikku
After making his grand entrance wearing nothing but some very revealing briefs, Kikku shows how he can use his telekinetic powers to stick forks and spoons to his bare chest. In order to channel his telekinetic powers, he very intensely chants “nenpikanonriki” several times. A few moments later he shows that his psychic powers have worked and the silverware is stuck to his chest (according to him) without the aid of anything other than his mental abilities. And to finish off his trick, he shouts out his catchphrase “THIS IS PSYCHIC PWER!”
However, Himura and his crew, although amused, don’t seem too impressed. Kikku quickly explains that his spoon and fork trick is just the beginning and then he moves on to his next trick.
Kikku taking off his last bit of clothing
Kikku then pulls out an iPhone and explains that he will use his telekinetic powers to stick it to his crotch. He then takes off the underwear he was wearing., begins his chanting and successfully wills his smartphone to remain stuck to his penis even after he stands up.
THIS IS PSYCHIC PWER!
However, that’s not all. He then announces that he will have somebody call the phone that is stuck to his genitals and talk to the caller, all without having the phone fall off.
Mr. Kikku, you have a call
Kikku successfully answers his phone without having it fall off and Himura expresses his amazement. However, he points out that Kikku’s “balls” are showing.
At the end Himura offers Kikku some friendly advice, suggesting that perhaps he should use the bigger iPhone 7 Plus rather than the iPhone 6 that he is currently using.
And so, Himura’s suggestion leads one of his crew members to offer up their larger smartphone so that Kikku can do his trick again. And Kikku once again wows the crowd by successfully sticking the phone to his naked crotch without having it fall off. Hopefully, they disinfected that phone before giving it back to the owner.
Check out Kikku’s amazing PSYCHIC PWER in the video below.
Feel like seeing some more naked Japanese comedy? Then how about checking out Himura try a “naked Rube Goldberg” machine. At the end of the video Himura even tries to pull a Kikku by using an iPhone to cover himself up… unsuccessfully. Warning though, this video contains generous amounts of very out of shape fully exposed middle aged man butt.
Source: Abema TV Official YouTube Channel
Images: アソコと通話！枠に“おさまらない”「裸サイキック芸」の念力に日村も心配｜日村がゆく！#30〜裸芸の新しい夜明けを見つけるの巻〜第2弾｜AbemaSPECIAL (Abema TV)Facing severe health issues, alleged KickassTorrents owner Artem Vaulin has been transferred from Polish prison to a local hospital. While he is now able to receive proper care, his conditions are far from ideal. Vaulin is permanently guarded by four officers and is handcuffed to his bed at night, which may cause nerve damage according to doctors.
Four months ago Polish law enforcement officers arrested Artem Vaulin, the alleged founder of KickassTorrents, who’s been held in a local prison since.
Polish authorities acted on a criminal complaint from the U.S. Government, which accused him of criminal copyright infringement and money laundering.
Over the past few weeks, Vaulin has been fighting a U.S. extradition request. However, facing serious back problems, he was recently transferred to a hospital for treatment and further research.
Initially, the court ruled that the health problems weren’t serious enough, but the prison director later decided that his facility doesn’t have the means for adequate treatment
According to defense attorney Aleksander Emil Kowzan, Vaulin’s back problems are severe. He further notes that several of the upcoming extradition hearings are postponed for now.
“The hearings that were scheduled for the coming days are canceled. Due to the state of his health, our client can not be transported to court,” Vaulin’s lawyer told the Polish press agency.
“Doctors have no doubt that surgery is necessary. What’s more, there is a slight paralysis, loss of sensation in the lower limb,” he added.
The defense team has asked an expert to determine whether their client is fit enough to take part in future hearings of his case. If not, they must look for alternative solutions. One thought that was raised is to hold the hearings at the hospital.
Despite his health problems, Polish authorities are keeping a close eye on the alleged KickassTorrent owner. Vaulin is continuously guarded by four officers, two outside and two inside his room.
This is a violation of his rights, according to the defense team, who plan to file a complaint with the ombudsman. The fact that the alleged KickassTorrent operator is cuffed to his bed at night is particularly worrying.
“Mr. Vaulin is under constant supervision of four officers – two in the room and two in the front hall. At night, when there are no doctors, there is – in our opinion – a shameful situation. He is handcuffed to the bed.”
“This is strongly opposed by the doctors, who explained that this might cause nerve damage,” Vaulin’s lawyer added.
Over the past months, Vaulin’s lawyers have pointed out several human rights violations. In addition to the current situation, he was also unable to meet with his U.S. counsel to prepare his defense.
For now, Vaulin remains at the hospital. Previously, the court prolonged his custody until mid-February, but if the case is delayed there could be a further extension.News: Stung by fire incidents in various parts of Bihar due to searing heat conditions, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has ordered officials to issue an advisory to ask people not to light fire between 9 AM and 6 PM and observe havan and puja before nine in the morning.
Source: Hindustan Times
Secularism is perhaps the most misused word in India. It has been torn and twisted, misrepresented and maligned to transform it into something completely different from what the word actually signifies. Secularism in its true from implies the separation of Religion and State, that Religion in no way shall interfere with the affairs of the State and the State shall provide Freedom of Religion as long as there’s no violation of the Fundamental Rights of human beings.
With time, Indians have forgotten to make the distinction between the Western form of Secularism and the Indian interpretation of the term. In the West, the word Secular implies three principles: Freedom of Religion, equal citizenship to everyone regardless of their Religion and the Separation of Religion and State. However, in India, although there’s Freedom of Religion, there’s no equal Citizenship to everyone regardless of their Religion as Muslims have their own set of Personal Laws and there’s no Separation of Religion and State. Instead we have equal participation of State in all religions which has become a tool |
's bowl must include a champion of a non-power conference; and conferences whose champions would go to the Rose (Big Ten and Pac-12) and Sugar (Big 12 and SEC) are guaranteed one New Year's spot each, if they don't make the Playoff. Also, the committee will give extra weight to conference championships, which obviously won't be a factor until the final set of rankings.
As for how it produces those rankings, we know the real committee will be avoiding quality stats, much like the BCS. We know, based on recent history, that the top three teams will likely be fairly obvious, with only the fourth stirring controversy. We know that the committee will take efforts to avoid conflicts of interest; many of the committee members have current or former financial ties to schools or conference that will be involved in the discussion, and those committee members will have to recuse themselves from discussing those teams.
The main takeaway from what we know so far about the selection committee's process? We don't know much at all.Vettel: We tried to be as aggressive as we could be
Sebastian Vettel scored his third out of three podium finishes as a Ferrari driver as he claimed third place in the Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai International Circuit. He spoke after a tough day in the cockpit.
It was a tough day for you. The prediction was that Ferrari’s tyres would be perhaps superior and close in on the gap after the second pit stop?
Sebastian Vettel: I think it was a good race all in all. I think we were a bit closer probably on the softer compound of tyres and we were able to put some pressure on them. We tried to put more pressure by stopping fairly early for the last set of tyres, but I think on the harder tyres they were just that bit too quick, so they were able to pull away. From there onwards we tried to control the race and bring the podium back home, which is a great success for us, very happy. Thanks to the team. Thanks back to the factory, to Maranello, and obviously to all the support here from the fans.
At the beginning of the season people were questioning whether Ferrari was going to get back on the podium. How do you feel today?
SV: Yeah, good. It’s been three out of three so far, so it feels pretty good. Obviously a big change over winter. A lot of things have changed. It’s nice. I feel really happy in the team. The guys are great, so I’m really enjoying the work and hopefully we can get a little bit closer to challenge these guys.
You tried everything today. The undercut, everything really strategy-wise that you could. Mercedes just had a little bit too much for you today but also at the end there, Kimi was catching you. Were you worried about him catching up to you towards the end of the race as well?
SV: Not really. I think I was in control. Obviously would have liked to have kept on racing, would have been close but in the end I still had a decent gap, obviously. I guess it’s a bit similar with Kimi and myself and Nico and Lewis. Obviously I try to be very aggressive. I think it was lap 29. That meant 27 laps on the Prime and I wasn’t sure if we really should try it – but then, I guess, we wanted to put pressure on Nico, which obviously makes the last stint very long, so at the end naturally you struggle with the tyres. I think Kimi was able to stay out a bit longer and therefore was a bit quicker at the end of the stint. But we tried everything we could today. I think it was very close, especially the first pitstop. I didn’t expect it to maybe be that close, so maybe I should have pushed a bit harder on the out-lap. Obviously it’s tricky here because you always try to look after the tyres but all-in-all I think it was a very good race for us. We were really able to put again some pressure on them, especially in the beginning of the race. Towards the end I think they were just too quick. They were pulling away. Nico had a sequence of really, really quick lap times – so we couldn’t do that – but all-in-all, as I said, closer here, which is great for us, and in front of the other teams. If we keep doing that, and keep getting closer, obviously there’s a point where we are some real challenge for these guys, which I’m looking forward to.
Did you expect more performance with the new soft compound in the stint or was it the maximum you could achieve?
SV: I think Nico was on new softs as well. I’m not sure about Lewis but I guess as well so yeah. We tried to save a set yesterday but unfortunately they did as well so I think it helped but we did all we could. Obviously it’s incredibly difficult. The closer you get, I was all the time something like 1.5s and then just before the pit stop, falling away a bit, around 1.8s-2.0s. To really get close, I tried desperately to get into the DRS (zone) but I couldn’t. Obviously it gets more and more difficult, especially with the type of corner you get here, opening onto the long straight, makes it quite tricky.
Did you have to try something different to beat Mercedes?
SV: If we could have beaten them, I wouldn’t be sitting to the left of Lewis, he would sit to the left of me so the answer is probably no and the answer to could we have done something different, I think we tried all we could. I don’t think it was in range to do a one stop or a three stop. I think both were slower. So the two stop was fairly straightforward for everyone and I think we tried to be as aggressive as we could be. Yeah, so the answer is still no, unfortunately, but as I said, very happy that we were significantly closer than four weeks ago.
Why is this circuit particularly difficult to follow another car? Why are the tyres, here, in the wake of another car, more destroyed than on other circuits?
SV: Naturally, I think always with quick corners we struggle to stay close. The corners we have leading onto the straight, the most obviously straight, the long back straight, is initially quite slow but then it gets quicker and quicker, so that makes it quite tricky to really stay close and in general, the thing is if you try to overtake someone who is just as quick as you, maybe slightly quicker or a little bit less quick, you don’t really have that much of an advantage to really stay close. You lose downforce, the tyres start to slide, which means that they start to overheat and you struggle more and more, the closer you get. That’s what makes it tricky. There’s really no difference here to other circuits, I guess.The European Union has once again become preoccupied with the idea of creating its own army. This question was raised by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in his annual state-of- the-union address to the European Parliament on Wednesday.
According to him, one of the options for addressing the problem of European security in the wake of Brexit is the deep integration of the member countries' armed forces. The idea to create a European army was also supported by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and several other Old World political figures.
Why does Europe need its own army?
References to either Russia's "unpredictability and aggressiveness" or the real terrorist threat cannot be applied here. For the so-called "containment of Russia," there is the North Atlantic Alliance, which, however, is powerless in the face of terrorist attacks in Europe.
The new army also cannot be a panacea for the "terrorist disease." The fight against militants needs not more troops, but extensive and professional law enforcement agencies, a wide network of agents and other anti-terrorist structures. They cannot be an army with rockets, tanks, bombers and fighters – you do not fight against terrorists with heavy military equipment.
Is NATO really not enough for Europe, even if the alliance includes the majority of European countries, and has the rule of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which can be expressed in the motto "One for all, and all for one"?
Is the security umbrella opened over the European Union by, among others, one of the most powerful armies in the world, which has the world's largest stockpile of nuclear missiles – the United States – too small?
But perhaps it is Washington's interference in the affairs of the Europeans, its "messiahship" and intrusive impact on the policy of the EU, which often results in losses in the economy (sanctions against Russia), and drawing the EU into unnecessary and unprofitable wars (Libya, Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan), that is the underlying and unspoken reason for the emergence of the idea of "separate European armed forces"?
Components of the new army
Europe cannot afford two parallel armies for several reasons. Firstly, even now, a number of states are in no hurry to allocate 2 percent of their GDP to NATO's overall defense budget, which relies mainly on Washington paying 75 percent of the total. At the same time, the United States understands the hidden and long-lasting meaning of the political ideas expressed by Juncker – to minimize Europe's dependence on the White House's military decisions.
Secondly, there are not enough human resources for the new army, either – refugees from the Islamic Middle East and North Africa can hardly be enlisted in these forces.
Hollande has suggested that a European army should be created within and based on NATO.
According to him, the European armed forces must have a certain autonomy. But in an army, which is based on unity of command and unquestioning obedience to the commander or boss, there cannot be any independent structures in principle. Otherwise, it is not an army, but a bad collective farm. Any disobedience in the army is punished by a tribunal.
In addition, the North Atlantic Alliance is unlikely to be keen on a parallel and autonomous army. It has no army at all, as such. There are commands for different theaters of war – the central, southern and northern ones.
For specific combat missions, special formations are created, which each country allocates units from its national armed forces. Some provide tank crews, some allocate missile personnel, some supply motorized infantry, signalers, repairers, rear troops, nurses and so on. It is unclear on what principle an integrated European army should be created.
It seems that the talk about a European army and its joint headquarters is another attempt to set up a new bureaucratic structure in order that European officials can continue to exist in comfort, producing paperwork and public declarations, just as they do in the EU and the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly.
But if a European army is created all the same, how will Russia react? The Russians will work with it as they do with NATO. Let us just hope that the relationship will start with a clean slate and become a friendly one.
Viktor Litovkin is a military expert for the TASS news agency. This article originally appeared at Russia Beyond the Headlines.Samsung's started volume production of 128GB DDR4 RDIMMS.
You read that right – a single registered dual inline memory module packing 36 individual 4GB chunks of 3D TSV DDR4 DRAM, for a total of 128GB, can now be yours.
The Register is aware of servers with 96 DIMM slots, which means … WOAH! … 12.2 terabytes of RAM in a single server if you buy Samsung's new babies.
Samsung says these new DIMMS are special because “the chip dies are ground down to a few dozen micrometers, pierced with hundreds of fine holes and vertically connected by electrodes passing through the holes, allowing for a significant boost in signal transmission.”
There's also “a special design through which the master chip of each 4GB package embeds the data buffer function to optimise module performance and power consumption.”
We'll take you at your word there, Sammie, and also note your claim of 2,400 megabits per second speed for the memory.
The Korean company's also promising “a complete lineup of its new high-performance TSV DRAM modules within the next several weeks including 128GB load reduced DIMMs.” It's also pledging “e modules with data transfer speeds of up to 2,667Mbps and 3,200Mbps that help to meet intensifying enterprise server needs, while expanding TSV applications into high bandwidth memory (HBM) and consumer products.”
Hype and roadmappery aside, the greatly increased RAM density 128GB DIMMS will bring will be extremely useful to many users. Yes, these DIMMs will be expensive to start with and not all servers will be happy to work with that much RAM. Yes, plenty of folk stick with 32GB DIMMS today because 64GB DIMMS are expensive. And yes, this level of memory density can't be un-invented now so many uses for it will doubtless be dreamt up before long. ®The Swedish star conceded that he was left injured from the fight with the American defender and stated he is a regular target of racial chants in Italy.
Follow Goal.com on to get the latest soccer news directly. Check out Goal.com's page; be part of the best soccer fan community in the world!
AC Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic has revealed more details about last season's altercation with then teammate Oguchi Onyewu.The pair made headlines in November of 2010 when the United States international started a fight with Ibrahimovic in a practice session at Milanello after he suffered a nasty challenge from the Sweden international.It is reported that Onyewu, currently on the books of Sporting Lisbon, and Ibrahimovic exchanged blows before being separated by teammates.At the time, Milan vice president Adriano Galliani played down the incident, which he described as a 'lively fight', but Ibrahimovic, who is a black belt in taekwondo, admitted it was not a normal brawl between players."Onyewu and I almost killed each other," said Ibrahimovic in his autobiography, titled 'I Am Zlatan Ibrahiovic', according to the Swedish press.The former Inter star claimed that he suffered a broken rib as a result of the fight. The 30-year-old also said that racial chants are normal in Serie A matches and that he is used to being called a "gipsey" by fans.The Kandu KTÄK® "Body Snare" is the first-ever Two-tone wearable snare, designed to meet the needs of professional percussionists & travel enthusiasts. It is meticulously crafted by musicians from hand selected Finnish birch ply.... And yes we know the name is super weird, but try saying it 3 times.
KTÄK being taken through its paces by a professional... wait for the end, it's brilliant.
KTÄK opens up a whole new set of performing options for musicians. You have the ability to integrate it with a drum set or to stand up and walk around the stage, enhancing performance value for the crowd.
"My two-and-a-half year old daughter might be the most devoted KTÄK fan. She understood the 3 best things about KTÄK instantly:
1. Having a drum strapped to her body was incredible.
2. It is really easy to play
3. You can take it around with you and do other things while you play (in her case, push her doll's stroller)
It turns out that this is also a fantastic instrument for children of all ages.
At the heart of KTÄK is its mobility. You can really take this thing anywhere and play at anytime. Percussion is not stationary.
A partnership born from a group of friends with diverse skills, who want to bring to life and spread the word about this incredible project.Obama Announces Resignation Of Acting IRS Commissioner
Enlarge this image toggle caption Alex Wong/Getty Images Alex Wong/Getty Images
President Obama announced late Wednesday that the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Steve Miller, has resigned in the wake of a report that employees at the agency engaged in partisan scrutiny of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
The president, appearing for a brief statement at the White House, said he had directed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew "to accept the resignation of the acting commissioner of the IRS."
He said it was part of a larger effort to "make sure nothing like this ever happens again" by holding responsible individuals to account.
Obama said he had also directed Lew to implement the recommendations contained in the inspector general's report that brought the situation to light.
"I will not tolerate this conduct in any way, especially from the IRS, given the power it has," the president said.
As we reported earlier this week:
"Miller could have alerted Congress to what the IRS had been doing last summer.... "On July 25 of last year, Miller testified before the oversight subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. According to a transcript of the hearing, GOP Rep. Kenny Marchant of Texas said, 'I have been contacted by several of the groups in my district. And they feel like they are being harassed. I don't have any evidence that that is the case. But they feel like they have been harassed and feel like the IRS is threatening them with some kind of action or audit.' "
The IRS has released Miller's letter of resignation. "It is with regret that I will be departing from the IRS as my acting assignment ends in early June," Miller wrote.
"This has been an incredibly difficult time for the IRS given the events of the past few days, and there is a strong and immediate need to restore public trust in the nation's tax agency," he said.A slim majority of Wisconsin voters don’t support the idea of a recall election to oust Gov. Scott Walker (R), according to a new poll. That is, unless Russ Feingold is offered up as the challenger who could replace Walker in just such an election.
In a poll of registered voters conducted by Ethridge & Associates, 51% of respondents said they oppose recalling Walker, compared to 44% who said they supported doing so. However, a recall election would not be just a choice of keeping or booting Walker, but would pit Walker against a Democratic challenger. To test that dynamic, Ethridge paired Walker with progressive favorite former Sen. Russ Feingold, and found the two tied at 48%.That finding does come with some caveats.
For one, Walker can’t be recalled until at least next year. State law requires politicians to have served at least one year before becoming eligible for recall, and Walker is just a few months into his first term. While the union rights battle is fresh in voters’ minds now, that fight — and the calls for a recall election that it fostered — could dissipate over the course of the year.
Even if enough voters sign a petition to recall the governor in 2012, there’s no indication that Feingold would step up as the Democratic challenger in a recall election. Since losing his reelection bid last year, Feingold took a position as a professor at Marquette University.
Previous polls have shown that Walker could face a strong challenge in a recall election.
His approval rating is deep underwater, according to several polls conducted amid the budget debate in Wisconsin. A survey by Republican-leaning pollster Rasmussen from early March even found him deeply unpopular at home, with 43% of likely voters approving of his job performance, verus 57% who disapproved.
Further, in a strong sign of buyers remorse, a March PPP poll showed Walker losing a hypothetical do-over election against the candidate he beat last year, Democrat Tom Barrett. In that poll, a 52% majority said they would back Barrett in a re-do, versus 45% who said they’d go with Walker.
For now, Wisconsin voters have set their sights on recalling state legislators involved in the budget debate that deadlocked the statehouse for weeks. Democrats have collected enough signatures to recall five Republican legislators, while Republicans have filed paperwork to recall three Democratic lawmakers.
The Ethridge poll was conducted April 16-17 among 400 registered voters. It has a margin of error of 4.9%.Russell Wilson has had more than two weeks to mull the pass that stole the Lombardi Trophy from his grasp.
He's also had more than two weeks to consider his future with the Seattle Seahawks.
With the arrival of the offseason and the upcoming start to the new league year, the latter moves to the forefront of his team's offseason checklist, and likely his as well. The time away offers a chance to secure a contract extension for the quarterback.
Boasting two Super Bowl appearances -- one win, and one heartbreaking defeat -- and exemplary leadership and character traits seen both on and off the field, Wilson has earned special consideration.
NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport reported on Thursday's edition of NFL Total Access that Wilson might have earned a deal with terms previously unseen at the quarterback position.
"According to the people I've spoken to, it is not out of the realm of possibility that Russell Wilson will receive the first fully guaranteed contract extension for a quarterback -- something that is a rarity in the NFL -- not a rarity, it does not happen," Rapoport said. "It simply does not happen, but in this case it really might happen and (Seahawks general manager) John Schneider has talked about it in the past, an uncoventional type of contract."
Seattle is facing a bind just over the hill from now. With many of its key players being young and under relatively affordable contracts, Schneider and Carroll have to pick their battles wisely when trying to keep their guys in Seattle. Each new deal will lessen the future cap space available to re-up with others, so giving Wilson a fully guaranteed deal could convince him to take less overall money, lowering his cap number and allowing for more manuverability with future contracts.
There is also the potential new deal for veteran running back Marshawn Lynch -- who is considering retirement -- which will be a pivotal point in future decisions regarding Seattle's roster and salary cap. Lynch's deal will not be cheap.
As the sides consider the options, Wilson will have financial numbers to keep him busy. It will likely be a welcome relief from the memory of that fateful throw that was intecepted by New England's Malcolm Butler on the goal line. According to Wilson's post on the Players' Tribune website, he's had a tough time shaking it.
"One yard," Wilson wrote in his introduction. "I'd be lying if I said I haven't been thinking about that one yard for the past 17 days.
"Everyone wants to know how I feel. Well, it's complicated. Walking off that field in Arizona and seeing disappointed Seahawks fans in the stands was anguish. How could I not feel like I let them down? I tried to be positive, but I'm not perfect."
Wilson says his intention with the video was to explain himself to the fans of Seattle. The quarterback spills his heart out, declaring his accountability for the crushing defeat.
Combine on NFL Network In advance of the draft, Marcus Mariota and others will look to showcase their skills at the combine (Feb. 17-23), only on NFL Network.
In advance of the draft, Marcus Mariota and others will look to showcase their skills at the combine (Feb. 17-23), only on NFL Network. SCHEDULE
"I want to let you know my thought process," Wilson says in the video. "I know I threw that pass and I know I will throw another one. Hopefully I will be remembered for something different."
With an unprecedented contract extension likely on the horizon, it's likely we'll see much more football from Wilson in a Seahawks uniform. If his track record has anything to do with it, we'll see more memorable football, too.
The latest Around The NFL Podcast breaks down RGIII's appointment as starter and Larry Fitzgerald's new deal with the Cardinals. Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW.Progressives have long clamored for a single-payer healthcare system featured in countries like Canada, but they ignore the fact that America already has a version of it: the Department of Veteran's Affairs (VA). The results of the VA have not been up to par, to say the least.
Pete Hegseth, a veteran who has run various veterans organizations and is a Fox News contributor, explains in Prager University's latest video that despite the fact that the VA is second only to the Defense Department in terms of size of funding, the department "has been an abysmal failure: inefficient, bureaucratic and sometimes deadly."
Hegseth lists three examples in the video that highlight the failure of the VA:
Veterans waited an average of 115 days for care at the Phoenix VA, which tried to suppress the horror through "falsified waiting lists."
The VA in Fort Collins, Colo. cooked the books to mislead people into thinking they "were seeing more patients than they actually were."
The VA in Columbia, S.C. had a backlog of almost 4,000 appointments, resulting in people dying from delayed care.
The Pittsburgh VA hospital failed to inform their patients of a Legionnaires' Disease outbreak for over a year and a half, causing at least six veterans to die.
Throwing more money at the department has proven ineffective at solving its ills.
"The VA’s budget has almost doubled since 2009," explains Hegseth. "They've hired 100,000 new people in the past decade. Wait times have actually gone up, yet not one administrator was fired for the wait-list scandal."
What will fix the VA is privatization.
"Let the money follow the veteran," Hegseth said. "If veterans were given vouchers that they could use at any health care provider – private or government – they would control their own care. This, in turn, would force the VA to compete for their business, encouraging staff to treat patients as customers, not just as names on a waiting list."
The proof that this would work is the fact that veterans tend to avoid the VA if possible: only a third of veterans use the VA; even then they still obtain three-quarters of their care elsewhere.
The VA is proof that a single-payer healthcare system would be a massive failure if America were to adopt it.
Follow Aaron Bandler on Twitter.From Team Fortress Wiki
“
— The Soldier Cuh-rit! ”
Critical hits, also known as crits or full crits, are attacks that do extra damage and have distinctive sound effects when fired and upon hitting a target. Players on the receiving end of the attack will have the words "Critical Hit!!!" in green, or "Mini-Crit!" in yellow, respectively, appear above their head.
Critical hits can be easily distinguished from normal hits. Most melee weapons have a unique swinging animation, projectiles such as rockets or stickybombs have a team-colored glow and sparkle effect, bullets have team-colored trails, and Flamethrowers produce additional team-colored particles. These visual effects are accompanied by a crackling electric sound upon firing.
Self-inflicted critical hits will not deal critical damage to the user, but will still play the sound effect.
Critical hits deal three times the base damage of the weapon and ignore both the distance modification and the random damage modification of normal shots, though explosive weapon critical hits still suffer from splash damage fall-off. As a result, weapons that are normally merely nuisances at long range (such as Miniguns) can become dangerous when critical hitting. The extra damage is of the "critical" type instead of matching the weapon's original type, meaning it cannot be resisted by the Vaccinator's normal healing or Upgrade Station buffs — though this also allows other mechanics to target critical damage specifically, such as the Battalion's Backup and the Vaccinator's ÜberCharge, which fully neutralize the extra damage.
When a player is killed by a critical hit, the class will let out a loud scream that differs from ordinary non-melee deaths, unless the class was gibbed (in which case they let out a larger "ouch" noise than explosive kills usually cause). The kill feed icon for a critical hit surrounds the weapon icon with a red glow.
Critical hits and mini-crits do not stack in any form — that is, meeting multiple conditions to earn a critical hit or a mini-crit will not deal any more than the normal damage boost. For example, the Frontier Justice's "Revenge" critical hits will not deal any additional damage if the Engineer is ÜberCharged by a Kritzkrieg, nor will a player marked for death and coated in Jarate suffer more than standard mini-crits. This means that team co-ordination is required if multiple players have ways to increase their critical hit output, or extra damage will be wasted. If both a mini-crit and full critical hit occur with the same attack, the critical hit overrides the mini-crit.
Critical hit chance
Critical hit chance based on damage.
The base critical hit chance for standard weapons is 2%. This is modified by a bonus percentage based on how much damage the player has done in the last 20 seconds, which scales from 0% at 0 damage to 10% at 800 damage.[1] For example, if the player has dealt 200 damage in the past 20 seconds, the additional bonus percentage is 2.5% and so the overall critical hit chance is 4.5%. As a result, the highest natural critical hit chance attainable is 12%.
Melee weapons are designed to critical hit far more often than ranged ones in order to encourage their usage at close range. Their base critical hit chance starts at 15% — higher than attainable for ranged weapons with the recent damage bonus maxed out — and their recent damage bonus scales from 0% to 45%, meaning a player that has done 800 damage or more in the last 20 seconds has a melee critical hit rate of 60%.
Among those weapons that trigger randomly, critical hit probability is determined differently based on the type of weapon. Single-shot weapons, such as the Shotgun, Revolver, and the Rocket Launcher, determine the chance to critical hit with every shot. Thus, every shot of the Shotgun will have a 2% chance to launch a flurry of critical pellets, assuming no previous damage done. Rapid-fire weapons, which include the Minigun, Syringe Gun, Flamethrower, and the Pistol, check for critical hits once a second. With weapons like these, a positive critical hit determination results in all shots for the next two seconds being critical. This only applies to the active weapon; getting two seconds of critical hits on one's Pistol will not cause their Shotgun to fire critical hits during this time.
Special cases
There is a wide variety of situations that affect whether a weapon can deal critical hits or not.
Weapons that can gain both random critical hits and situational critical hits
The following weapons can deal guaranteed critical hits in specific situations in addition to being capable of scoring them at random.
Weapons that cannot gain random critical hits but can gain situational critical hits
The following weapons have a 0% chance of random critical hits in all situations, but can still deal critical hits in specific situations or if the user is crit-boosted.
Weapons that cannot gain random critical hits and cannot gain situational critical hits
The following weapons have a 0% chance of random critical hits in all situations and do not have a mean of scoring critical hits on their own, though they can still deliver critical hits if another effect is in play, such as a Kritzkrieg.
Weapons that cannot critical hit in any way
The following weapons cannot deal critical hits in any way. They can, however, mini-crit if the situation is right.
Weapons that are exempt
The following items cannot deal critical hits or mini-crits at all, usually because they cannot deal damage. Note that some of the items will still glow when crit-boosted; there will simply be no effect.
Crit Boost
Crit boost is a state in which a player is guaranteed to deal critical hits with any weapon that is not specifically unable to score critical hits. A crit boost is indicated by the player's weapon glowing in their team color, with sparks of electricity surging and crackling from it. This affects most weapons that do not normally deal random critical hits, such as the Knife, Sniper Rifle, Gunslinger, and Eyelander, causing them to deal critical attacks for the duration of the boost; however, weapons that don't damage enemies (for example, Mad Milk, Jarate, Bonk! Atomic Punch, or Crit-a-Cola) won't gain any benefits from crits. Only the Cow Mangler 5000 is exempt from this rule, as it does mini-crits instead of critical hits.
A crit boost can be attained under the following circumstances:
During Humiliation, the winning team is granted a crit boost.
The ÜberCharge from the Kritzkrieg grants the Medic's heal target an 8 second crit boost.
Capturing the intelligence in a game of Capture the Flag gives the entire capturing team a 10 second crit boost. This value can be altered or disabled by the server host console via a command.
On Halloween maps during Halloween, killed players randomly drop candy-filled Halloween pumpkins. When picked up, the player is awarded around 3–4 seconds of crit boost.
Upon killing an enemy with the Killing Gloves of Boxing, the Heavy will be crit boosted for 5 seconds. The crit boost applies not only to the Killing Gloves of Boxing, but to all the Heavy's currently equipped weapons.
The Phlogistinator allows a Pyro to crit boost itself for about 10 seconds upon activating "Mmmph", but the crit boost only affects the Phlogistinator (or any flamethrower he picks up in that 10 second period).
Using a Critical Hit Boost Power Up Canteen in Mann vs. Machine.
First Blood
In Arena Mode, a 'First Blood' buff is granted to a player who achieves the first kill of a round. It consists of a five-second crit boost.
If players switch weapons during the buff, the electricity around their weapon will disappear, but critical hits will still be delivered.
Triggering feign death with the Dead Ringer gives the attacker the 'First Blood' buff.
The 'First Blood' buff counts as an ÜberCharge towards the Heavy achievement Supreme Soviet.
Obtaining 'First Blood' as a Scout unlocks the First Blood achievement; killing five enemies with 'First Blood' unlocks First Blood, Part 2.
The 'First Blood' achievement can also be earned by a Scout in Competitive Matchmaking mode, but no critical hits are awarded for the first kill.
Gallery
Crit Arrows.
Crit Baseballs.
Crit Bullets.
Crit Flames.
Crit Grenades.
Crit Rockets.
Crit Stickybombs.
Crit Syringes.
Crit MONOCULUS eyeball projectiles.
Spark sprite.
Mini-crits
Icon displayed above targets " Marked For Death ", indicating they will receive mini-crits from all sources.
HUD Icon displayed when the player is Marked For Death, indicating receiving mini-crits from all sources.
Mini-crits add an extra 35% damage to a weapon's damage. Like normal critical hits, they ignore damage falloff, but unlike critical hits, they are still given ramp-up at close range and random spread. Full critical hits override mini-crits. Like full critical hits, mini-crits will have a glowing red outline in their kill icons and will be displayed with a larger font when combat text is enabled. If the player is under a mini-crit buff state (such as the Buff Banner or Buffalo Steak Sandvich), or the victim is under a mini-crit debuff state (such as being covered in Jarate or marked for death), all taunt attacks will also mini-crit. Aesthetically, mini-crits do not trigger critical death lines from victims, unlike full critical hits.
There are currently nine ways for a player to deal consistent mini-crits to all other players:
There are also currently four effects that force a particular player to take mini-crits from all incoming damage (See also: Marked For Death):
Being marked by the Fan O'War
Being an Engineer who is hauling a building with the Rescue Ranger equipped, or has done so in the last three seconds.
Being covered in Jarate.
Being a Soldier who has the Escape Plan active, or had it active in the last 3 seconds.
Finally, there are four ways of achieving mini-crits that require both the attacker and the target to be in a particular situation:
Hitting an airborne enemy who was propelled airborne by an explosion with the Direct Hit.
Shooting an airborne enemy who was propelled airborne by any source of knockback except Compression Blast with the Reserve Shooter.
Hitting a burning enemy with the Detonator or Scorch Shot.
Directly impacting an enemy within half a second before a cannonball explosion with the Loose Cannon.
Mini-crit boost
A mini-crit boost is the state of having all damage being dealt modified into mini-crit damage. Currently, this is achievable while under the effects of the Crit-a-Cola, an active Buff Banner, activating the Cleaner's Carbine's "CRIKEY" charge, and while under the effects of the Buffalo Steak Sandvich. When a player is mini-crit boosted from the Buff Banner, their active weapon glows a faint yellow on RED, or a faint blue-green on BLU, while the same color effect of particles swirl around their feet, and the text "Mini Crit!" appears above their health bar. Being mini-crit boosted by the Crit-a-Cola will look more like a normal crit boost, but the weapon will glow lighter.
All damage sources, including afterburn and Sentry Guns, only deal mini-crit damage when the player dealing the damage is being boosted. If the player loses the boost after firing a projectile while the projectile is in mid-flight, it will lose its status as a mini-crit. Conversely, after the Pyro sets fire to several players, returning to a mini-crit boost will immediately transform any afterburn damage to mini-crit status. Sentry Guns will only mini-crit while the Engineer is being mini-crit boosted.
Related achievements
First Blood
Get the first kill in an Arena or Competitive match. First Blood, Part 2
Kill 5 enemies with the First Blood crit buff in an Arena match.
Crockets Are Such B.S.
Shoot two non-boosted crit rockets in a row. Tri-Splatteral Damage
Kill 3 enemies with a single critical rocket.
Hotshot
Kill a Soldier with a reflected critical rocket.
Beat Me Up, Scotty
Use a critical swing with the Eyelander to kill 5 enemy players.
Communist Mani-Fisto
Kill an enemy with a critical punch. Crock Block
Survive a direct hit from a critical rocket.
Revengineering
Use a revenge crit to kill the enemy player that destroyed your sentry gun. Unforgiven
Kill 3 enemies with revenge crits without dying.
Triage
Deploy an ÜberCharge on a teammate less than a second before they're hit by a critical explosive.
Cap Trap
Kill an enemy who is capturing a control point with a critical hit.
Kritical Terror
Use a canteen charged with 'Crit Boost' to destroy a giant robot.
Bugs
The vast majority of effects and achievements cannot tell the difference between a critical hit and a mini-crit, and as a result treat all mini-crit |
Loot Crate coupon code NEWS3 or use code FINDBOXES to save 10% off any Loot Crate subscription. For a limited time, new subscribers also get a FREE Loot Crate t-shirt with 12 month subscriptions!
The October Loot Crate theme has been revealed – TIME!BEREA, Ohio -- Josh Gordon on Wednesday pronounced himself "clean and sober" and said his goal now that he's back with the Cleveland Browns is to be the NFL's best receiver ever.
Editor's Picks Gordon: I took drugs or alcohol before games Josh Gordon, the oft-troubled Browns wide receiver, told a magazine interviewer that he used drugs or alcohol before every NFL game he played.
"To me that's always been my goal, and I think it's been reaffirmed to me time and time again," Gordon said on his second day with the Browns after being reinstated by the NFL. "Now being back in the situation to do it, I'm going to see it through."
Gordon had been suspended for violating the league's substance abuse policy for the past two seasons. He has not played in a regular season game since 2014. He also recently completed a stay in rehab that he has said lasted more than 100 days.
"[I'm] in a good spot.... I know I have the support in place outside and inside the building," Gordon said. "My life is just in a conducive space of where I need to be for me psychologically, physically. It's all come together. Right now at this point in my life I'm feeling well. I'm feeling great."
Gordon was asked whether he wanted to be back in Cleveland.
"I'm here to help the team win," he said. "That's my first priority. Being the best football player I can be -- that comes first and foremost. Anything else after that I have no control over. I'm here to help this team win and do that the best way I know now. That's being the best wide receiver."A Leg for Louis - 7 days ago, Louis, our dear pet, child and little buddy got injured somehow. The poor guy got spooked and disappeared up a tree at the sight of his cat-carrier, only to return 52 worrying hours later with a broken leg. He appeared stable, but.....
A Leg for Louis -
7 days ago, Louis, our dear pet, child and little buddy got injured somehow. The poor guy got spooked and disappeared up a tree at the sight of his cat-carrier, only to return 52 worrying hours later with a broken leg. He appeared stable, but he had a twisted right hind leg and was a little confused.
We immediately took him to the vet, where he was thankfully sedated with his blankie - but what a scary cage.They did X-rays the following morning and discovered that his ankle bone is split and his tibia fractured. This was terrible news; the doctor sent Louis home with pain pills and consulted with his colleges over the weekend.
Today we were contacted and told by the doctor's office that another doctor at Panorama Veterinary Clinic will see Louis tomorrow and perhaps go into surgery.
The surgery is to have one or more pins to be inserted into his ankle bone(s) - pardon my poor understanding of anatomy. We were told that he will get most of the foot's mobility back. As I understand it, it is a delicate operation which needs a very skilled physician and resources. The estimate we got is R16,000 (updated 14/3/2016). The idiom about an arm and a leg, seems to apply to paws and claws too - but this is no joke for Louis.
We didn't ask for alternatives, we know what that is, we don't want Louis to have his leg amputated. This is not an option for our happy, squeaky, sneaky, purry cuddle-monster, who wants nothing more than to climb trees, traverse walls and run around in circles happily with the other cats.
We please call on friends, Louis fans or fellow toe-bean counters to consider helping our fund with anything they would like to donate - even an extra R10 ($1) helps us reach the goal of paying for Louis' operation. You can send something through gogetfunding's paypal in $, through my EFT details below, or send me a message if you would like to contribute some funds another way.
We thank all our concerned friends who responded when Louis went missing, those who expressed sympathy & support, and those who read this far and/or feels like contributing. We will keep you updated on Louis' road to recovery <3
Walt & Rowan
Loving kitten "thaddies" (Louis has a lisp)
*Please note, we have switched the campaign over to USD ($) to accommodate Paypal as well. If you would like to add something to the fund, there are some additional options below!*
Banking Details for EFT donations
W Geldenhuys
ABSA BANK (SOUTH AFRICA)
9088493581
632005
Ref: Louis fund
Bitcoin
12aExFPbisquRWdgjQmJ3VvPVt3wSZedZM
Ref: Louis fundA parent I know reports (some details anonymized):
Recently we bought my 3-year-old daughter a "behavior chart," in which she can earn stickers for achievements like not throwing tantrums, eating fruits and vegetables, and going to sleep on time. We successfully impressed on her that a major goal each day was to earn as many stickers as possible. This morning, though, I found her just plastering her entire behavior chart with stickers. She genuinely seemed to think I'd be proud of how many stickers she now had.
The Effective Altruism movement has now entered this extremely cute stage of cognitive development. EA is more than three years old, but institutions age differently than individuals.
What is a confidence game?
In 2009, investment manager and con artist Bernie Madoff pled guilty to running a massive fraud, with $50 billion in fake return on investment, having outright embezzled around $18 billion out of the $36 billion investors put into the fund. Only a couple of years earlier, when my grandfather was still alive, I remember him telling me about how Madoff was a genius, getting his investors a consistent high return, and about how he wished he could be in on it, but Madoff wasn't accepting additional investors.
What Madoff was running was a classic Ponzi scheme. Investors gave him money, and he told them that he'd gotten them an exceptionally high return on investment, when in fact he had not. But because he promised to be able to do it again, his investors mostly reinvested their money, and more people were excited about getting in on the deal. There was more than enough money to cover the few people who wanted to take money out of this amazing opportunity.
Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, and speculative bubbles are all situations in investors' expected profits are paid out from the money paid in by new investors, instead of any independently profitable venture. Ponzi schemes are centrally managed – the person running the scheme represents it to investors as legitimate, and takes responsibility for finding new investors and paying off old ones. In pyramid schemes such as multi-level-marketing and chain letters, each generation of investor recruits new investors and profits from them. In speculative bubbles, there is no formal structure propping up the scheme, only a common, mutually reinforcing set of expectations among speculators driving up the price of something that was already for sale.
The general situation in which someone sets themself up as the repository of others' confidence, and uses this as leverage to acquire increasing investment, can be called a confidence game.
Some of the most iconic Ponzi schemes blew up quickly because they promised wildly unrealistic growth rates. This had three undesirable effects for the people running the schemes. First, it attracted too much attention – too many people wanted into the scheme too quickly, so they rapidly exhausted sources of new capital. Second, because their rates of return were implausibly high, they made themselves targets for scrutiny. Third, the extremely high rates of return themselves caused their promises to quickly outpace what they could plausibly return to even a small share of their investor victims.
Madoff was careful to avoid all these problems, which is why his scheme lasted for nearly half a century. He only promised plausibly high returns (around 10% annually) for a successful hedge fund, especially if it was illegally engaged in insider trading, rather than the sort of implausibly high returns typical of more blatant Ponzi schemes. (Charles Ponzi promised to double investors' money in 90 days.) Madoff showed reluctance to accept new clients, like any other fund manager who doesn't want to get too big for their trading strategy.
He didn't plaster stickers all over his behavior chart – he put a reasonable number of stickers on it. He played a long game.
Not all confidence games are inherently bad. For instance, the US national pension system, Social Security, operates as a kind of Ponzi scheme, it is not obviously unsustainable, and many people continue to be glad that it exists. Nominally, when people pay Social Security taxes, the money is invested in the social security trust fund, which holds interest-bearing financial assets that will be used to pay out benefits in their old age. In this respect it looks like an ordinary pension fund.
However, the financial assets are US Treasury bonds. There is no independently profitable venture. The Federal Government of the United States of America is quite literally writing an IOU to itself, and then spending the money on current expenditures, including paying out current Social Security benefits.
The Federal Government, of course, can write as large an IOU to itself as it wants. It could make all tax revenues part of the Social Security program. It could issue new Treasury bonds and gift them to Social Security. None of this would increase its ability to pay out Social Security benefits. It would be an empty exercise in putting stickers on its own chart.
If the Federal government loses the ability to collect enough taxes to pay out social security benefits, there is no additional capacity to pay represented by US Treasury bonds. What we have is an implied promise to pay out future benefits, backed by the expectation that the government will be able to collect taxes in the future, including Social Security taxes.
There's nothing necessarily wrong with this, except that the mechanism by which Social Security is funded is obscured by financial engineering. However, this misdirection should raise at least some doubts as to the underlying sustainability or desirability of the commitment. In fact, this scheme was adopted specifically to give people the impression that they had some sort of property rights over their social Security Pension, in order to make the program politically difficult to eliminate. Once people have "bought in" to a program, they will be reluctant to treat their prior contributions as sunk costs, and willing to invest additional resources to salvage their investment, in ways that may make them increasingly reliant on it.
Not all confidence games are intrinsically bad, but dubious programs benefit the most from being set up as confidence games. More generally, bad programs are the ones that benefit the most from being allowed to fiddle with their own accounting. As Daniel Davies writes, in The D-Squared Digest One Minute MBA - Avoiding Projects Pursued By Morons 101:
Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance. I was first made aware of this during an accounting class. We were discussing the subject of accounting for stock options at technology companies. […] One side (mainly technology companies and their lobbyists) held that stock option grants should not be treated as an expense on public policy grounds; treating them as an expense would discourage companies from granting them, and stock options were a vital compensation tool that incentivised performance, rewarded dynamism and innovation and created vast amounts of value for America and the world. The other side (mainly people like Warren Buffet) held that stock options looked awfully like a massive blag carried out my management at the expense of shareholders, and that the proper place to record such blags was the P&L account. Our lecturer, in summing up the debate, made the not unreasonable point that if stock options really were a fantastic tool which unleashed the creative power in every employee, everyone would want to expense as many of them as possible, the better to boast about how innovative, empowered and fantastic they were. Since the tech companies' point of view appeared to be that if they were ever forced to account honestly for their option grants, they would quickly stop making them, this offered decent prima facie evidence that they weren't, really, all that fantastic.
However, I want to generalize the concept of confidence games from the domain of financial currency, to the domain of social credit more generally (of which money is a particular form that our society commonly uses), and in particular I want to talk about confidence games in the currency of credit for achievement.
If I were applying for a very important job with great responsibilities, such as President of the United States, CEO of a top corporation, or head or board member of a major AI research institution, I could be expected to have some relevant prior experience. For instance, I might have had some success managing a similar, smaller institution, or serving the same institution in a lesser capacity. More generally, when I make a bid for control over something, I am implicitly claiming that I have enough social credit – enough of a track record – that I can be expected to do good things with that control.
In general, if someone has done a lot, we should expect to see an iceberg pattern where a small easily-visible part suggests a lot of solid but harder-to-verify substance under the surface. One might be tempted to make a habit of imputing a much larger iceberg from the combination of a small floaty bit, and promises. But, a small easily-visible part with claims of a lot of harder-to-see substance is easy to mimic without actually doing the work. As Davies continues:
The Vital Importance of Audit. Emphasised over and over again. Brealey and Myers has a section on this, in which they remind callow students that like backing-up one's computer files, this is a lesson that everyone seems to have to learn the hard way. Basically, it's been shown time and again and again; companies which do not audit completed projects in order to see how accurate the original projections were, tend to get exactly the forecasts and projects that they deserve. Companies which have a culture where there are no consequences for making dishonest forecasts, get the projects they deserve. Companies which allocate blank cheques to management teams with a proven record of failure and mendacity, get what they deserve.
If you can independently put stickers on your own chart, then your chart is no longer reliably tracking something externally verified. If forecasts are not checked and tracked, or forecasters are not consequently held accountable for their forecasts, then there is no reason to believe that assessments of future, ongoing, or past programs are accurate. Adopting a wait-and-see attitude, insisting on audits for actual results (not just predictions) before investing more, will definitely slow down funding for good programs. But without it, most of your funding will go to worthless ones.
Open Philanthropy, OpenAI, and closed validation loops
The Open Philanthropy Project recently announced a $30 million grant to the $1 billion nonprofit AI research organization OpenAI. This is the largest single grant it has ever made. The main point of the grant is to buy influence over OpenAI’s future priorities; Holden Karnofsky, Executive Director of the Open Philanthropy Project, is getting a seat on OpenAI’s board as part of the deal. This marks the second major shift in focus for the Open Philanthropy Project.
The first shift (back when it was just called GiveWell) was from trying to find the best already-existing programs to fund (“passive funding”) to envisioning new programs and working with grantees to make them reality (“active funding”). The new shift is from funding specific programs at all, to trying to take control of programs without any specific plan.
To justify the passive funding stage, all you have to believe is that you can know better than other donors, among existing charities. For active funding, you have to believe that you’re smart enough to evaluate potential programs, just like a charity founder might, and pick ones that will outperform. But buying control implies that you think you’re so much better, that even before you’ve evaluated any programs, if someone’s doing something big, you ought to have a say.
When GiveWell moved from a passive to an active funding strategy, it was relying on the moral credit it had earned for its extensive and well-regarded charity evaluations. The thing that was particularly exciting about GiveWell was that they focused on outcomes and efficiency. They didn't just focus on the size or intensity of the problem a charity was addressing. They didn't just look at financial details like overhead ratios. They asked the question a consequentialist cares about: for a given expenditure of money, how much will this charity be able to improve outcomes?
However, when GiveWell tracks its impact, it does not track objective outcomes at all. It tracks inputs: attention received (in the form of visits to its website) and money moved on the basis of its recommendations. In other words, its estimate of its own impact is based on the level of trust people have placed in it.
So, as GiveWell built out the Open Philanthropy Project, its story was: We promised to do something great. As a result, we were entrusted with a fair amount of attention and money. Therefore, we should be given more responsibility. We represented our behavior as praiseworthy, and as a result people put stickers on our chart. For this reason, we should be advanced stickers against future days of praiseworthy behavior.
Then, as the Open Philanthropy Project explored active funding in more areas, its estimate of its own effectiveness grew. After all, it was funding more speculative, hard-to-measure programs, but a multi-billion-dollar donor, which was largely relying on the Open Philanthropy Project's opinions to assess efficacy (including its own efficacy), continued to trust it.
What is missing here is any objective track record of benefits. What this looks like to me, is a long sort of confidence game – or, using less morally loaded language, a venture with structural reliance on increasing amounts of leverage – in the currency of moral credit.
Version 0: GiveWell and passive funding
First, there was GiveWell. GiveWell’s purpose was to find and vet evidence-backed charities. However, it recognized that charities know their own business best. It wasn’t trying to do better than the charities; it was trying to do better than the typical charity donor, by being more discerning.
GiveWell’s thinking from this phase is exemplified by co-founder Elie Hassenfeld’s Six tips for giving like a pro:
When you give, give cash – no strings attached. You’re just a part-time donor, but the charity you’re supporting does this full-time and staff there probably know a lot more about how to do their job than you do. If you’ve found a charity that you feel is excellent – not just acceptable – then it makes sense to trust the charity to make good decisions about how to spend your money.
GiveWell similarly tried to avoid distorting charities’ behavior. Its job was only to evaluate, not to interfere. To perceive, not to act. To find the best, and buy more of the same.
How did GiveWell assess its effectiveness in this stage? When GiveWell evaluates charities, it estimates their cost-effectiveness in advance. It assesses the program the charity is running, through experimental evidence of the form of randomized controlled trials. GiveWell also audits the charity to make sure they’re actually running the program, and figure out how much it costs as implemented. This is an excellent, evidence-based way to generate a prediction of how much good will be done by moving money to the charity.
As far as I can tell, these predictions are untested.
One of GiveWell’s early top charities was VillageReach, which helped Mozambique with TB immunization logistics. GiveWell estimated that VillageReach could save a life for $1,000. But this charity is no longer recommended. The public page says:
VillageReach (www.villagereach.org) was our top-rated organization for 2009, 2010 and much of 2011 and it has received over $2 million due to GiveWell's recommendation. In late 2011, we removed VillageReach from our top-rated list because we felt its project had limited room for more funding. As of November 2012, we believe that that this project may have room for more funding, but we still prefer our current highest-rated charities above it.
GiveWell reanalyzed the data it based its recommendations on, but hasn’t published an after-the-fact retrospective of long-run results. I asked GiveWell about this by email. The response was that such an assessment was not prioritized because GiveWell had found implementation problems in VillageReach's scale-up work as well as reasons to doubt its original conclusion about the impact of the pilot program. It's unclear to me whether this has caused GiveWell to evaluate charities differently in the future.
I don't think someone looking at GiveWell's page on VillageReach would be likely to reach the conclusion that GiveWell now believes its original recommendation was likely erroneous. GiveWell's impact page continues to count money moved to VillageReach without any mention of the retracted recommendation. If we assume that the point of tracking money moved is to track the benefit of moving money from worse to better uses, then repudiated programs ought to be counted against the total, as costs, rather than towards it.
GiveWell has recommended the Against Malaria Foundation for the last several years as a top charity. AMF distributes long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent mosquitos from transmitting malaria to humans. Its evaluation of AMF does not mention any direct evidence, positive or negative, about what happened to malaria rates in the areas where AMF operated. (There is a discussion of the evidence that the bed nets were in fact delivered and used.) In the supplementary information page, however, we are told:
Previously, AMF expected to collect data on malaria case rates from the regions in which it funded LLIN distributions: […] In 2016, AMF shared malaria case rate data […] but we have not prioritized analyzing it closely. AMF believes that this data is not high quality enough to reliably indicate actual trends in malaria case rates, so we do not believe that the fact that AMF collects malaria case rate data is a consideration in AMF’s favor, and do not plan to continue to track AMF's progress in collecting malaria case rate data.
The data was noisy, so they simply stopped checking whether AMF’s bed net distributions do anything about malaria.
If we want to know the size of the improvement made by GiveWell in the developing world, we have their predictions about cost-effectiveness, an audit trail verifying that work was performed, and their direct measurement of how much money people gave because they trusted GiveWell. The predictions on the final target – improved outcomes – have not been tested.
GiveWell is actually doing unusually well as far as major funders go. It sticks to describing things it's actually responsible for. By contrast, the Gates Foundation, in a report to Warren Buffet claiming to describe its impact, simply described overall improvement in the developing world, a very small rhetorical step from claiming credit for 100% of the improvement. GiveWell at least sticks to facts about GiveWell's own effects, and this is to its credit. But, it focuses on costs it has been able to impose, not benefits it has been able to create.
The Centre for Effective Altruism's William MacAskill made a related point back in 2012, though he talked about the lack of any sort of formal outside validation or audit, rather than focusing on empirical validation of outcomes:
As far as I know, GiveWell haven't commissioned a thorough external evaluation of their recommendations. […] This surprises me. Whereas businesses have a natural feedback mechanism, namely profit or loss, research often doesn't, hence the need for peer-review within academia. This concern, when it comes to charity-evaluation, is even greater. If GiveWell's analysis and recommendations had major flaws, or were systematically biased in some way, it would be challenging for outsiders to work this out without a thorough independent evaluation. Fortunately, GiveWell has the resources to, for example, employ two top development economists to each do an independent review of their recommendations and the supporting research. This would make their recommendations more robust at a reasonable cost.
GiveWell's page on self-evaluation says that it discontinued external reviews in August 2013. This page links to an explanation of the decision, which concludes:
We continue to believe that it is important to ensure that our work is subjected to in-depth scrutiny. However, at this time, the scrutiny we’re naturally receiving – combined with the high costs and limited capacity for formal external evaluation – make us inclined to postpone major effort on external evaluation for the time being. That said, >If someone volunteered to do (or facilitate) formal external evaluation, we’d welcome this and would be happy to prominently post or link to criticism.
We do intend eventually to re-institute formal external evaluation.
Four years later, assessing the credibility of this assurance is left as an exercise for the reader.
Version 1: GiveWell Labs and active funding
Then there was GiveWell Labs, later called the Open Philanthropy Project. It looked into more potential philanthropic causes, where the evidence base might not be as cut-and-dried as that for the GiveWell top charities. One thing they learned was that in many areas, there simply weren’t shovel-ready programs ready for funding – a funder has to play a more active role. This shift was described by GiveWell co-founder Holden Karnofsky in his 2013 blog post, Challenges of passive funding:
By “passive funding,” I mean a dynamic in which the funder’s role is to review others’ proposals/ideas/arguments and pick which to fund, and by “active funding,” I mean a dynamic in which the funder’s role is to participate in – or lead – the development of a strategy, and find partners to “implement” it. Active funders, in other words, are participating at some level in “management” of partner organizations, whereas passive funders are merely choosing between plans that other nonprofits have already come up with. My instinct is generally to try the most “passive” approach that’s feasible. Broadly speaking, it seems that a good partner organization will generally know their field and environment better than we do and therefore be best positioned to design strategy; in addition, I’d expect a project to go better when its implementer has fully bought into the plan as opposed to carrying out what the funder wants. However, (a) this philosophy seems to contrast heavily with how most existing major funders operate; (b) I’ve seen multiple reasons to believe the “active” approach may have more relative merits than we had originally anticipated. […] In the nonprofit world of today, it seems to us that funder interests are major drivers of which ideas that get proposed and fleshed out, and therefore, as a funder, it’s important to express interests rather than trying to be fully “passive.”
While we still wish to err on the side of being as “passive” as possible, we are recognizing the importance of clearly articulating our values/strategy, and also recognizing that an area can be underfunded even if we can’t easily find shovel-ready funding opportunities in it.
GiveWell earned some credibility from its novel, evidence-based outcome-oriented approach to charity evaluation. But this credibility was already – and still is – a sort of loan. We have GiveWell's predictions or promises of cost effectiveness in terms of outcomes, and we have figures for money moved, from which we can infer how much we were promised in improved outcomes. As far as I know, no one's gone back and checked whether those promises turned out to be true.
In the meantime, GiveWell then leveraged this credibility by extending its methods into more speculative domains, where less was checkable, and donors had to put more trust in the subjective judgment of GiveWell analysts. This was called GiveWell Labs. At the time, this sort of compounded leverage may have been sensible, but it's important to track whether a debt has been paid off or merely rolled over.
Version 2: The Open Philanthropy Project and control-seeking
Finally, the Open Philanthropy made its largest-ever single grant to purchase its founder a seat on a major organization’s board. This represents a transition from mere active funding to overtly purchasing influence:
The Open Philanthropy Project awarded a grant of $30 million ($10 million per year for 3 years) in general support to OpenAI. This grant initiates a partnership between the Open Philanthropy Project and OpenAI, in which Holden Karnofsky (Open Philanthropy’s Executive Director, “Holden” throughout this page) will join OpenAI’s Board of Directors and, jointly with one other Board member, oversee OpenAI’s safety and governance work. We expect the primary benefits of this grant to stem from our partnership with OpenAI, rather than simply from contributing funding toward OpenAI’s work. While we would also expect general support for OpenAI to be likely beneficial on its own, the case for this grant hinges on the benefits we anticipate from our partnership, particularly the opportunity to help play a role in OpenAI’s approach to safety and governance issues.
Clearly the value proposition is not increasing available funds for OpenAI, if OpenAI’s founders’ billion-dollar commitment to it is real:
Sam, Greg, Elon, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Infosys, and YC Research are donating to support OpenAI. In total, these funders have committed $1 billion, although we expect to only spend a tiny fraction of this in the next few years.
The Open Philanthropy Project is neither using this money to fund programs that have a track record of working, nor to fund a specific program that it has prior reason to expect will do good. Rather, it is buying control, in the hope that Holden will be able to persuade OpenAI not to destroy the world, because he knows better than OpenAI’s founders.
How does the Open Philanthropy Project know that Holden knows better? Well, it’s done some active funding of programs it expects to work out. It expects those programs to work out because they were approved by a process similar to the one used by GiveWell to find charities that it expects to save lives.
If you want to acquire control over something, that implies that you think you can manage it more sensibly than whoever is in control already. Thus, buying control is a claim to have superior judgment - not just over others funding things (the original GiveWell pitch), but over those being funded.
In a footnote to the very post announcing the grant, the Open Philanthropy Project notes that it has historically tried to avoid acquiring leverage over organizations it supports, precisely because it’s not sure it knows better:
For now, we note that providing a high proportion of an organization’s funding may cause it to be dependent on us and accountable primarily to us. This may mean that we come to be seen as more responsible for its actions than we want to be; it can also mean we have to choose between providing bad and possibly distortive guidance/feedback (unbalanced by other stakeholders’ guidance/feedback) and leaving the organization with essentially no accountability.
This seems to describe two main problems introduced by becoming a dominant funder:
People might accurately attribute causal responsibility for some of the organization's conduct to the Open Philanthropy Project. The Open Philanthropy Project might influence the organization to behave differently than it otherwise would.
The first seems obviously silly. I've been trying to correct the imbalance where Open Phil is criticized mainly when it makes grants, by criticizing it for holding onto too much money.
The second really is a cost as well as a benefit, and the Open Philanthropy Project has been absolutely correct to recognize this. This is the sort of thing GiveWell has consistently gotten right since the beginning and it deserves credit for making this principle clear and – until now – living up to it.
But discomfort with being dominant funders seems inconsistent with buying a board seat to influence OpenAI. If the Open Philanthropy Project thinks that Holden’s judgment is good enough that he should be in control, why only here? If he thinks that other Open Philanthropy Project AI safety grantees have good judgment but OpenAI doesn’t, why not give them similar amounts of money free of strings to spend at their discretion and see what happens? Why not buy people like Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nick Bostrom, or Stuart Russell a seat on OpenAI’s board?
On the other hand, the Open Philanthropy Project is right on the merits here with respect to safe superintelligence development. Openness makes sense for weak AI, but if you’re building true strong AI you want to make sure you’re cooperating with all the other teams in a single closed effort. I agree with the Open Philanthropy Project’s assessment of the relevant risks. But it's not clear to me how often joining the bad guys to prevent their worst excesses is a good strategy, and it seems like it has to often be a mistake. Still, I’m mindful of heroes like John Rabe, Chiune Sugihara, and Oscar Schindler. And if I think someone has a good idea for improving things, it makes sense to reallocate control from people who have worse ideas, even if there's some potential better allocation.
On the other hand, is Holden Karnofsky the right person to do this? The case is mixed.
He listens to and engages with the arguments from principled advocates for AI safety research, such as Nick Bostrom, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Stuart Russell. This is a point in his favor. But, I can think of other people who engage with such arguments. For instance, OpenAI founder Elon Musk has publicly praised Bostrom’s book Superintelligence, and founder Sam Altman has written two blog posts summarizing concerns about AI safety reasonably cogently. Altman even asked Luke Muehlhauser, former executive director of MIRI, for feedback pre-publication. He's met with Nick Bostrom. That suggests a substantial level of direct engagement with the field, although Holden has engaged for a longer time, more extensively, and more directly.
Another point in Holden’s favor, from my perspective, is that under his leadership, the Open Philanthropy Project has funded the most serious-seeming programs for both weak and strong AI safety research. But Musk also managed to (indirectly) fund AI safety research at MIRI and by Nick Bostrom personally, via his $10 million FLI grant.
The Open Philanthropy Project also says that it expects to learn a lot about AI research from this, which will help it make better decisions on AI risk in the future and influence the field in the right way. This is reasonable as far as it goes. But remember that the case for positioning the Open Philanthropy Project to do this relies on the assumption that the Open Philanthropy Project will improve matters by becoming a central influencer in this field. This move is consistent with reaching that goal, but it is not independent evidence that the goal is the right one.
Overall, there are good narrow reasons to think that this is a potential improvement over the prior situation around OpenAI – but only a small and ill-defined improvement, at considerable attentional cost, and with the offsetting potential harm of increasing OpenAI's perceived legitimacy as a long-run AI safety organization.
And it’s worrying that Open Philanthropy Project’s largest grant – not just for AI risk, but ever (aside from GiveWell Top Charity funding) – is being made to an organization at which Holden’s housemate and future brother-in-law is a leading researcher. The nepotism argument is not my central objection. If I otherwise thought the grant were obviously a good idea, it wouldn’t worry me, because it’s natural for people with shared values and outlooks to become close nonprofessionally as well. But in the absence of a clear compelling specific case for the grant, it’s worrying.
Altogether, I'm not saying this is an unreasonable shift, considered in isolation. I’m not even sure this is a bad thing for the Open Philanthropy Project to be doing – insiders may have information that I don’t, and that is difficult to communicate to outsiders. But as outsiders, there comes a point when someone’s maxed out their moral credit, and we should wait for results before actively trying to entrust the Open Philanthropy Project and its staff with more responsibility.
EA Funds and self-recommendation
The Centre for Effective Altruism is actively trying to entrust the Open Philanthropy Project and its staff with more responsibility.
The concerns of CEA’s CEO William MacAskill about GiveWell have, as far as I can tell, never been addressed, and the underlying issues have only become more acute. But CEA is now working to put more money under the control of Open Philanthropy Project staff, through its new EA Funds product – a way for supporters to delegate giving decisions to expert EA “fund managers” by giving to one of four funds: Global Health and Development, Animal Welfare, Long-Term Future, and Effective Altruism Community.
The Effective Altruism movement began by saying that because very poor people exist, we should reallocate money from ordinary people in the developed world to the global poor. Now the pitch is in effect that because very poor people exist, we should reallocate money from ordinary people in the developed world to the extremely wealthy. This is a strange and surprising place to end up, and it’s worth retracing our steps. Again, I find it easiest to think of three stages:
Money can go much farther in the developing world. Here, we’ve found some examples for you. As a result, you can do a huge amount of good by giving away a large share of your income, so you ought to. We’ve found ways for you to do a huge amount of good by giving away a large share of your income for developing-world interventions, so you ought to trust our recommendations. You ought to give a large share of your income to these weird things our friends are doing that are even better, or join our friends. We’ve found ways for you to do a huge amount of good by funding weird things our friends are doing, so you ought to trust the people we trust. You ought to give a large share of your income to a multi-billion-dollar foundation that funds such things.
Stage 1: The direct pitch
At first, Giving What We Can (the organization that eventually became CEA) had a simple, easy to understand pitch:
Giving What We Can is the brainchild of Toby Ord, a philosopher at Balliol College, Oxford. Inspired by the ideas of ethicists Peter Singer and Thomas Pogge, Toby decided in 2009 to commit a large proportion of his income to charities that effectively alleviate poverty in the developing world. […] Discovering that many of his friends and colleagues were interested in making a similar pledge, Toby worked with fellow Oxford philosopher Will MacAskill to create an international organization of people who would donate a significant proportion |
cylinders. The government must find why there were just around 50 cylinders instead of 400 on that particular day when deaths took place. I suspect a big oxygen cylinder theft or racket, which they must find it out," Pushpa Sales MD Manish Bhandari told TOI.He suspected a big oxygen cylinder theft or a possible racket at the college leading to the depleted supply of the life-saving gas. According to an internal note on oxygen demand at the BRD hospital, a copy of which is with TOI, a minimum of 350-400 jumbo oxygen cylinders should be present on a given day as soon as there is shortage of liquid oxygen. But hospital administration and even DG medical education KK Gupta has admitted that there were just 57 cylinders in hospital's stock on August 10 night, when the pressure of liquid oxygen suddenly dipped around 7.30 pm.Even as UP government has suspended college principal RK Mishra and removed Dr Kafeel Ahmad, the senior doctor and nodal officer of encephalitis wing, over alleged irregularities in managing the oxygen supply, Bhandari now says that he is ready for a through probe on his contract."First of all, I am just the supplier and maintained it at BRD College despite dues. The liquid oxygen which we transport comes from 1600 km away in Bhiwandi in Rajasthan. Second, I am a supplier to big hospitals like Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai and to hospitals in Ludhiana, Delhi and elsewhere," he said.He also said that the BRD authorities were not able to locate the contract documents and that he has supplied a copy of the same to the probe committee.The children have holidays and what better place to go for a bout of innocent entertainment than the Circus? Well, at least that used to be the case for most of us growing up, when the circus came to town! And many of us retain fond memories of those days. Here Gangadharan Menon relives those memories by visiting the renowned Kohinoor Circus not just to watch a show but to meet the colourful characters and talented performers behind the scenes.
Circus has changed dramatically. During my childhood (and that was a very long time ago), a circus was a grand spectacle that paraded a plethora of wild animals tamed by the whip of the Ringmaster: tigers, lions, seals and hippopotamus. I still remember the palpitations of my tiny heart as the lion opened its mouth wide and the ringmaster in a valiant gesture stuck his head into the lion’s gaping mouth. But to my teenaged wonder, the lion did not snap its mouth shut.
Thankfully, the ban on making wild animals perform has brought down their long list to just elephants. On the reasoning that elephants are tamed to perform menial tasks and in temple festivals, they continue to be found in circuses. In Kohinoor Circus they were found playing cricket and even performing an elaborate pooja of Lord Shiva.
Probably the ban on animals was a blessing in disguise. Because, the focus of the circus then inevitably shifted to the exhibition of incredible human feats, created with imagination and executed with supreme skill.
The circus continues to fascinate me. Inside that imposing tent there still exists a heady mix of magic, music, dance, jugglery, acting and showmanship. They roll out in clockwork precision, relentlessly for a breathtaking 150 minutes.
Of all the circus feats that I had witnessed in my childhood, a few vestiges still remain in today’s circus: the well of death where a motorcyclist rides a bike in vertical circles; the drunken clown who performs immaculate feats on a galloping horse; the cycle that breaks into innumerable pieces when the clown mounts it; and the fire-eater who performs with amazing dexterity. And even today, people continue to applaud the same feats with the same child-like exuberance and innocent joy. Proving that despite the overt changes that have happened around us, human beings haven’t changed at heart. We still laugh at the same things, cry at the same things, and of course worry about the same things.
My rekindled curiosity took me to meet Raja Hussain, the young manager of Kohinoor Circus, now tented on the outskirts of Navi Mumbai.
He told me how difficult it has become for a circus to survive. Three decades ago, there were over 900 circus troupes in the country. Today, there are less than a 100 left. Just like the animals that once used to grace these circuses, the circus too has become an endangered species.
As I was speaking to Raja, I realized the sheer logistical nightmare of running a circus. In a single troupe, there are over 250 people living in the tents that dot the periphery of the Performing Tent. This includes artistes, carpenters, masons, electricians, tailors, cooks, managers and innumerable helping hands. A mini township of sorts. Apart from managing their inter-personal relationships, their daily needs like food, water and basic amenities have to be taken care of. And since the circus is a 365-day affair, there is not even a break to set things right, in case something goes wrong. The circus equipment itself is so humongous that it takes over 30 massive trucks to transport them to the next location.
There are over 25 families staying in this joint-family of Kohinoor. Many of them are husband-and-wife duos. With both the parents being performers, the children pick up the ropes of circus from their infancy. Nay, from the time they are in their mothers’ wombs.
The owner Amjad is a true patriarch who dotes on his family members, taking care of their every little need. To entertain these master entertainers, he has even installed a direct-to-tent television connection!
There were two gigantic goats moving around the circus tent, who I mistook as circus performers gone astray. But Raja had an interesting story to tell. Those two goats were bought by Amjad to be sacrificed on the day of Bakri Id. But during the entire week that these animals spent with him, Amjad had become so attached to them that he refused to sacrifice them on the appointed day. Now they go wherever the circus goes, as a constant reminder of Amjad’s compassion.
With Raja’s help, I met Pinki Khan, the multi-faceted star of the troupe. She in fact personified all that this amazing performing art stands for. She was charming and had tremendous presence; she had the svelte figure of an athlete; and she was a consummate performer. In short, she was the quintessential circus girl.
Pinki grew up watching her parents perform; and today, she has taken over the mantle from them. She is equally adept at handling a slew of African parrots, or executing fabulous stunts on the bicycle, or performing the most breathtaking feat of them all: the flying trapeze. Her brother too is part of the troupe; he plays the keyboards in the circus band. Her husband has also been a part of the troupe for over seven years, and is today an accomplished trapeze artiste and an ace shooter. In short, they could easily be called the First Family of Kohinoor.
Pinki gets up 5 in the morning every day and practices for five hours, just to be perfect. Because she believes that in a circus, you only get one chance. There is no retake.
Even today, after performing for more than a decade, she confessed that she has an irrational fear running through her veins as she waits 100 feet above the ground, waiting for the most awaited event of the show to begin: the trapeze. And every time, her father, who’s now the master trainer, encourages her to take that all-important leap into the unknown.
Then I met Sagar Singh, a man who has been a clown for over 50 years. He’s 70 now and still performs. Born in Purulia in West Bengal, he ran away from home when he was 12 to join the circus. The first job he got was to distribute pamphlets. Then he became an announcer going around on a cycle, announcing the arrival of the circus. He was then taken as an extra in a minor item called the Rope Dance. He then graduated to become a motorcycle artiste, then a trapeze artiste, and then a trainer. But when there was a vacancy for a clown, he decided to take up that role permanently as that was what he loved the most. Make people laugh.
Once it so happened that, just as he was in the midst of a show, he got a telegram. Since he was illiterate, he couldn’t figure out what it said. He asked the manager to read it out to him. Just as he was informed that his son had died in a bus accident, the bell rang announcing his entry on the stage. In a daze he entered the ring, and made people laugh with his antics, profusely crying under the thick make-up of a circus clown. After the show, he trudged back to the green room, accompanied by a deafening applause, and then he fainted. This story travelled far and wide. So much so that Raj Kapoor, the film-maker, came to meet him to hear this story. And inspired by it, he made the famous film, ‘Mera Naam Joker’. To this day, Sagar Singh is peeved at the fact that there was no mention of him, or his son, even at the end of the long list of credits that came rolling down at the end of the film.
As I watched the finale of the circus, I saw Pinki’s middle-aged mother perform on the swinging trapeze with consummate ease. And her father, the master trainer, kept an eagle eye on the proceedings to detect even a tiny flaw that could later prove fatal. And then came the climactic act of the flying trapeze. Perched high above mere mortals was Pinki, the lone girl among five other trapeze artistes.
My heart skipped a beat as she went flying on the trapeze, left it in mid air, and went gliding into the waiting hands of her partner.
That act for me symbolized the dying art of the circus. Here was a troupe of 250 hardworking and dedicated people, who, to keep the oldest performing art of India alive, have left the trapeze in mid air. With the fond hope that their outstretched hands will fondly and firmly be held by a discerning audience. Lest they fall into the bottomless pit of oblivion.
P.S. Just as the ink was drying on this page, I read a newspaper report about the artistes from Rambo Circus having performed in the renowned Prithvi Theatre of Mumbai on World Circus Day. This indoor show could well be the sign of things to come. And innovation may be the last hope for this performing art, which has been slowly dying in this country in the last three decades. But I hope both versions continue to exist: the one in gigantic, magical tents and the one in small, discerning theatres.
All photographs by: Gangadharan Menon
After 28 years in advertising as a writer and creative director, Gangadharan Menon quit the profession to take up his first and second love: teaching and travel. He has over 90 published articles that recount the joy of travelling in this amazing country. A member of Bombay Natural History Society, he is an avid wildlife photographer too. Currently he is working on his first collection of travel writings titled Evergreen Leaves. He can be contacted on wildganges[at]gmail.comThai Room: OBX’s first exotic restaurant thrives after 30 years
By Jim Trotman on December 27, 2017
Since Elon Musk isn’t interested in developing a time machine yet, we must use our imaginations and memories to try to conjure up what the restaurant scene on the Outer Banks was like in the mid-1980s.
The fare was predominantly seafood, a bit of Mexican and places where a decent steak could be had. But nothing too exotic.
Then one day, a couple of brothers from Thailand, Vachara “Jimmy” and Vachira “Ta” Ngeonjuklin, decided to give it a go, and The Thai Room was born.
Of the restaurants in that class of 1985, few still exist in their original spot. Many more have opened and closed and have become something else, whether because of the whims of the owners or the whims of the economy.
Still, The Thai Room carries on. What are the odds it would still be a going concern, in the same family, over 30 years later?
Now, Ta has passed away and is missed, Jimmy is enjoying retirement both here and abroad, and his son, Scott Ngeonjuklin and Scott’s wife Pai are carrying on the family business. We checked in with Scott and Pai to catch up on the transition.
History lesson
Jimmy and Ta were born into the food business in Bangkok, where their mother ran a noodle shop.
Ta sought opportunities in the United States and landed a chef gig in Washington D.C. Jimmy, having finished college with a degree in accounting, followed shortly thereafter, and the two worked in various DC restaurants and bars for over a decade.
While working in D.C., Jimmy married and Scott was born. But the pair parted ways. “Mom was British. I grew up with my mother in Northern Virginia,” Scott said.
Jimmy found his way to the Outer Banks, working for a time under the late Mike Hayman at the Seafare, from whom Ngeonjuklin learned much about organizing a restaurant.
He looked around and decided what the Outer Banks needed was a Thai restaurant. He brought brother Ta on board, and took over a space in space in Oceanside Plaza that had been a sub and pizza place.
The going was challenging at first, introducing an exotic cuisine to a beach town. Early diners were often more interested in and familiar with Chinese offerings, which the brothers had added.
Through perseverance, that began to change. With Jimmy’s engaging charm and Ta’s dishes, the customers were beginning to appreciate the differences and embrace the Thai end of the menu.
Scott Ngeonjuklin started coming down to help his father with the restaurant when he was 16. He admits the surfing lifestyle was a big pull.
“Teenage boy … use your imagination,” Scott says with a laugh. “Play during the day, come in and help my dad in the night, sometimes till three in the morning.”
As Scott grew up, he had only a little knowledge of the Thai language since his parents spoke English in the home. But he would soon be immersed in it.
In 2000, Jimmy arranged for Scott to visit Thailand, staying with extended family. “He put me with a family that didn’t speak English. For 6 weeks! He gave me one book and said, good luck!” Scott said, “It was a great learning experience. And being around it all day, you pick it up. And it’s important to know your heritage.”
An International Romance
In the summer of 2003, Pai Sittichai, a college student from southern Thailand, arrived in Kill Devil Hills as part of a student exchange program, working at 7-Eleven.
She was walking with friends when Jimmy noticed them and saw a familiarity. “They look like Thai,” Pai recalls Jimmy saying. He introduced himself, speaking in Thai, and offered to take them to his restaurant. Scott happened to be there that day and eventually the two hit it off. Pai said, “I see him at the bar, and he looked American. I thought he was a customer.”
As the romance grew, the two completed their college educations. Scott graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a chemistry degree and Pai graduated from her college in Bangkok with a degree in mass communications and public relations.
They were married in two ceremonies. The first here in the States in 2005 and a second ceremony, in Thailand, in 2007, which was attended by 30 friends from the States. Scott says, “Dad was happy, ‘I found him a Thai girl!’ ”
After graduation, Scott and worked full time at the Thai Room for two and a half years alongside his uncle Ta. “He taught me everything, like the sauces, just learning how to balance the flavors.” He called Scott “Junior.” Pai explained Ta’s teaching style. Ta would point to his head and say, “Junior, right here. Don’t write it out. I want whatever I taught you to be right here.”
And Pai learned to adjust to a new culture. She explained that she was taught in her schools to read and write English, but conversation was not practiced. “Dealing with Americans, when I first came here, I cried. We’re shy and with the Thai accent.” She recalled even her first conversations with Scott were done mostly with sign language.
Conversely, the small, beach-side community shared similarities with her home town of Trang, Thailand. “Everybody’s knows everybody.”
The New Generation
Looking to gain a broader view of the restaurant world, Scott headed back to D.C. There he gained corporate experience and managerial skills. “But, D.C. is just too congested,” he said. “You learn to manage a large a staff, but the area is tough.”
Scott had options, but only one of them had his attention. Jimmy, having put in 30 years here, 12 years in D.C. and the time in the noodle shop in Bangkok, was eyeing retirement.
“Dad’s really old school. He told me a long time ago, unless family takes it over, he wouldn’t sell it. He said ‘Hey, its blood, it’s family, keep it going.’ If I decided not to take it over, then when the lease is over that’s it. So, he’s glad to see it keep going, and he’s glad for no more headaches,” Scott adds with a knowing grin.
Pai feels a deep emotional connection with the Thai Room. “It’s not just another restaurant, it’s very special. It belongs here so many years, it’s now a part of Outer Banks culture. It is very special and unique to have this place. We have to keep it going, keep the good things.”
“January will be the start of our third year as owners,” Scott said. Jimmy typically comes back to the Outer Banks in May and stays through to nearly September and spends the rest of the year enjoying the peace and quiet of his home in Thailand.
On coming back, Scott says, “It gives him something to do. He pops in and enjoys himself. He’s very relaxed now.” Scott imitates his father, “I can relax, don’t have to worry about numbers, I just come here now to cut, cut, cut, and talk. Now you’re going to lose your hair and look like me in 10 years.”
The ceramic cat still waves from the shelf in the bar and the magic snake dragon of Thai mythology is seen around in various motifs.
Scott and Pai are keeping the things their customers know and love about the place, especially the smiles and warm charm.
But they are making one major change, and that is keeping the Thai Room open most of the year, only shutting the doors a week or two at a time. That’s good news for us.
On parting, we ask if the young couple has children. Scott answers, just two dogs. Pai says, “I have almost a thousand kids in Thailand.”
It turns out the restaurant helps substantially to support a school in Pai’s home town of Trang, not far from Phuket. Her aunts and uncles there are retired teachers and they tend to the unmet needs of the school children with donations The Thai Room provides on a regular basis.
“You know working in a restaurant all the time, I can’t imagine someone going hungry,” Scott said, remembering trip to Thailand and time spent with Pai’s family there. “In Thailand, a little bit helps a lot.” The couple also gives locally to the Food Pantry.
Dining
Of course, it would be silly to visit the restaurant without having a taste.
Over previous trips, we became big fans of big fans of their Dom Hak Gai (your spelling may vary) the soup of chicken, coconut milk and Thai spices, as well as their take on Laab, the aromatic ground pork dish flavored with lime juice.
Also, a favorite in our circle is the Pad Thai, rich, fragrant noodles festooned with bean sprouts, scallion and a sprinkling of peanuts.
On this night however, we made our way through appetizer servings of Spring Rolls and Thai Sticks, a combination of curry beef, pork and chicken satay with a peppery, gooey peanut sauce. For entrees, we chose the Pork in Garlic Sauce and Beef with Basil Chef Special.
It is said Thai cuisine is a balance between the five tastes of bitter, salty, sour, hot and sweet. That was certainly true of the dishes here. We ask for the dishes to be prepared medium on the heat scale, and asked for additional spice we can add on our own.
Some of us just enjoy testing the edge of the envelope, and the additional hotness packet allows that without putting a shared dish out of bounds for our less adventurous dining companions.
This is handy to know because the entrees are sized for sharing. All are pleasing to the eye, the proteins sliced thin and tender, the vegetables fresh and done but still crisp, and the taste savory and rich.
There was no room for the sticky rice with mango, but it made for spectacular breakfast the next morning.
Thai dishes often make use of the fast, high-heat, stir-fry method in woks. Special burners are installed in the kitchen which can quickly add a blast of fire to the wok as needed. But the prep is time consuming and labor intensive.
Scott says that he can handle the crowds in the winter with a staff of about six. That number swells to 30 in high season, with sometimes six or seven people just cutting meat and vegetables.
Perhaps Scott’s chemistry degree helps him in balancing those five taste elements, but we think maybe it is in the blood. Scott says, “With this type of cuisine, there has to be a passion, a desire, and this is what I love doing.”Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen warned that close to half the people trying to reach the IRS by phone might not get through during the upcoming 2015 tax filing season. “Phone service could plummet to 53%,” he told an audience of tax practitioners at the AICPA National Tax Conference in Washington, D.C. today. That would be down from an already unacceptable 72% during the 2014 filing season. The average hold time projection: 34 minutes!
What’s to blame? Budget woes. “All we can do is try to maximize our services as well as we can; as well as we can is still going to be miserable. You really do get what you pay for,” he said. Koskinen’s remarks followed National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson who was even gloomier: “The filing season is going to be the worst filing season since I’ve been the National Taxpayer Advocate {in 2001}; I’d love to be proved wrong, but I think it will rival the 1985 filing season when returns disappeared.”
There are five key factors at play – complicating the upcoming filing season (that’s when you file your 2014 tax return). The IRS agency budget is the number one challenge, Koskinen said. The House has voted to cut the IRS budget for 2015 by $341 million, and the Senate has proposed to increase it by $240 million—that would still be 7% below 2010 funding levels. In the meantime, Congress keeps passing laws that the IRS has to implement, namely the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”).
For example, Koskinen said the IRS requested $430 million in 2014 from Congress to implement the ACA but got zero, forcing it to take money out of enforcement and taxpayer services budgets. This will be the first filing season with two major provisions from the Affordable Care Act –the premium tax credit and the individual shared responsibility payment--on Form 1040. National Taxpayer Advocate Olson said she’s very concerned about the IRS receiving accurate information from the health exchanges. It won’t be the IRS’s fault, but taxpayers will likely put the blame on the IRS. Koskinen touted the web pages that the IRS has created to help explain the ACA tax provisions.
Olson expects that implementation of FATCA, which affects taxpayers with accounts overseas, will also cause trouble this filing season. A new withholding requirement will mean there will be an issue with taxpayers trying to get refunds back in a timely manner. “If they are overseas, who are they going to call? There is not toll free number,” Olson said.
Then there are the tax extenders, 50-plus laws whose fate is uncertain. Congress has vowed to vote on the future of these laws in the upcoming lame duck session. But Koskinen warns that if the uncertainty continues into December, it could delay the start of the filing season and delay tax refunds.
Another factor Koskinen ticked off complicating this year’s filing season will be that the IRS is implementing a voluntary oversight program for return preparers. He said he’s still pushing for a mandatory oversight program. In the meantime, there will be a page on the IRS web site with a database of qualified tax preparers, including unregulated preparers who chose to participate in voluntary education programs. Attorneys, CPAs and enrolled agents, who all have separate licensing requirements, will also be listed.
Is there any promising news? Taxpayers are flocking to the IRS’s Where’s My Tax Refund feature where you can click and track the progress of your federal refund. They’re also using IRS direct pay, a secure online option for making tax payments (I use it; it really is quick and easy).
In the future (“some years from now”) Koskinen evisions a complete online tax filing experience. Taxpayers would have an account online where you could log on securely, see documents the IRS has received on your behalf, see your previous filings, and if there is an issue with your return, the IRS would contact you immediately—not two or three years down the line. “It’s not illusory,” he inists, adding that once more activities are moved online, the agency could sustain itself without annual budget increases.
Also on Forbes:The Wayback Machine, a digital archive of the World Wide Web, has reached a landmark with 400 billion webpages indexed. This makes it possible to surf the web as it looked anytime from late 1996 up until a few hours ago.
Let’s take a trip back in time and visit some sites.
Yahoo (Captured way back in Nov 28, 1996)
Geocities (Captured December 12, 1998)
There were even places to start your very own web diary way back in 1999.
Diaryland.com (Captured November 27, 1999)
Mumbleboy was using Flash to push the creative limits of Web Animation (Captured August 1, 2001)
Before there was Borat, there was Mahir Cagri. This site and the track it inspired on mp3.com created quite a stir in the IDM world, with people claiming that “Mahir Cagri” was Turkish for “Effects Twin” and that the whole thing was an elaborate ruse by Richard D. James (Aphex Twin). (Captured December 29, 2004 and December 7, 2000)
Have you ever wondered what happens when the Wayback Machine archives itself? Will we fall into a search window of recursion, never to find our way out of the mirror maze again? (Captured October 22, 2008)
I guess we don’t want to break our brains. Oh, well.
The Wayback Machine has had some exciting adventures over the years as it grew. Here are some highlights:
2001 – The Wayback Machine is launched. Woo hoo.
2006 – Archive-It is launched, allowing libraries that subscribe to the service to create curated collections of valuable web content.
March 25, 2009 – The Internet Archive and Sun Microsystems launch a new datacenter that stores the whole web archive and serves the Wayback Machine. This 3 Petabyte data center handled 500 requests per second from its home in a shipping container.
June 15th, 2011 – The HTTP Archive becomes part of the Internet Archive, adding data about the performance of websites to our collection of web site content.
May 28, 2012 – The Wayback Machine is available in China again, after being blocked for a few years without notice.
October 26, 2012 – Internet Archive makes 80 terabytes of archived web crawl data from 2011 available for researchers, to explore how others might be able to interact with or learn from this content.
October 2013 – New features for the Wayback Machine are launched, including the ability to see newly crawled content an hour after we get it, a “Save Page” feature so that anyone can archive a page on demand, and an effort to fix broken links on the web starting with WordPress.com and Wikipedia.org.
Also in October 2013 – The Wayback Machine provides access to important Federal Government sites that go dark during the Federal Government Shutdown.
We’re proud of you, Wayback Machine! You’ve grown so big on a healthy diet of web captures, and you’re growing more every day.BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Tuesday U.S. pop star Lady Gaga’s meeting with exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama had unleashed “anger” in the country, as internet users criticized her for meeting a man China condemns as a separatist.
The barrage of angry and critical comments came after the singer posted several photos of herself with the Dalai Lama on Sunday at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in the U.S. city of Indianapolis on her Twitter and Instagram accounts.
Lady Gaga, known for songs such as “Bad Romance” and “Born This Way”, chatted with the Dalai Lama on topics including generosity to the poor and mental health, according to video of the event.
China considers the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet into exile in India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, to be a dangerous “splittist”, or separatist. The Dalai Lama says he only wants genuine autonomy for his remote homeland.
“There is a broad consensus internationally about what kind of person the Dalai Lama is and what he does internationally,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular briefing.
“After the relevant incident happened, if you look at comments on the Chinese Internet, their anger has welled up,” he added, referring to Lady Gaga’s meeting.
Lady Gaga has not remarked on the blowback from Chinese internet users on her social media accounts. Reuters could not immediately reach a representative for comment.
Lady Gaga is popular with many young Chinese but has never held a concert in mainland China, though she has in the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau.
“Lady Gaga, you’re never coming back to China,” wrote one user on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblog.
Other comments were less polite, using obscene language or cursing the pop star.
Slideshow (2 Images)
Such meetings with the Dalai Lama often get foreign artists put on blacklists in China.
The Ministry of Culture, which regulates the activities of foreign artists in China, did not respond to calls for comment.
In 2008, Icelandic singer Bjork shouted “Tibet! Tibet!” at a Shanghai concert after performing her song “Declare Independence”, angering the government and local fans alike.Gorilla Coffee, in Brooklyn, is a well-known local favorite but apparently it’s a lot more fun to drink the coffee than it is to work there. It’s so unpleasant, in fact, that even considering the current economic climate, the entire staff simultaneously quit — forcing the coffee shop to close. The staff sent out an email to the media claiming that it’s not a strike — the “staff quit and the matter will not be resolved.”
At issue was a work environment described by the staff as “perpetually malicious, hostile, and demeaning.”
The NYT got a hold of the owners– who say the mass quitting was unexpected.
“It’s a complete surprise,” Darleen Scherer, one of the owners, said over the phone. “They made an unreasonable request, and then they didn’t have any way to go but out.”
That request was apparently tied to another co-owner who is responsible for training employees. The staff was apparently no longer willing to work with her.
“The training to be a barista is rigorous,” one of the owners told the NYT, “and she’s like a drill sergeant. She trains somebody and they become good, and then they become great, and then they become excellent. I don’t understand the perceived hostility. Everybody has a different learning curve and she respects that.”
Here’s the staff e-mail:
We the workers would have preferred to keep this between the people involved, thus our silence towards the press. However, we do feel it is important to clarify the situation for the friends and patrons of Gorilla Coffee. The issues brought up with the owners of Gorilla Coffee yesterday are issues that they have been aware of for some time. These issues which have repeatedly been brushed aside and ignored have created a perpetually malicious, hostile, and demeaning work environment that was not only unhealthy, but also, as our actions have clearly shown, unworkable. Several staff left not only recently, but also in the past few years due to these issues. The staff was recently told that the business partner to whom these issues have been repeatedly attributed was no longer affiliated with the business, and the environment was going to change. For 6 weeks nothing was seen nor heard of this business partner. This separation changed the dynamic of the business so drastically one of the departed staff quit their other job to return with the understanding these changes were permanent, and those who had tendered their resignation, or were drafting it, decided to stay. When the business partner returned without explanation, staff approached the owner hoping to find out the reason for this sudden and unannounced return. Work environment and workplace issues aside, the workers collectively felt deceived and that they had been shown a lack of mutual respect. This only served to highlight and reemphasize the previously expressed concerns. As the staff was well aware, both through experience and through conversation with past employees, Gorilla Coffee has a history of this pattern repeating itself. It should be emphasized that the intent of the meeting was above all to find a solution to this unhealthy situation, a solution which involved the maintenance of these improvements to the work environment, and that would prevent any future returns to the previous unhealthy dynamic. Above all the attitude of the staff involved in the meeting (who were representing the rest of the staff) was one of respect and positivity. A collective instant resignation was an agreed upon last resort and not a bargaining chip. It was simply that without change, we all felt unwilling to undergo another day in that environment. Hence, out of a collective feeling of self respect and job insecurity, the staff decided it would be in their best interest to find employment elsewhere. This isn’t political and it isn’t a strike. The staff quit and the matter will not be resolved. It’s a matter of business, and a personal matter for each of the staff. Everyone at Gorilla Coffee, including the owners and the staff, are skilled, passionate, and hard working. It is unfortunate for everyone involved. The workers are grateful to the many wonderful patrons over the years, and we apologize that it was necessary to inconvenience them in this way. All we can say is “thank you for the support and all the best.” Sincerely,
The workers of Gorilla Coffee
Gorilla Coffee Workers Aren’t Coming Back [NYT]Microcalibration
Ah yes. So many completely are unaware of the concepts these days, or are doing it completely wrong. And yet this is SUCH an INTEGRAL part of game, probably one of the top 5 things you should REALLY know and know WELL if you ever want to get past the MASS approach and into a little more finesse based game. This is the shit that separates the men from the boys, so to speak. Many guys may think they know this but most guys I come across really do not. That’s why a MAJORITY of guys either have problems with cocky/funny, push/pull or negs, or getting dates, or why so many guys JUST CAN’T SEEM to hook those sets – because they are simply unfamiliar with this concept. This is the basic groundwork for much of your game. In other word, if you don’t know this your game is probably pretty bad. When you know this you wont do things like talk about (anymore) how negs don’t work, or ask questions about how come a chick lost interest after you riddled her with IOIs after she was giving you IODs.
This started out as a pointer I gave to a guy who posted an infield video of him doing some approaches in the Midlair, and I wanted to help him understand what he was doing wrong. EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW THIS. I mean, you don’t NEED to know anything, really, but this is something that is KEY to pretty much every one of my Lays and IMO is a key element to the concept of what game is.
I think, personally, I am writing this because I am lazy a little and I think this will be a great link to just copy-paste when so many new guys, or even experienced guys have the same issues over and over. This is DEFINITELY a compilation of OPP (other people’s posts) because I really don’t feel the need to rehash other people’s shit and take credit or try and reinvent the wheel.
This is ABSOLUTELY meant to be a mini-course on Microcalibration, so that if you read, watch and study everything in this video you really should have a pretty solid idea of what Microcalibration is and how to run it in field. So take your time, book mark it if you need to because there is quite a full course in here and it may take you a bit to get through this and understand the process (especially since there is over an hour of video work alone) But DON’T SKIP AHEAD! Do this in order for best results. Let’s get started.
A simplified micro-calibration version is basically if she is giving you IOI’s you give her IOI’s spiced with IOD’s as intermittent rewarding which will lead toward compliance.
If she gives you an IOD return with an IOD then follow it with an IOI giving her a chance to redeem herself. This is important.
1. HB: IOI -> PUA: IOI or IOD -> Repeat
2. HB: IOD -> PUA: IOD then IOI -> Go to option 1
Lovedrop’s Example:
Is there some way to soften the impact when showing interest, enabling you to get away with it while still preserving your own value and her comfort levels?
Yes! Simply calibrate |
smaller STAI level indicating 'pleasant'. Gum-chewing affected physiological and psychological responses including PFC activity. This PFC activation change might influence the HPA axis and ANS activities. In summary, within the limitations of this study, the findings suggest that gum-chewing reduced stress-related responses. Gum-chewing might have a possible effect on stress coping.Turns out the most depressing things sold at Walmart aren't found inside the store. A couple allegedly offered to sell their 6-month-old baby for $25 to two strangers in a Salinas, California Walmart parking lot.
According to the AP:
"Patrick Fousek, 38, and Samantha Tomasini, 20, were arrested early Wednesday, hours after Fousek allegedly approached two women outside Walmart and asked if they'd like to purchase his child. The women initially thought Fousek was joking, but when he became persistent, they became suspicious and reported it to police
When police arrived at their house, they found Fousek and Tomasini high on—you guessed it!—meth. Child Protective Services took the baby, and Fousek and Tomasini have been charged with being under the influence of narcotics and child endangerment.
And that's your depressing Walmart story of the week.Photo: arbyreedCross-posted from the Center for American Progress.
Unrest in Libya and Egypt is driving up oil prices, stirring concerns that gasoline could hit $5 a gallon by summer. Like a smoker’s persistent cough, it’s another warning to change our ways. America sends nearly $1 billion daily overseas to purchase oil [PDF], which is nearly half the trade deficit. Nearly 20 percent of our oil imports come from the Persian Gulf, where instability causes roller coaster prices.
“Drill, baby, drill” won’t get us out of this mess. We have only 2 percent of world oil reserves but use one-quarter of world oil production. Oil companies want more ocean drilling, yet it will take years to produce anything from the thousands of undeveloped Gulf of Mexico leases they already own. And nuclear plants are no solution because they are exorbitantly expensive and time consuming to build.
We must shrink oil use by increasing vehicle efficiency, using cleaner fuels, and investing in public transit.
The Obama administration has responded to the oil threat by requiring that fuel economy improve by one-third in cars built from 2012 to 2016. This would save a cumulative 1.8 billion barrels of oil and lower drivers’ gas bills by an average of $2,800 per vehicle.
The president plans to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. Eliminating $4 billion in Big Oil tax loopholes would provide customer rebates and help build vehicle recharging stations. Planned investments in high-speed rail and public transportation would also reduce oil use and create jobs. We should also power new trucks with plentiful domestic natural gas instead of diesel.
The president should sell 30 million barrels (4 percent of the total) from our full emergency oil reserve if Mideast instability drives gasoline to $4 per gallon. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton sold reserve oil to lower prices and reduce the deficit.
The House Republicans’ budget would increase foreign oil dependency by slashing rail and public transportation. It would cut funds for research and domestic production of super efficient vehicles, while protecting Big Oil’s tax loopholes.
President Obama has us on the road to lower foreign oil use. This is the time to “invest and grow” and not “cut and run.” We must kick our oil habit before it’s too late.I was blessed and fortunate enough to have attended an exclusive small private college in Switzerland on a full-academic scholarship. Most of the students who attended came from privileged backgrounds. Many were high-performing students, which was probably a good thing because this college was no walk in the park. This was one of the top five Hotel Management schools in Switzerland at the time. Academic standards and performance expectations were extremely high. This was a school that had rules and expectations for everything in and out of the classroom. It was more like an elite military academy than a college.
We were constantly challenged, and the more that we were, the harder we worked, and the better the results were. Our projects, presentations, papers, and even our conduct were constantly improving. I loved it! One of the things that made it great was that many of the students would embrace the challenges and focus on how they could exceed established expectations rather than complaining about not possessing the skills or knowledge to tackle an assignment or project.
Years later, when I first began teaching, I wanted to build a program that was as rigorous and demanding as the one that I had gone through, but I was concerned that my students would not be able to handle it. Most of the students who I work with come from under-privileged families and mediocre or below average high schools. I was afraid of demanding too much of my students.
What I was really doing, was making excuses for them because of their backgrounds, which was a mistake! I needed to stop feeling sorry for my students and their circumstances and begin focusing on what they can accomplish given the opportunity, mentoring, and proper support. This is something I knew I could do. I realized that I had no control over my students’ socio-economic conditions, but I could control the learning environment in my classroom and make it a place where students could discover their potential and thrive.
I initially set the bar low. I didn’t expect too much of my students, so they reciprocated and produced mediocre work. Needless to say, I was disappointed with the quality of the work the students were producing, and I’d felt as though I had failed them. I learned that when you set the bar low, all that you can truly expect from students is crappy work. I also learned that it was unfair of me to assume my students were incapable of higher standards due to their backgrounds.
And that, was when a light bulb finally lit up in my head, and I quickly learned my lesson and adapted. I began increasing the rigor of my curriculum and began raising the bar.
Something unexpected happened when I did that. It didn’t matter how high I set the bar; my students always rose up to the challenge, and they either met or exceeded the expectations I had set for them. The quality of their work dramatically increased, and the students and I were both impressed with the results. That’s when another light bulb went on!
I began collecting the best assignments, portfolios, or projects submitted to me, and I would share them as samples with new students. I would tell my new students their job was to outperform the samples that I am sharing with them. I would show my new students samples and then outline what made the projects great and what could have been done to make them even better.
The result was outstanding. I was blown away by what my new students were producing. The work they were producing was comparable if not better than some of the things that I and my classmates had produced in Switzerland.
I suppose the moral of this story is this:
never underestimate your students potential don’t make excuses for people or yourself set the bar high, and watch your students soar
Well, I hope you found this post useful. If you did, I’d be grateful if you’d help spread the word by sharing this with friends or colleagues on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, or Facebook.
RelatedAs the Liberal government crafts plans on how to act on its marijuana legalization promise, old fissures between conservatives over the harms of marijuana bubbled up Friday, raising the question of whether policy debate within the conservative movement is keeping pace with the country on the issue.
At a panel event at the Manning Centre conference in Ottawa called Conservatives on Cannabis (no, they were not actually on cannabis – and made it clear there would be no samples), panelists brought forward conflicting views and evidence. Divisions appeared in the audience as well between grassroots social conservatives, Red Tories and libertarians – and between some younger and older conservatives.
The moderator, Matt Bufton, executive director of the Institute for Liberal Studies, suggested the panel should “not be debating whether or not we should be legalizing marijuana, but some perspectives going forward on the assumption that the government will keep its promise.”
Earlier in the week, Liberal MP Bill Blair, the former Toronto top cop tapped to lead the charge on legalization, was hazy on a potential timeline for legislation, but said the government is committed to moving forward on the file.
Dr. Dean Vause, executive director of the Alberta Adolescent Recovery Centre, who hails from Stephen Harper’s riding, said the former Prime Minister “had it right” on pot.
“We should be alarmed,” he said, of the plan to legalize pot. “It’s ugly. It’s horrific. This is not a benign drug.”
He said young lives “have been shattered” from smoking marijauna and fired off a few pot-shots at Trudeau for his admitted familiarity with the substance.
Vause told the audience that three people had overdosed in Colorado on marijuana and that it was a drug that ruins lives. In stark contrast, Karen O’Keefe, of the Marijuana Policy Project, a major marijuana policy reform organization in the U.S., said that alcohol was more toxic than marijuana and it is not possible to consume enough pot to overdose from it.
She raised concerns about a lag in intoxication when it comes to consuming the substance through edibles, and offered some evaluation of policies tried in the U.S. that put zoning “buffers” around schools to prevent marijuana shops setting up to close to them.
Dr. Daniel Lindsay, meanwhile, former president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba, said there is very little evidence so far to point to because the product has been illegal for so long. He urged, though, that conservatives need to push back against the assumption many young Canadians have that it’s a “low risk” drug, and emphasized a need for public education.
Some audience members took to the mics to express confusion and frustration with the differing points on evidence and that the debate hasn’t caught up to where the puck is going.
One young audience member from McGill University expressed concern that the debate seemingly hasn’t moved on yet and said that many of his friends at the Manning Centre conference had also smoked pot.
He said “when we become leadership of this party,” they will favour legalization. He then called for smarter dialogue on the issue instead of a knee-jerk reaction to the Liberals’ stance.
That was met with some applause, while behind him in line, another audience member shouted “speak for yourself!”By Keean Bexte, October 6, 2015 —
The Students’ Union is a machine where dissent is viewed more like a wrench in the engine instead of oil. This is, for obvious reasons, a problem that threatens the accountability of our student democracy.
Generally speaking, Students’ Legislative Council (SLC) passes more than 80 resolutions annually. Last year, SLC voted on 89 resolutions, 93 per cent of which passed with complete support of the council. Ultimately, 98.8 per cent of the resolutions last year passed. The year before that, 100 per cent of the resolutions passed.
If you go through the published minutes on the SU website, you’ll find these numbers are fairly consistent through the years. And if you compare this to other student institutions, you’ll find it isn’t that unorthodox. In fact, having just one resolution fail makes our SU stick out like a sore thumb.
To be fair, some of these votes are about pretty irrelevant things when it comes to students’ day-to-day lives, and they likely deserve to be unanimously voted through. There are resolutions about whether SLC should recognize that they meet on Treaty 7 land, or who should arbitrate the next SU General Election. So let’s not talk about those. Instead, let’s talk about the votes that actually have an impact on students — the ones that impact your wallets.
The SU passes a budget each year that dictates the amount of money going to student services and SU-operated businesses. It relies on how much students fork over in fees, which is usually around 1.6 million per year. Throughout the nine different SLCs the SU has online minutes for, a whopping zero per cent of the budgets have had a member vote against them. Not a single penny of a number north of $150 million has been meaningfully contested by your elected officials.
There are a few root causes to this issue that I have noticed both as an outsider and from my time as a member of SLC. The first is that the full-time executives usually act as a voting bloc, as the SU president and the four vice-presidents have often come to a consensus on any issue long before SLC begins. It’s very hard for a faculty representative to disagree with five full-time student leaders who have been prepped for the meeting by paid staff.
Compounding this, dissent among faculty reps is viewed inappropriately. The dynamic the president and vice-presidents have with faculty reps is administrative at best and disdainful at worst. In my experience, questions from the faculty reps are responded to with an explanation as to why they are wrong, rather than why their concerns are valid.
This causes problems, especially since the first thing elected officials vote on when they get into office is the most important — the budget. Faculty reps at the beginning of their term — and executives, for that matter — can be timid. They may not yet have the legislative skills to amend or vote against something. Although it would be inconvenient, something needs to change to give faculty reps hands-on legislative experience prior to signing off on the budget.
The yearly council retreat doesn’t properly prepare student representatives either. Not only is the SU’s largest training session two months after they pass their $19-million budget, but the content of the weekend retreat has an atmosphere more like a fraternity initiation than a council training sessions — which likely discourages real dissent among council members.
This year, only three questions were asked when the budget was rubber stamped — one a clarification of wording, one about an arbitrary $2000 and another by a member of the audience. The budget, being the only resolution that the staff of the SU really need students for, has not been challenged once in recent memory. Which begs the question — why do we even spend $21,000 a year on elections?
There is, however, hope. A vote in SLC failed recently, precisely because a member spoke their mind. Vice-president student life Kirsty McGowan took a stand against a funding increase for a proposed flu clinic — contrary to her fellow executives. Faculty reps weren’t just handed a rubber stamp. For the first time in a while, they had a clear choice. We may finally be seeing some progress, but we’ll have to wait and see if this is only an anomaly.
If the SU wants to be a serious tool for student accountability and democracy, there needs to be more dissent. Especially when there is student money on the line.
Keean Bexte is a third-year natural sciences student. He writes a monthly column about Students’ Union politics called Committee of the Whole.Your Career >> Browse Articles >> Interviewing
+7
6 Illegal Interview Questions to Avoid
Hamsa Ramesha | Excelle
ILLEGAL: “How much do you weigh?”
LEGAL: “Are you comfortable with lifting heavy objects?”
While employers may want to make sure you’re physically able to do the job, asking directly about your weight/height and general health is a major HR no-no. Not to mention potentially embarrassing for you! But rephrasing the question to ask about your ability to perform a specific task is fair game.
ILLEGAL: “Do you have any disabilities? Any recent illnesses or operations?”
LEGAL: “Are you able to perform the essential job functions?”
Discriminating against the disabled, whether wheelchair-bound or clinically depressed, is a classic example of illegal hiring practices. But the employer still has a right to make sure you can do the job you’re hired for and rephrasing the question accordingly is within their rights.
ILLEGAL: “Ever been arrested?”
LEGAL: “Ever been convicted of ___?”
A general question about your (criminal) past is off topic, but a more targeted question regarding questionable behavior — as it relates to your job — is okay. For example, if you were applying for a job as a magician, it’s appropriate to ask if you’ve ever been convicted of fraud in your line of work.
It’s not so much what the question is asking, but how the question is asked. Federal and state laws prevent employers from asking interviewees about subjects unrelated to the job. However, if you feel you have been asked a question that’s off-limits, you should seek legal counsel. Before you take serious action, take into consideration the nature of the job, the context of the situation, the interviewer’s intent, and of course, the phrasing of the question. Good luck, and happy interviewing!While Pokémon Go has proven itself massively popular (duh) all over the world, some countries aren’t getting in on the action, or haven’t yet. However, one country announced today that it won’t be participating at all.
According to the BBC, Iran has outright banned the app, but while other Middle Eastern countries have spoken out against Pokémon’s anti-religious themes, Iran is doing it for security reasons.
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The decision was made by the High Council of Virtual Spaces, which is the official body overseeing online activity. Officials didn’t elaborate on what those security risks were, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it had anything to do with all the other security concerns related to the app, including the permissions and the risk of malware. Officials originally stated that they were going to see how the game’s creators would cooperate with them before making a decision.
While there have been similar bans in other parts of the world when it comes to the game, Iran is the first country to outright ban it.
Other countries have restrictions on other aspects of Pokémon, including Saudi Arabia, where a leading cleric said a fatwa (or a legal religious ruling) was issued against the card game in 2001 due to “forbidden images,” including symbols and logos of Jewish and Christian religions. The Council of Senior Religious Scholars also stated that the power-up mechanic promotes the theory of evolution. It also violated an Islamic ban on gambling, according to the BBC. This fatwa is still in place for the app.
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Lesser international restrictions include Indonesia and Hong Kong, which have both banned police officers from playing the game while on duty. Government officials in New York have been in talks with Niantic, the company behind the game, to ban sexual predators from the platform.
Also unclear as to what it means to “ban” the app from the country, since people can download it outside and theoretically use it inside. It may be that there wouldn’t be any Pokéstops or Pokémon available, which is the more likely result.
Either way, if you’re planning on going to Iran at some point, be sure to get all your Pokémon Go urges out beforehand, among other things.
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[BBC]The ambitious three-movie and TV series was an adaptation of Stephen King’s fantasy Western.
The Dark Tower is dead...and no one is surprised.
Universal has officially closed the book on its ambitious three-movie and TV series adaptation of Stephen King’s fantasy Western from Imagine Entertainment, writer Akiva Goldsman and director Ron Howard.
But reports of its collapse have circulated for months as the studio and film team grappled with budgetary issues and a way to scale down the project. As THR previously reported, a fall start date was shelved, cast and crew were put on leave, and the studio hoped to possibly shoot it early next year.
STORY: 'Dark Tower' to Stay at Universal with Lower Budget
Imagine and Howard steadfastly denied that the project was officially dead but last week word leaked that Howard was prepping another movie, the Formula 1 racing pic Rush, to which Chris Hemsworth was attached to star.
Today was D-Day for Dark Tower because the studio had a July 15 deadline to commit to the movies or not. All the creatives have been told that the studio couldn't make the financials work.
This marks the second high-profile attempt at a Dark Tower adaptation to hit a wall. The first involved JJ Abrams and his Bad Robot banner.
Email: Borys.Kit@thr.com
Twitter: @Borys_KitA SCOTS shell firm was used to funnel thousands of pounds to the London-based daughter of a judge linked to one of the biggest money-laundering schemes ever revealed.
Investigators uncovered the payments as they dug deeper in to the scheme, the elaborate Russian Laundromat, which saw at least $20 billion of dirty money flushed out of the former Soviet Union.
The laundering was only made possible by alleged judicial corruption in Moldova and the ease at which its organisers could create ghost companies to receive payments, especially in Scotland.
Now journalists from the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project(OCCRP) have revealed that what they claim is money from the scheme ended up paying the rent or in the bank account of a Moldovan student Mihaela Muruianu. Her father, Ion, once headed the judiciary in the former Soviet republic and has previously referred to journalists as “rabid dogs”.
The OCCRP and its sister organisation in Moldova, RISE Moldova, found two firms named in the Laundromat had paid for Ms Muruianu’s luxury flat in London.
Rent payments totalled $130,000 (£97,000 today).
Annual rents were bigger than the judge’s declared income.
OCCRP and RISE Moldova also found that Ms Muruianu had received $28,000 (£21,000 today, from another firm, Edinburgh-based Carditeks Commerce for “audit consultancy” services.
The dollar payments were made before the pound’s collapse in 2016.
This business, now dissolved, is a Scottish limited partnership, or SLP, a kind of firm whose real owners can pay no taxes, file no accounts and, until recently, remain anonymous.
Earlier this year The Herald, using raw data from the OCCRP, revealed that some £4 billion from the Laundromat was flushed through shell firms, both limited companies and limited partnerships, registered in Scotland.
Rise Moldova asked both the judge and his daughter about the payments. Both said they knew nothing about the Russian Laundromat.
Ms Muruianu denied any knowledge of the firms used.
She told journalists: “I do not know the kind of activity these companies are involved in or who their founders are.”
Ms Muruianu said the money paid for the apartment was part of an agreement her father made with a mystery Moldovan businessman.
She said: “The essence of the deal, from my father’s words, is that my potential employer pays a part of [my] rent expenses … and after my studies, and three years of internship in a British company … which will be completed in 2019 … I agree to work in the Republic of Moldova for a period of five years, mainly in the banking sector,” she said.
"The deal was concluded in my absence and it was confidential, so I am not aware of the rest of the details, including the businessman’s identity.”
Mr Muruianu, initially claimed his daughter and her husband paid their own rent before clarifying there was indeed a deal with an unnamed entrepreneur.
One of the core firms used in the Laundromat was a Scottish shell company called Westburn Enterprises, according to OCCRP material. It received some $500 million after Moldovan judges authorised Russian firms to hand over the money.
Westburn was also named in a parallel investigation in to the Azerbaijani Laundromat.
The OCCRP/RISE Moldova investigation found some of the money was transferred to a bank account belonging to a firm in Birmingham which was then passed some $102,000 to a firm in London. This cash then went to an estate agency which handled Ms Muruianu's rent.Apple is introducing a new version of Safari meant for Web developers, and it will have some impressive technology not found in the consumer version of Safari.
Safari Technology Preview is a mix of the stability we expect from Safari with the iterative energy of WebKit nightly builds. Apple tells TNW it will update Safari Technology Preview every two weeks or so, and will sign and validate each release.
With Safari Technology Preview, Web developers will get a chance to experience the latest in HTML, CSS, JavaScript and WebKit. It also syncs with iCloud data, so things like settings and bookmarks will be the same as Safari proper.
Apple has also included “the most complete implementations” of ESMAScript 6 in Safari Technology Preview, which is essentially the latest version of JavaScript. With it, developers can use object oriented principles in JavaScript iterators, APIs and code.
There’s also a dedicated JavaScript compiler called B3, which is a low-latency engine that cleverly optimizes page load based on how much JavaScript is used — and how it’s implemented. A few lines of JavaScript wouldn’t necessarily call for optimization on initialization, while a JS-heavy page would likely be better served by B3.
Apple also says it will look to WebKit nightlies for inspiration for Safari Technology Preview, but that it won’t necessarily work the tech found in those nightlies into the new browser. It’s meant for Web developers who want to build for incoming standard technology, not as a stable version of WebKit nightlies.
To that, it’s easy to consider Apple’s WebKit/Safari builds as competitive with Chrome’s channels. the difference is that the Chrome beta and developer channels are more like playgrounds, while Safari Technology Preview is meant as a forward-facing browser for what’s on the horizon.
Safari Technology Preview will be hosted on Apple’s developer Website, but you don’t have to be a registered developer to download it. Apple is also encouraging Web developers to use Bug Reporter to send feedback about Safari Technology Preview to let them know what is and isn’t working.
Safari Technology Preview on Apple Developer
Read next: Uber wants you to stop sending it emails when you're annoyed or lose stuffHouse Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) speaks during a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol November 10, 2016 in Washington, DC. Earlier in the day president-elect Trump met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House.) Zach Gibson/Getty Images House Speaker Paul Ryan criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions' insinuation that the Justice Department could subpoena journalists in its investigations of information leaks.
Sessions made the suggestion in a Friday press conference in which he outlined steps being taken to reduce the volume of leaks that have frequently embarrassed President Donald Trump and his administration.
Ryan took issue with Sessions' characterization of journalists' roles in reporting stories that include leaked information. While speaking at an event in Muskego, Wisconsin, on Friday, Ryan said it's "the problem of the leaker, not the journalist," the Journal Sentinel reported Friday afternoon.
"Leaks are concerning because leaks can often compromise national security, but that's the problem of the leaker not the journalist," Ryan said.
Session said earlier Friday: "We respect the important role that the press plays and will give them respect, but it is not unlimited. They cannot place lives at risk with impunity. We must balance their role with protecting our national security and the lives of those who serve in our intelligence community, the armed forces, and all law-abiding Americans."
A number of press-advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), criticized Sessions' remarks. The ACLU's privacy, and technology director, Ben Wizner, said: "Americans should be concerned about the Trump administration's threat to step up its efforts against whistleblowers and journalists."
Citing the importance of a free and independent press, Wizner said, "leaders can't be trusted to disclose vital information that reflects poorly on themselves."As I read the recent comments of FBI Director James Comey regarding his recommendation not to pursue criminal charges against 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 the use of a private email server, I naturally wondered why an investigator was making final judgments on the interpretation of the law when that function has always been assigned first to the Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney.
In doing so, he ignored one statute (18 USC 793 (f) related to gross negligence — see the recent The Hill article on the execution of an Iranian spy) — apparently disregarded the knowing destruction of government documents, and then, perhaps of equal legal concern, he added the wrong mental state to the statute prohibiting knowing removal of classified documents with intent to retain them at an unauthorized location. (18 USC 1924).
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Specifically he required that the government prove “willfulness” or knowing violation of a specific law under 1924 before he would proceed against the improper removal of thousands of classified documents to her private Blackberry and server.
Ignorance of the language of the actual statutes was thus a defense. In his congressional hearing he seemed to attribute this to DOJ. Although I have no doubt that some in DOJ, given the Department’s reputation for caution, might have gone overboard and asked for this mental state, it is not the law and was never applied that way in my 25 years as a federal prosecutor with the exception of tax, export and currency prosecutions.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals 2016 pattern Jury Charge states that the use of the word “willfulness” in indictments when not required by the actual statute or case law “should be discouraged.” 18 USC 1924 and associated case law, as with most federal statutes, does not require willfulness. That is, ignorance of the law, as most people know, is not a defense.
It is enough that you acted with knowledge and intent. Of course it certainly helps with the jury if the defendant knew they were doing something wrong.
But as Mrs. Clinton had been briefed on procedures for handling classified documents and government records and ignored those briefings, and as she repeatedly lied publicly to cover her actions, there was plenty of evidence to convince a jury that she knew she was acting improperly. That would be enough for most “reasonable prosecutors.”
Why is this important? Well the next time someone makes a false statement to a bank, or someone they are soliciting by mail, or by email, or a gun dealer, or saws off a gun barrel or converts a single fire to an automatic, uses a weapon in technical violation of myriad laws and regulations, inappropriately effects interstate commerce in countless ways or commits anyone of a host of other major white collar federal crimes, remember that the logical defense will now be, “Even if I suspected it was probably wrong, I did not know I was violating a specific federal law."
As was the case with Hillary, because you cannot establish that I 'willfully' violated a known federal law,you cannot proceed." Proving this mental state would obviously be almost an impossible burden in many cases.
The author writes as one who battled and won in the courts against wealthy bank, wire and mail fraud defendants in the 1980s and 1990s who tried unsuccessfully to raise as a legal defense that in committing their wrongful acts they did not know they were violating a specific federal law.
Director Comey has revitalized that old argument and probably created a new one. By doing so has placed a new burden on federal prosecutors. Defense attorneys will now not just privately bemoan the fact that their client did not have Clinton privileges, but publicly argue that their client had never read and understood the statute under which they have been charged by the government.
They could actually start winning in federal court, but the rest of us will still never succeed arguing before the local JP that we actually did not read the stop or speed limit sign or never understood the nuances of the state's traffic regulations and thus never “willfully” violated the law.
Ron Sievert is a Professor at the Bush School of Government and Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas School of Law.
The views of Contributors are their own and are not the views of The HillSo some of the perks of this reserve schedule:
-I can move it around at will to accommodate my life
-I can go a week without flying anywhere and enjoy life at home
The big downside?
I can get called at almost anytime to be gone for an indefinite amount of time.
Like this Sunday night, I got called and told from Sunday night to Thursday I would be sitting reserve not in Ohio but in Charlotte, North Carolina.
I flew out Sunday night with a bag packed for four days and food for like two…hey at least I tried.
Today I was called around noon to tell me I’d be sitting hot reserve in the airport instead. At 2:45 I went to Charlotte-Douglas Airport and found a rocking chair near the piano to hang out until I got called onto a flight around 5.
The flight was going from Charlotte to Des Moines and back.
Having not flown for about a week and a half I was happy to fly. The crew was super nice and I flew as the forward flight attendant serving first class. It’s about 2 hours from Charlotte to Des Moines so basically we board the passengers, serve them drinks and snacks, then hang out till landing taking care of their needs as they arise and making sure everything is running smoothly.
TODAY_______________________________________________________________
I had a very friendly passenger in first class which I originally took as just friendliness, but later had the displeasure of discovering was his form of seduction…or attempt of.
It started out fine with me serving all the customers and delivering a drink to a girl in the back he’d befriended while waiting to board. He was nice and told me he used to work for an airline himself. On one of his bathroom trips he approached me to tell me he wanted my name to write to the company to tell them what a great job I was doing, I was stoked!
Then he started to grab my hand each time I would bring him something, or walk by, or be generally in his area…..which, seeing as he was in the front row, was a lot.
I was uncomfortable after a point, like around the time he came into the galley to “hang out” with me and talk much closer than i would like. But I was in my company uniform trying to do the best job I could and I didn’t know where the line was between friendly service and somehow making him believe I wanted his advances. This wasn’t just some dick hitting on me in a bar, this was a passenger who had paid good money to fly with my company, AND he was a first class passenger. So he had paid a lot.
I was torn.
The other flight attendant, a nice guy I had just met since we’d both been put onto the flight at random, came up to the front and I explained what was happening. Rather than have to confront this tipsy, very forward customer I had the other flight attendant stand near the aisle in the galley and I stood near the door. It worked, but I was on edge as this guy continued to wave and smile and try to start things with me.
Looking back I’m angry I didn’t say anything. I’m mad I didn’t do more. But I also remember the fact that the flight was long and he was in the first row in my eyesight, earshot and path to any other part of the cabin.
I read an article someone posted on facebook earlier this week and it’s what I thought of my whole walk to the hotel shuttle and long after really.
http://driftingthrough.com/2015/11/20/the-thing-all-women-do-that-you-dont-know-about/
If you don’t wanna take the time to open a new tab and read it I understand. I’ll summarize. It’s one woman’s eloquent organization of a bunch of every day experiences we have as women:
-men catcalling
-complimenting
-touching us unbidden
-saying things (that they would never want their wives or daughter to hear) playfully or flirtatiously;
and our answers.
They aren’t the loud “fuck you”s we want to say. Instead we gauge each interaction upon our the level of threat to us.
Threat to:
-our job
-our safety
-our personal space
Sometimes to walk away unscathed we have to use another man to protect us, today I had to use my coworker as a physical barrier between me and this man. Sometimes it’s having to make up a boyfriend to the guy who won’t stop hitting on us at the bar, or saying we’re meeting a guy friend or male relative so they walk away when we really are just sitting alone in a coffee shop. Or the fact that I have to lie about what I do for a living when strangers ask because I don’t want to be fetishized for an exotic and often sexualized career.
These are not made up stories. These happen all the time, this happened to me today.
When I first got this job and told people what I was doing I heard a lot of “oh good, I haven’t seen any hot young flight attendants in awhile”. I may be only 22 and beautiful, but I can also save your life in an emergency. I know more about the plane than you do and I am in charge of your safety. I have the power to remove you from the plane or the ability to make sure you arrive safely and happily at your destination. I typically finish a workday feeling very powerful.
Today I did not.
Currently a hotel room in CLT, destination unkownBuy Photo Tim Avery has been booking shows for more that a decade at places like the Bug Jar, Rochester's hole-in-the-wall, indie-music palace, giving local groups such as Joywave and Maybird their first gigs. Without Avery's involvement in the indie scene, that strange, endangered bird of underground rock in Rochester would struggle to survive. Avery, from Chili, was diagnosed with cancer in late August. Three benefits are scheduled for him including a show Saturday at the Bug Jar with headliner Jaybird. (Photo: Jamie Germano/@jgermano1/Staff Photographer)Buy Photo Story Highlights Maybird benefit: 8 p.m. Nov. 19 at The Bug Jar, 2189 Monroe Ave.
ROC4TIM: 2 p.m. Dec. 3, until midnight, at Anthology, 336 East Ave.
The Hotelier benefit: 8 p.m. Dec. 13, at The Bug Jar
Tim Avery booked your band. And if your band was from out of town, he let it crash at his apartment. He might have even given you a few beers.
You’re not alone. Avery’s been doing that for about a decade now. Putting on underground shows at The Shark Tank, the house he and his nomadic friends rented when they were so broke they were living on food stamps. He moved on to booking concerts at the Bug Jar, Rochester’s hole-in-the-wall, indie-music palace, giving local groups such as Joywave and Maybird their first gigs. And Avery knows enough about the national indie scene to reach into Worcester, Massachusetts, and bring us bands like The Hotelier, a marvelous emo-rock trio that speaks to the damaged souls of our young people.
It is a loosely woven, yet specifically defined, community. Without Avery, that strange, endangered bird of underground rock in Rochester would struggle to |
. Combat revolves around an action role-playing game system combined with the use of magic. The fighting system has been completely revamped. Wild Hunt introduces some new mechanics, such as witcher-sense, combat on horseback, and at sea, swimming underwater and using a crossbow. Additionally, Geralt can now jump, climb, and vault over smaller obstacles.
Our measurements are taken in game. Our settings are Ultra quality with AA enabled. Please find an overview of the exact settings here. Hairworks is DISABLED to objectively compare inbetween AMD and Nvidia cards.
Our test run has enabled:
DX11
Ultra mode
AA enabled
16x AF enabled
SSAO enabled
Nvidia hairworks OFF
Other settings ON
As you can see with these settings you are closing in on 41 FPS on average with the Witcher III in WQHD.
The mother of all resolutions for PC gamers anno 2015 is WQHD which is 2560x1440. The most recent patch lowered the average framerate a tiny bit, hence the card is a hint slower.VICTORVILLE-(VVNG.com): Victor Valley residents have raised concern about the teams of young men and women wearing red shirts and black pants collecting funds for the funerals of local families.
The organized team is headed by local restaurant owner, “Johnny”, of Johnny’s Dis and Dat Soul Food Restaurant and More in the city of Victorville. Johnny calls these people his “street team”, according to workers who say that he picks up these young adults and places them in several locations to collect money from the public. These young adults hold signs requesting burial funds for random tragic deaths, mostly those of children, in the High Desert.
Local media has helped push people into their fundraising efforts, likely unaware of the legitimacy of those collecting the funds. The public, many of whom gained trust for Johnny Dis and Dat Soul Food Restaurant and More due to the positive publicity have began to wonder if they made the wrong decision.
Johnny told Victor Valley News in a telephone conversation on July 27, 2015 that the business is non-profit called “Cry For a Second Chance Teen Work Program”. He claimed the business was out of Nevada, but through research and through speaking with an official with the Nevada Secretary of State’s office, there is no Nevada Corporation through that name, trademark, trade name, service mark, reserved name or business license.
Through additional research, a nonprofit corporation by the name of,”Crying for Help Teen Work Program Inc.” was found to be owned by Junita and Johnny Crummie. Two other corporations with similar names, none being the exact name that Johnny Crummie provided, were also found to be associated with the couple have been revoked for unknown reasons.
Johnny offered to meet with a Victor Valley News reporter at his restaurant at which time the Victor Valley News reporter agreed as long as a video camera would be welcomed. Johnny replied with his voice raised, “I want to talk face to face in person. We don’t talk on camera!” When the reporter offered to meet with Johnny at the Victorville Police Station off camera, he apparently was unwilling to do so since he hung up without replying following that offer.
The non-profit that he said is called, “Cry for a Second Chance Teen Work Program,” according to Johnny, gives 90% of funds to the family of those deceased.
In a statement made by a former employee who asked to remain anonymous, alleged that each worker must produce at least $200 per day, if they receive $200 the worker gets $60, the family gets $40 and the restaurant gets $100, meaning the family gets 20% of the funds collected. “He does pay $10 an hour to be out there. He told us to tell anyone who’s donating that we don’t get paid he’s also working on starting it down the hill he calls them his street team,” said the former employee.
On July 11th a woman by the name of Jess Mari Mudo shared a Go Fund Me campaign on Victor Valley 411 and on her Facebook wall, according to Mudo, on behalf of a deceased baby by the name of Zachary. Zachary tragically died in mid-April following the alleged abuse by his mother’s now ex-boyfriend, 24-year-old Hesperia resident, Tyron Bookman. In the Facebook message, Mudo, the creator and the person who would have access to all funds once the campaign was complete, said she was a current employee of Dis and Dat Soul Food Restaurant and More. She went on to say that her boss “Johnny” had a contract with the mother of Zachary, Rebekah Rinaldi, saying that Johnny could collect on her behalf.
On July 13th, again Mudo made a new post asking for support with fundraising efforts, this time for Kevin Lucas, who was found deceased on Seventh Street near the Ranch Market shopping center in Victorville on July 13th. Mudo said, “we were contacted by and are meeting with the family tomorrow to start collecting funds for the funeral. I don’t know what you need this time to legitimize, but with their permission a go fund me site will be made.” When asked for contact with the family, she was again unable or unwilling to provide that.
A local business owner, who asked to remain anonymous due to his fear of retaliation, said that the owner Johnny told him they make $5,000 a day from donations so he needed security. “If you ask me he is just scamming people out of money and using his restaurant as a front,” stated the anonymous business owner. He also shared that before he took on this new business of collecting for burials, he was unable to pay rent for his restaurant.
Johnny’s past employee who was fired just days ago for not bringing in the $200 a day minimum, stated the paychecks she received were drawn from the Dis and Dat Soul Food Restaurant and More bank account. The California Board of Equalization officials said a permit would be needed in order to collect, even if it was being collected as a charity. The charity would then draw a check from the bank account owned by the charity to pay any employees.
Some of the families of the deceased collected for have been contacted, but have not yet been reached at this time. Information will be updated as it is received.
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Comment(s)WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former top U.S. Senate aide awaiting trial on child pornography charges was found dead after what may have been a suicide, a Maryland sheriff’s department said on Friday.
The body of Jesse Loskarn, 35, a former chief of staff to Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, was discovered in the basement of his family’s home in Sykesville, Maryland, on Thursday, the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. A preliminary investigation indicates he may have taken his own life, the statement said.
Loskarn was arrested last month by U.S. postal agents on suspicion of possessing and attempting to distribute child pornography.
Alexander, who is seeking a third term this year, fired Loskarn following his arrest.
“For everyone involved, this is a sad and tragic story from beginning to end,” Alexander said in a statement.
A judge released Loskarn last month into the custody of his parents, who live in Sykesville, and ordered him to have no access to the Internet while under house arrest.
A criminal complaint said a hard drive seized at Loskarn’s home in Washington, D.C., contained footage of a prepubescent girl being molested, along with hundreds of videos of underage boys engaging in sexually explicit conduct.
The arrest stemmed from an investigation launched in 2010 by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Toronto police into a movie production company that made films featuring naked young boys, according to the criminal complaint. One of the company’s customers was Loskarn, the complaint said.
Loskarn had faced a total maximum of 30 years in prison for the two charges.We will stop accepting contributions to Documentation on August 8 2017
On behalf of everyone who worked on Documentation, I want to thank all 15,451 users who contributed. We particularly want to acknowledge the 294 people who tested the private beta and the 2,361 who pounded on the public beta in its first month. Your efforts taught us so much about how collaborative editing works and how it fails. We also appreciate the dozens of people we interviewed over the past year. These were eye-opening conversations and immeasurably useful for improving the product. (I also enjoyed being able to get to know some of you over a hangout.) Our top concern at this point is to honor the trust you put in us. We hope you will be willing to participate in future betas, but even if not, we remain in your debt for your efforts with this one.
While it might not seem obvious, we are deeply grateful for both the positive and negative feedback we’ve received on meta. Many people told us this project was too ambitious and that we hadn’t considered some of the deep challenges inherent in what we were attempting. You were, of course, correct. Most likely I wouldn’t be making this announcement if we’d aimed our sights a bit lower. On the other hand, we wouldn’t have learned nearly as much.
Why was this decision made and why now?
We were really excited about this project and I'm disappointed that this is the choice we had to make, but it's the right decision and something that we always knew was a possible outcome. Last December I wrote a series of contingency plans in case we needed to shut Documentation down. Some of the options I considered made it into the plan described after the linebreak. But the entirety of one plan was “Just succeed instead.” That is no longer a possibility.
We still think Stack Overflow Documentation is a good idea. Kevin Montrose’s initial research has mostly been proven correct. Not only did our own survey show that developers rely on official documentation to learn, GitHub's Open Source Survey showed "incomplete or confusing documentation" to be the top pain point. Unfortunately, we can't afford to work on the problem at the moment. While we have an exceptional team of engineers, there just aren't enough of them to support all the projects Stack Overflow is working on.
In order to hire more people, we need to make more money. That might mean helping more developers find a great job or selling more ads or signing up more businesses to use Enterprise. In the future, it might mean selling Channels to new teams. The business pitch for Documentation was that it'd bring in new users who might be in the market for a job. If the feature were particularly successful, it would create new opportunities to sell advertisements. At the end of 2016, we established a metric to aim for: substantially increase the number of Documentation users.
By May, it was clear we weren't on the right path. New users weren't coming to Documentation. So we went back to the drawing board and started another round of user interviews focused on Transact SQL. We brought on a user experience researcher to help us interview technical writers. The results were encouraging in the sense that we know a lot more about what makes for great documentation and how we might support that effort. But it was also clear fixing Documentation would require a significantly larger team.
In addition, it’ll be a very long time before that work will pay off in terms of bringing new users to Stack Overflow. Our interviews showed even very experienced users of T-SQL felt inadequate to contribute documentation. Users with less Stack Overflow experience tended to be intimidated by the prospect of making even trivial edits. So the programmers most likely to become Documentation contributors were already heavily engaged in using Stack Overflow.
Finally, our research showed that while a lot of developers were dissatisfied, the current state of programming documentation is not universally broken the way Q&A was when Stack Overflow started. In particular, we heard over and over that Stack Overflow has become de facto documentation for many technologies. As many of you pointed out, Stack Overflow is already good enough at providing documentation of obscure features. Even when considering just the company's mission of helping programmers “learn, share their knowledge and build their careers”, Documentation isn’t the most efficient use of resources.
Even though this outcome has been a disappointment, most of us agree it was the right decision. If so, I hope we'll be able to revisit documentation in the coming years. However, as the ancient Hebrew proverb says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick; but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” This was a mature and responsible decision, but that doesn’t cure the heartsickness.
Will anything come out of this experiment?
Yes! As Shog pointed out, we've already learned quite a bit from doing things we couldn’t do otherwise. It's too soon to know exactly what we'll be able to port over to Q&A, but I'm excited about the possibilities of CommonMark, technology versions support, shared drafts, better collaborative editing and dated links to previous revisions. Before we leave Documentation, the team will compile what we learned so that we can draw from the knowledge in the future. And, as I will describe below, we’ll publish all of the content generated in Documentation.
More importantly, we've changed our approach to product development across the company. When we started Documentation, our discovery phase was largely done without interviewing typical users. Up to that point, most new features on Stack Exchange were developed with input from Meta or entirely internally. If a feature got used, we'd refine it or just declare victory. If a feature wasn't used, we typically removed it only if was actively causing harm. However, after our experience with the Documentation Beta, we've learned to focus more of our efforts on pre-development research.
For instance, the Documentation team already decided the outline of the feature before coming to meta with the initial announcement. By contrast, our newly formed Developer Affinity & Growth team asked for help setting priorities based on themes and user stories. Documentation’s private beta fleshed out most of the functionality. By contrast, the new mentoring proposal is a minimal viable product that is arguably too minimal. We’re certain to have failed projects in the future, but we’re working to fail a lot earlier in the process.
How will the feature be phased out?
After August 8, 2017 at 1700 UTC, we’ll disable proposed changes and wait for pending changes to be reviewed. Once the review queue is cleared, it'll be removed from the review menu and page. We’re still working out the other details, which I will try to explain below. For some of this, we need your feedback in order to do right by the community. This probably won’t be the last time we discontinue a beta feature and now is a good time to set a healthy precedent.
What happens to content?
As with all content contributed by the community, you own it and we merely have a license. Since we want to make it as easy as possible for you to recover your work, we'll be listening for suggestions in the answers below. At a minimum, we'll provide a JSON archive similar to what we already provide for live content. Let us know what you'd prefer.
What happens to reputation?
Reputation earned on Documentation will be retained—probably in the form of a one-time grant shortly after Documentation ends. We have a longstanding policy of preserving reputation even after worthwhile content is removed. While not all of the content in Documentation is exceptional, that's mostly on us and not on users, who acted in good faith. We looked to see how many people earned privileges on Stack Overflow without participating much or at all in Q&A. As it turns out, we mostly failed to attract new users to the site with Documentation, so revoking reputation would only affect a thousand or so users in terms of privileges compared to nearly 20k people who would lose reputation.
What happens to badges?
We also have a longstanding policy against revoking badges. But we've never had a badge set for a discontinued beta feature either. While we could just retire them, it seems confusing to show expired Documentation features on the list of badges. In addition, we'd lose a lot of good names for potential future badges. As a compromise, anyone who earned a Documentation badge other than Educated (for reading the tour) will be issued a newly minted silver Documentation Beta badge. Does this seem fair?
What about links to Documentation?
Unfortunately, discontinuing Documentation will be breaking the internet just a bit. As of this writing, there are 3382 links from Q&A posts to an Example and 2199 links to some other Documentation page (usually an entire Topic). Ideally, we’d keep those links live, but because of the nature of the content, that would leave a lot of information that could easily become outdated without a mechanism to fix it. The next best thing would be a plan to automate the movement of content into the post itself. That might work for many examples, but probably not for entire topics.
One suggested approach: we automatically generate suggested edits from the Community user and submit them incrementally as there is space in the queue. For links to non-Examples, we think it will be sufficient to remove the sentence with the link. Many of these sentences start with phrases such as “You could read more about X at [Docs link]”.
Links to specific examples seem more likely to be integral to posts, so the team is looking at ways to bring them into answers in a new section. Doing this via suggested edits will allow the community to reject or improve automated edits. (And authors can always override the community if they prefer.) The key will be to find a workable template and make sure the suggested edits don’t waste too much community effort.
Until the suggested edit process is finished, Documentation pages will remain available on the site. After that, links will redirect to a landing page explaining what happened and where to get the data dump. There's not a whole lot more we can do for links external to the network, unfortunately. On the plus side, there probably aren’t that many anyway.
We’d like to hear what you think of this approach. It’s entirely possible there are better ideas we just haven’t considered. This plan is far from settled.
What about all the questions on Meta?
I’m going to be going through the ~1,500 unaddressed meta questions and either close or put a status tag on them. Our community produced many great conversations and suggestions, so I don’t plan to delete anything. I could probably slap status-declined on everything, but I’d rather take the opportunity to make sure we have the feedback incorporated in our retrospective.
What about...?
The most important thing we're looking for in answers are feedback on the mechanics sunsetting, especially making the content available to contributors and repairing broken links. That said, if you have any additional questions or comments, feel free to post them as answers below. We also plan to write a retrospective on the blog and make this a topic of an upcoming Town Hall Chat. I’m planning a few posts for my personal blog as well. Documentation might be coming to an end, but we’re not close to done talking about it.(Reuters) - A Las Vegas man who survived the Oct. 1 mass shooting at an outdoor concert in his hometown was killed this month by a hit-and-run driver while hitchhiking on a Nevada highway, a local television station reported.
Roy McClellan, 52, was killed on Nov. 17 while walking on a highway in Pahrump, about 60 miles west of Las Vegas, KSNV-TV reported.
McClellan and his wife, Denise McClellan, survived the attack along the Las Vegas Strip by a gunman firing from a 32nd floor Mandalay Bay hotel room onto the crowd at a country music concert. In the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, 58 people were killed and hundreds more injured.
Denise McClellan told KSNV that the massacre had a profound effect on her husband, saying, “It was really messing with his head and he was going to therapy.”
The Nevada Highway Patrol did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.
The car that struck McClellan has been found and charges against the driver are pending, KSNV reported.
A Riverside, California couple, Dennis and Lorraine Carver, who together survived the Las Vegas shootings were killed in an automobile accident last month near their home.Senior Database Administrators (DBAs) through experience develop and practice a variety of habits that become key contributors to their success.
Here are 10 habits of successful DBAs that you can begin to put to work for you right away.
Habit #1: Use Free SQL Server Tools
What if I told you that you can get free quality advice on how to make your SQL Server databases go faster? That would sound almost too good to be true right? Well it is true and there’s much more where it came from too.
You see there’s a way that you can get Index Optimization insight, access to performance diagnostic tools, improved query plan analysis and database maintenance automation. These time saving and performance improvement opportunities are just some of the great potential that you could benefit from by using free SQL Server tools.
Senior DBAs know that by using free SQL Server tools they can increases their productivity and results. So can you!
Discover what SQL Server tools and scripts the community recommends in the Forum.
Habit #2: Implement Automation Everywhere
This is a really big one. It’s like The Force for Data Professionals. If it’s strong with you, then the potential of what you can achieve will increase dramatically.
As a Database Administrator (DBA) your skills, services, expertise and ultimately your time will always be in demand. You can only ever deliver on a finite amount of time, that’s just the way it is, so it’s incredibly important that you maximize the use of the time you have available. I guarantee you that this is a philosophy that all Outstanding DBA’s believe.
The more tasks, systems and processes that you can automate, the more time you have available to Proactively reinvest in tasks that add value to your business and to you.
The positive impact that practicing and developing this habit will have for you is quite profound. It’s why I strongly believe that The Best Database Administrators Automate Everything and why you should too.
Habit #3: Take Advantage of Free High Quality Training
There are many excellent SQL Server training resources that are at your disposal. Successful Senior DBAs make a habit of taking advantage of these free opportunities to learn and develop their skills.
Some examples of various high quality training opportunities include:
Habit #4: Manage Time Effectively
Senior DBAs understand that time is their most valuable asset and that maximizing how it is used is an essential practice.
Time management and productivity are big topics, about which many excellent books have been written. If you’re like most data professionals then there’s always something else that needs doing. You have to focus your time and energy on what is most important.
To ensure that you are investing your time and energy in the right place, you must use a system. By using a task management system you can keep an accurate track of your workload, prioritise and ensure that you spend more of your time delivering on what’s really important.
In the modern working world the demand for data professionals who are able to work effectively remotely is also increasing.
Habit #5: Know Where to Find Quality SQL Server content
The volume of content available on the internet is vast, making it difficult to establish the credibility of the information that is out there. How do you know what you can trust?
It’s one of the reasons that I created Something For The Weekend(SFTW), a round-up of the best SQL Server blog posts and technology content shared each week via email.
Subscribers enjoy: Hand picked quality SQL Server content A variety of posts from both established and new bloggers Staying informed on the SQL community No longer worrying about overflowing RSS readers A generous helping of British candor with a splash of humor Simply complete the sign-up form to receive SFTW and new blog posts. Authoritative sources of information are typically discovered, collected and established over time by experienced professionals. Sounds like hard work eh chaps? Fortunately some great folks in the SQL community have already done the hard graft for you. Here’s a collection of some of the best SQL Server content available and where you can find it, courtesy of the SQL community:
Habit #6: Never Ask for Permission to do Great Work
Often we seek out the approval of others before proceeding with a task when we don’t actually need it. Just think about that for a second.
Why are you seeking out approval if you don’t even need it?
You’ll often see this in email communication with phrases like:
“What do you think about X?”
“Is it ok if I go ahead and do Y?”
“Can you let me know how you wish to proceed…..” etc.
Do not ask for permission or approval unless it is absolutely required.
Take the initiative and responsibility for your actions by leading. Tell your boss, project manager or colleague how you are going to proceed. Do not ask how to do so if you have already identified how you would want to. Instead inform everyone of your decision.
Those with less experience may find this habit more difficult to put into practice initially because you won’t be used to working in this way. It’s not easy and is why I’ve written an entire post about it. It will feel quite foreign to begin with but stick with it because it will significantly improve your productivity and delivery.
Remember that your boss hired you because you are the SQL Server expert and looks to you to for insight. Take the initiative and lead.
If you’re not practicing this habit already, I want you to Stop Asking and Start Making Decisions Today just like successful Senior DBAs.
Habit #7: Make Professional Development a Priority
Having already discussed the value of accessing quality training resources and content, perhaps it’s no secret then that successful Senior DBAs make their professional development a priority.
They achieve this by having clearly defined goals and regularly pushing their limits. They understand that you need to step outside of your comfort zone, to challenge yourself, in order to really grow.
By stepping outside of your comfort zone you:
Accelerate your growth
Amplify your growth
Broaden your experience
Increase your versatility
Challenge yourself
To learn more about how you can make professional development a priority, take a look at:
Habit #8: Give the Customer What They Really Want
What do your customers want?
If you don’t know the answer to this question then you are going to have an extremely tough time providing any sort of service never-mind an outstanding one.
To provide your customers with outstanding service you first must understand them. What are their needs, wants and desires?
Whatever it is that you do for your customers it’s important that you fully understand what it is that your customers expect from you. Only then can you determine whether or not you are providing a truly valuable service, which specifically provides for the needs of your customers.
Thinking like a customer is the simplest and most immediately accessible way for you to evaluate what your customers need.
Habit #9: Thinking Defensively
Our database environments are business assets and as DBAs it is our primary responsibility to guard and protect them.
As we develop and grow our skills it can be easy to fall into the trap of becoming complacent. Don’t make the mistake that i did.
Before you implement any administrative tasks whether it be deploying a set of database patches to your environment, modifying table data or creating new objects, whatever changes you plan to make, I advise you to always adopt a doomsayer’s frame of mind before carrying out the implementation.
Ask yourself:It's Dangerfield first and daylight second according to the fan survey
PATRICK Dangerfield's status as the best player in the game has been endorsed by the fans, with the Geelong Brownlow medallist motoring past Sydney superstar Lance Franklin in the annual fan survey.
Dangerfield, who has not missed a beat this year after a glittering 2016 season, was emphatically voted the AFL's best player in the expansive survey conducted for AFL.com.au and the AFL Record.
The superstar midfielder was a clear standout ahead of last year's winner Franklin, Richmond midfielder Dustin Martin and Adelaide on-baller Rory Sloane.
Previous winners Nat Fyfe and Gary Ablett were among those to top three per cent of the vote, with rising Bomber Zach Merrett and Swan-turned-Hawk Tom Mitchell among those nipping at their heels.
Dangerfield took all before him in 2016, winning the player of the year awards voted on by the players and coaches and setting several records in his Brownlow Medal victory.
He has picked up where he left off in 2017, leading the AFL for overall contested possessions (17.5 a game) and clearances (7.4), and ranking No.2 for inside 50s (5.5) and centre clearances (3.9).
Dangerfield, 27, is also the player fans would most want at their club, topping a close vote ahead of Marcus Bontempelli (12), Martin (10), Fyfe (eight) and Franklin (eight).
Gold Coast captain Tom Lynch did not figure in the votes for the best player in the game, but seven per cent of fans nominated him as the player they would most want at their club.
Almost 40,000 fans voted in this year's survey, giving their views on the game's players, coaches, clubs and rules, as well as their football viewing habits.
They identified in-demand Greater Western Sydney midfielder Josh Kelly as the young player most likely to take out the game's greatest individual prize, ahead of Melbourne's Clayton Oliver and Sydney's Isaac Heeney.
When it came to free agent Martin, a majority of fans (65 per cent) expected the Tiger superstar to stay at Punt Road Oval in 2018.
North Melbourne was the front-runner to poach Dusty from the Tiges.
Fremantle is also in the box seat to secure captain Fyfe, according to the fans.
However, over a fifth of voters tipped Fyfe to take up a big-money offer to play with the Saints next season.
We'll have more results from the fan survey on AFL.com.au and the Official AFL App on Thursday. The full survey results will be published in the round 12 edition of the AFL Record, available at all venues.
Want more?
• Mid-season reviews: your club's pass mark and biggest worry
• When and why the Magpies started hitting winners
$(document).ready(function(){ document.getElementById("interaction").innerHTML =''; });Chester Brown, author of Paying For It: a Comic-Strip Memoir About Being a John, will be at Strand, my favorite NYC bookstore tonight to for a slideshow, conversation, and signing. He'l be joined by the inimitable Benjamen Walker (Host of WFMU's Too Much Information) and Tracy Quan (author of Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl).
I interviewed Chester about his book last week. Here's the MP3 of the interview.
Chester Brown has never shied away from tackling controversial subjects in his work. As the cartoonist of the autobiographical The Playboy and the biography Louise Riel, Paying For It is a natural progression for Brown as it combines the personal and sexual aspects of his autobiographical work with the polemical drive of Louis Riel. Paying For It offers an entirely contemporary exploration of sex work-from the timid john who rides his bike to meet his escorts, wonders how to tip so as not to offend, and reads Dan Savage for advice, to the modern-day transactions complete with online reviews, seemingly willing participants, and clean apartments devoid of cliched street corners, drugs, or pimps.
Tracy Quan, a columnist, TV guest and author of Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl and many other books, will join Chester Brown on the Strand Stage.We’ll just let you decide if this parent is being overprotective or not. Outraged that his daughter was apparently being bullied by her peers at Yishun Secondary School (and that the school did nothing about it, or so he claims), the father called the cops.
From his Facebook post, it seems that the police really did drop by the school to get a statement from his daughter, who was allegedly bullied.
“Let’s see how the boy’s performs in standing trials in the Court of laws,” he says. Cold, bro.
But let’s trace what led him to call the police on a purported teenage bully. On Oct 9, he claimed in a post that the bully — said to be a school prefect and a leader in the school’s National Cadet Corp — verbally abused his daughter, but was apparently let off lightly on grounds that he was a school student leader.
Prior to the verbal abuse, the daughter was allegedly cyber-bullied — an ordeal that she’s faced for the past nine months.
The dad then apparently went above and beyond by directly complaining to the Ministry of Education, which aptly told him that disciplinary action would be a matter handled by the school, not an actual ministry. Angry dad got angrier.
It was only yesterday that the dad went as far as to call the police to drop by the school, in his efforts to seek justice.
Naturally, folks voiced their concerns about him going a wee bit overboard.Turkey's controversial deployment of troops to northern Iraq might have looked like an "invasion" but it is in fact testimony to Ankara's strange alliance with Iraqi Kurds, which is based on a set of mutual benefits and common concerns.
© Sputnik / Dmitriy Vinogradov Erdogan Plans to Strengthen Daesh - Al-Nusra’s Leader
Some of the Turkish soldiers who entered northern Iraq without authorization on December 4 are reported to be leaving. But approximately 2,000 Turkish troops and tanks, according to a retired French intelligence officer, are permanently stationed at numerous bases in the Iraqi province of Dohuk.
In addition, the Turkish Armed Forces often cross into Iraqi Kurdistan to carry out operations against members of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Alain Rodier added.
Nevertheless, the latest incident infuriated Baghdad, Rodier noted. The reason is simple: "Although Iraq asked the international community for assistance against Daesh, Baghdad did not plan to ask Turkey for help. Ankara decided to act of its own volition," the expert explained.
Moreover, tackling Daesh, also known as ISIL, is not on top of Ankara's to-do list. Turkey's main priority is to deal with the Kurdish issue, Rodier asserted.
Ankara is "wary of an autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. It is also concerned that a similar region will be established in northern Syria, which is a likely development," the expert explained. The PKK has succeeded in taking some areas along the Turkish-Syrian border under control and will try to add more to them – an unacceptable development for Ankara.
© REUTERS / Ahmed Saad Protesters shout slogans during a demonstration against the Turkish military deployment in Iraq, at Tahrir Square in central Baghdad, Iraq, December 12, 2015
© AFP 2018 / MEHDI FEDOUACH Russia Considers Turkey’s ‘Invasion’ in Northern Iraq Illegal
There is another reason for Baghdad's reaction to Ankara's latest initiative.
Turkish troops would not have been present in northern Iraq if not for Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, who implicitly gave a nod to Ankara's actions. The expert maintains that Barzani's independent stance is "infuriating" Iraqi authorities, since Baghdad is essentially no longer controlling this part of the country.
Iraq "is divided into two parts (or three, if you take Sunni regions into account) and there is no going back," Rodier told Atlantico. This is not a recent development. A centralized Iraqi state, according to the expert, ceased to exist following the first Gulf war.
Last week, Barzani tried to diffuse tensions while on a visit to Ankara. The head of Iraqi Kurdistan, according to the expert, is trying to serve as a mediator between Iraq and Turkey, while also making every effort to convince the latter that the PKK is not welcome in northern Iraq.
Barzani also needed to make sure that Ankara did not want to change its oil arrangements with Erbil. Turkey is securing deliveries of oil sold by Kurds to the Gulf of Iskenderun for a substantial fee. Although this is an official and legal arrangement, it does not please Baghdad.
In early December, Turkish soldiers were deployed to the Iraqi province of Nineveh to allegedly train Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. The initiative was not authorized by Baghdad. Iraqi authorities urged Ankara to immediately pull out its forces, including tanks and artillery, from northern Iraq and refrain from similar actions in the future.Rusting drums containing potentially-explosive cyanide, illegally stored in a house garage, were guarded by police until removed.
The 28 one-and-a-half tonne drums were put under 24-hour police guard until they were taken away by the environment services team.
The mixture of sodium cyanide is toxic and can become explosive when wet.
It was removed carefully and disposed of by a specialist hazardous waste company, supervised by council officers.
The council was alerted to the cyanide storage on October 22, with the environment services team removing the hazardous waste with Surrey Police across October 25 to 26.
Councillor Glenn Dearlove, portfolio holder for environment, said: "Suburban backyard garages are often home to piles of old newspapers or boxes of childhood memories, however this discovery in a busy urban area in Elmbridge was quite a surprise.
"There was no threat to surrounding residents while the hazardous chemicals were in a stable environment, however, it was imperative that the council and police worked hand in hand in this joint operation to ensure the waste was removed quickly, and more importantly, safely.
"The removal and disposal of waste is the responsibility of the land owner and they will meet the cost of this removal, however the council was able to take the lead in coordinating the exercise due to our officers' knowledge of environmental guidelines and to ensure all safety measures were met."NEW PORT RICHEY — Five "self-proclaimed" neo-Nazis were arrested after an investigation found drugs, firearms and Nazi propaganda in their possession, said Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco.
Deputies made the arrests Tuesday afternoon after obtaining a search warrant for the home at 9240 Kiowa Dr. All five lived there in the same home in the Griffin Park neighborhood.
FROM 2010: Neo-Nazi John Ditullio gets life sentence in 2006 stabbings
Those arrested were three men and two women: and Michael Baun, 28; Steven Crumbley, 31; Alexander Nowokunski, 33; Gabrielle Price, 24; and Melinda Zalneraitis, 47.
Crumbley and Nowokunski are documented gang members, the sheriff said, but he would not identify those gangs.
Deputies are still looking for Justin Hopper, 28, who is wanted for possession of a stolen motorcycle.
"If they don't return to our community," Nocco said, "it's a better day for all of us."
The Griffin Park area has a history of hate groups going back more than a decade. In 2006, neo-Nazi John Ditullio Jr. was living in an American Nazi compound on Teak Street when he put on a gas mask and attacked the home next door. Ditullio fatally stabbed Kristofer King, 17, and wounded Patricia Wells. The neo-Naz |
you're streets behind the curve with this whole "cloud" thing.
Lastly, Bethesda confirmed what we already knew: more patches are coming, with more fixes to more issues. "We all know this is a huge game, and everyone has a different experience," Bethesda posted. "We’ll continue to do everything we can to make the game better and better for as many people as possible every day. We’ve also realized that with the millions upon millions of people playing Skyrim, we need to treat our updates with greater care. If we get too aggressive trying to fix a minor issue, we run a risk of breaking something larger in a game like this. To be safe, we are prioritizing code side fixes right now over data fixes. Quest and balance issues are usually data, and those will start rolling in a large way with the January updates."POETRY BY DRE MER
I HEARD THE SKY SAY I WANT TO BE WITH YOU SO I TOOK A PICTURE OF MY PENIS AND SENT IT TO THE SKY
“I TOOK THIS FOR THE MOON
BUT YOU RE E SIER TO PLE SE”
[insert something the poetic community can pat each other on the back for] [insert formula] [pushcart prize?] [slam fondling?]
[I’m getting inspiration from goddamn
Twitter and using too much profanity]
MAKE A DIGITAL DEAL WITH THE DEVIL AND UPLOAD YOURSELF ONE BYTE AT A TIME VIA 20 EMAILS A DAY
ND LITER RY EST BLISHMENTS YOU DON’T RE D
THE SUN VOMITTED US UP BILLIONS OF YE RS GO
ND YOU’RE W STING YOUR TIME RE DING THIS?
I HAD A DREAM SAN FRAN WAS OVER RUN BY YOGA INSTRUCTORS
TH N I RE LIZED I’D NEVER BEEN THER
ETime spent by people watching Instagram Stories — which is temporary sharing with private replies that launched in August 2016 — could someday significantly surpass time spent in the Instagram Feed, which is the permanent stream of photos and videos with comments that launched in October 2010. Although numbers comparing sharing and time spent between Stories and Feed are not available, there’s more to be done.
This feels credible to me for reasons such as Stories is “largely video,” according to the Instagram CEO, and video sharing and watching videos on Instagram are going up over time as a percentage of both time spent and total posts.
As of June, video watch-time on Instagram is up 80 percent year-over-year and the number of videos shared is up 4x. From June 2016 to April 2017, Instagram grew monthly active users by 40 percent. Before Stories launched, there was a question about a per user Feed photo sharing decrease. A year after Stories launched, people younger than 25 spent 32 minutes per day on Instagram on average, and people 25 years and older spent more than 24 minutes per day. That compares to 21 minutes per day on average for all Instagram users in October 2014. Instagram Stories currently has more than 300 million daily active users, and that compares to Instagram’s total 500 million daily active users in September.
I often visit Instagram only to watch Stories without scrolling through the Feed. I believe Stories-first is happening with how Instagram is used, but Instagram is not yet designed to be Stories-first. At a minimum, the Feed must be improved to the standard of Stories, and Stories must be featured equal to its significant current and expected usage.
How would you imagine Instagram would work if Stories were made first, and Feed didn’t exist? And what if only now Feed were designed and introduced? Viewing Stories full-screen makes sense, which may help explain why it’s “largely video.” However, the scrolling technique used in Feed today obscures that video because the top or bottom is cut off during scrolls, and scrolling can require more than one gesture — such as swipe up and then press to stop — just to get the next post on the screen. This can cause the user to miss the beginning of the video and also split their focus, while taking more time than necessary. So I felt a need to create a new design.
How could Instagram change from Feed-first to Stories-first? Today, Feed scrolling is the primary focus of Instagram’s design. When opening the app, the Feed uses 68.29 percent of screen space on iPhone 7 Plus. Meanwhile, Stories is displayed as one horizontal row below the top of the app, assigned 22.55 percent of screen space.
Let’s first consider the differences between Instagram Stories and Instagram Feed, and how they could become more similar or different:
Stories core:
A: Delete in 24 hours
B: Replies are private messages
C: Shows who viewed your Story
Feed core:
D: Permanently shared unless deleted
E: Hearts and comments are visible to anyone who can view the post
Stories current design:
A: Small circle profile photo or thumbnail
B: One-tap to next post, or swipe left to next Story
C: Photo shown for 3 seconds, and video shown once
D: Swipe up to privately reply, or swipe down to close
Feed current design:
E: Full-width of video/photo is shown, and conforms to dimensions 1:1 for square, 1.91:1 for landscape or 4:5 for portrait
F: Name/profile photo appear outside of the video/photo with caption/comments/buttons
G: Scroll up to view more Feed posts
Imagine combining features across Stories and Feed. What if Stories included comments? Or if Feed was one tap to advance? Applying learnings from how Stories appears to have made video the focus, a new approach to Feed may increase how many videos are shared, increase the ratio of videos-to-photos shared and increase how long people want to watch videos on Instagram.
Please let me know your comments/feedback about my design by messaging here. In addition to the video and gif above, I also show below how each feature works in my design.
My design for Stories-first with Feed
Generally, I think this approach could help bring together the user experiences of Feed and Stories, while preserving the distinctions that make each useful.
Feed and Stories always one swipe away
Easily switch between Stories and Feed and vice versa at any time. Imagine if you could open the app, tap on Feed and watch for a while what your friends have been sharing and commenting. Then with just one swipe down, you can return to the main screen, which shows up to thee rows of five Stories each. Then you can tap on friends’ Stories you want to watch for a while and send back private replies for some. Then switch back to Feed to check out more updates, and so on.
Below, you start each side at the fifth Feed Story, then open the NYC Story, then go to the sixth Feed Story. A bar appears in the middle when finished, and indicates that Stories-first is faster:
You can switch to view three big thumbnails of Stories per row, then view more Stories or go back to the Feed. Today, Instagram shows these larger previews of recent Stories sometimes when you scroll in the Feed, but not at the top of the app.
Full-screen Feed posts with one tap to next post
This is a much faster and easier way to look at content, and it can be done simply with one hand holding the phone. Tap through multiple videos/photos included in an album post. Feed still shows only one post, and focus remains on ranking Feed based on content shared. In contrast, Stories shows all of someone’s posts for that day.
There is no sharing of who viewed each Feed post, so a distinction between Feed and Stories is preserved. Cropping/editing tools of Feed posts would now be included as editing options after making a video/photo in Camera and after selecting from Camera Roll. Note that any dimension video/photo can be posted to the Feed, including using full width/height of available space.
Press on the Feed post to show only the videos/photos, then release to show text and buttons over the videos/photos again. You also can opt to show no animation from right to left when a new Feed post is shown, so the focus can remain on the content, without needing to look at the animation.
Press then swipe up to ‘heart’
The gesture replaces double-tap to heart so one tap is to advance. Note that if you swipe up and the heart appears, then you can still swipe down and the heart will not have been sent. A heart is only sent upon release of press after swipe up.
Watch Feed in 2×2 full screen and tap a Feed post to expand to full size
Showing a 2×2 of Feed posts lets you view four posts per screen, so you can scan a bunch of posts to decide what to view. Tap on the right side to go to the next 2×2, or tap on the left edge to return.
Just tap on a Feed post in a 2×2 to open to full screen of that post, so there’s a clearer view of the post.
Tap Profile, then tap to open Grid, then one-tap to next post
This is a fast way to check out profile posts with just one tap, so the design of viewing Profile and viewing Feed are compatible.
Turn on Stories comments and require approval for comments before sharing
You can choose which posts you may want to share to view responses. Comments in Stories provide a space to share responses among viewers. While knowing the default is the comments are deleted with the Story, this may inspire people to share more comments.
A purpose of the option to review all comments before posting is for the person posting to feel more control over the comments added to their content.
Turn on or off comments by using the camera, then tapping Next for the selector.
Tap on the comment icon to reply with a comment on a Story, or swipe up to privately reply. So even with comments on, there remains a default focus on private replies.
Choose each Story video/photo to expire after 6 hours, 24 hours, 1 week, 1 month or 6 months
You can change the expiration time for each Story you share in order to control the amount of time the Stories appear. The default time remains 24 hours.
Remove read Stories when tap Feed, and Feed moves up to the first row if no more unread Stories
So the design is flexible even if there are only a few Stories to view. At most there are four versions of the layout that could appear: 1 Stories row, 2 Stories rows, 3 Stories rows, and 3 Stories rows with a preview of the fourth Stories row.
Closing after watching 16 Stories:
Closing after watching the last unread Story:
Turn off auto-play Stories
Only watch the Stories you tap. Turning off auto-play can last until you turn it back on. Or, another approach is that turning off auto-play can last for the current session or 24 hours, then will return to auto-play for the next Story.
Make a playlist of Stories to watch now
Easily pick which Stories you want to watch.
Swipe right to open camera over Home, or tap bottom-row camera to open — and swipe down to close camera
This provides a consistent way to swipe down to close the camera.
Make multiple videos/photos without stopping
This helps bring default function of the phone’s camera app into the app for making a bunch of videos/photos when needed in the moment. Use the “Multi” camera option, then tap thumbnail or swipe up to decide which videos/photos to select. Media would be stored in the camera roll or cloud.
Main design conclusion
Plainly, there are many important possibilities to explore. Meanwhile, I believe my approach outlined here could significantly benefit people today. And the purpose is to design and share ideas with people who can inspire change. There could be continued development, such as with trying the design with people in the app.
Looking forward, augmented reality could increasingly expand the canvas for information and interaction to everyone, everywhere — but over the coming years, what won’t change about sharing? Sharing the lived experience is a core desire. In some broad definition, it is what makes us alive. And people will want increasing ways to share across dimensions of time, people, place, format, feelings, identity and more. Really, the story of sharing itself — including what, how and why — is still being told. As ever.
For higher resolution videos of the ideas above, please visit my Facebook Page.
Disclosure: DJ Sherrets is a shareholder of Facebook stock.Search Gallery Hearts and Hooves and Wings harwicks-art 659 Magic Horse with Beard and Hat harwicks-art 560 Advertisement Advertisement Pegasus Troopers harwicks-art 1,105 Lazy Biteacuda River harwicks-art 283 Applejack Appreciation Day 2018 harwicks-art 1,070 Sunset Button harwicks-art 717 Cue Dramatic Swoon harwicks-art 1,703 The Warm Light of Nostalgia harwicks-art 2,095 Reading by Celestia's Light harwicks-art 2,354 Play that Funky Music, White Horse harwicks-art 1,049 An Enchanted Meeting harwicks-art 1,752 It's a Derpy Day harwicks-art 652 Ponies from the Land of the Ice and Snow harwicks-art 975 Welcome to the Family harwicks-art 1,010 Dragon of Renown harwicks-art 510 CMC Forever! harwicks-art 1,002 Trixie Day Dawns! harwicks-art 1,270 Post Harvest Downtime harwicks-art 969 Mohawks Are In This Season harwicks-art 1,216 Rarity Day 2017 harwicks-art 659 Fluttershy Day harwicks-art 997 Private Performance harwicks-art 1,073 Some Days Are More Equal Than Others harwicks-art 1,113 Big Brother Best Bulletin Board harwicks-art 2,764If you are in the middle class and receiving food stamps, Medicaid or cash welfare, don’t get married. Not if you want to keep your benefits, that is.
A new study by the American Enterprise Institute offers fresh insight on a glaring flaw in the nation’s federal entitlement programs — a flaw that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has been trying to fix for years. The AEI study highlights a “marriage penalty” that gives middle-class couples a financial incentive to avoid marriage in order to continue receiving government benefits.
“For several decades now, policymakers have created programs with little if any attention to the sometimes-severe marriage penalties that they inadvertently impose,” Ryan notes in “A Better Way,” the House Republican caucus’s new policy platform. “So instead of rewarding people trying to create a stable family, our safety net actually discourages them.”
And here’s the rub: numerous other studies have shown clear financial and socio-economic advantages to marriage. These include higher lifelong income, lower rates of teenage pregnancy and child delinquency and higher upward mobility for children in lower income families, just to name a few.
This has created a Catch-22 for low-income or middle-class couples thinking of marriage, according to Bradford Wilcox, one of the authors of the AEI report.
“Instead of rewarding people trying to create a stable family, our safety net actually discourages them”
Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute, Wilcox explained how nearly half of all U.S. families receive some kind of means-tests government assistance, from Medicaid to food stamps. But for couples earning a combined income between $24,000 and $79,000 — which is to say, the average American family — these benefits end with marriage.
The disincentive has real-life consequences. Almost one third of all adult Americans report that they personally know someone who has not married for fear of losing government benefits, according to a 2014 study.
What we have, then, is a vicious cycle: Marriage rates have decreased due to couples’ fears of losing benefits, which leads to slower economic growth among America’s lower and middle classes, given that “the retreat from marriage is a major factor contributing to the economic inequality in the United States,” according to the Washington Post. Slower economic growth leads to more reliance on government benefits, which leads to a further retreat from marriage…and on and on it goes.
This raises a simple question: has the retreat from marriage been a major factor in the rise of America’s welfare state?
“When you raise this kind of question among my progressive colleagues and the folks that I engage with on twitter, you tend to get a fairly negative response oftentimes,” Wilcox said. “But the problem with that kind of response, the idea that there’s really no connection between welfare theoretically and how people approach child bearing marriage, is that it doesn’t actually comport with the data on this question.”
Instead, the data confirms what Ryan and others have long understood.
It may not be what the young bachelors in their early 20s want to hear, but getting married is important. What we need now, according to Ryan and the authors of the study, is to stop penalizing Americans for doing so.JALANDHAR: Raising serious doubts over the outcome of the Punjab government’s demand in the Supreme Court for fresh tribunal to re-examine the share of river waters allocated to different states from Punjab rivers, Dal Khalsa and Akali dal (Panch Pardhani) have argued that the fresh tribunal may also end up as another tool of “injustice to Punjab”.Dal Khalsa spokesperson Kanwarpal Singh and ADPP leader Advocate Harpal Singh Cheema termed the state government's move as politically and morally incorrect that could only buy the time but not address the core problem. “The real fight of Punjab should be to get back its legitimate ownership rights and ironically none of the mainstream parties of the state are concentrating their energy and efforts in this direction rather prefer to beat around the bush,” they said.“If Badal government is sincere then the foremost task before it should be to get a resolution passed in the state assembly asking the Union government to drop 78 and 80 sections of the Punjab Reorganization Act as these sections were violative of the Indian constitution and side-by-side filing a fresh case in apex court challenging constitutional validity of these sections,” they added.Both the leaders were categorical that the root-cause of the problem lied in the sections of 78 and 80 of the Punjab Reorganization Act, 1966 through which the Central government acquired the authority to determine the rights and liabilities of Punjab and Haryana in regard to the Bhakra Nangal and the Beas projects."Do you still believe that Union of India will allow the proposed tribunal to work with fairness and without bias," they asked Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal while reminding him of his often repeated allegations that union government and various tribunals in the past have been erratic and partial in their approach towards the Punjab. “Given that background of SAD’s own allegations is it not political naivety to trust central leadership that has so far denied the ownership right of Punjab on its river waters,” they asked Badal.Reiterating that every drop of Punjab's river waters must be saved, they said the construction of SYL canal was no more an issue. “The real thrust should be on the continuation of flow of waters to non-riparian states that estimates to more than 55 per cent of the total waters of Punjab,” they said.They also demanded that Badal should keep his promise of scrapping Clause 5 of Punjab Termination of Agreements Act.Firing a salvo at mainstream politicians for their double speak, they said strangely from Badals to Amrinder to Bhagwant Mann- all are eager to flow their blood into SYL canal but not waters. Terming these tall talks as fake aimed to woo the voters, they said, “we all know that when time for sacrifice will come, none from these leaders will come forward, rather will be the first ones to side with the oppressor-state. These politicians are not the ones, who would sacrifice their lives and career to protect the rights and interests of Punjab."It’s an honor for me to join the Mozilla Board. I’m so inspired by the Foundation’s mission and by the incredibly talented people that lead it. And, I’m looking forward to contributing to Mozilla’s plans to build out a leadership network focused on protecting the open Internet.
Though I’m still too new to the organization to be able to diagnose Mozilla’s biggest challenges, I think this is a really exciting and crucial time for Mozilla to develop products that really put users first. Today’s Internet users have complex needs, so I’ll be excited to see how the Mozilla community works to identify and solve them.
Obviously, this is also a very challenging time to protect the Internet from the national and global trends toward authoritarianism, censorship and surveillance. Mozilla is in a great position to address some of those challenges.
During my career, I’ve had the privilege of working in both the private and public sector, but the consistent theme is focusing on the intersection of emerging technologies, law, and public policy. I have tried to build cultures, policies, and practices that are forward-leaning in the development and defense of a healthy internet. I’m looking forward to doing the same at the Foundation, helping build out the leadership network and focusing on emerging tech policy leaders.
Nicole is an attorney specializing in Internet, media and intellectual property law. She served as President Obama’s deputy chief technology officer (CTO) and has also worked as the vice president and deputy general counsel at Google to arbitrate issues of censorship. She was appointed to the Mozilla Foundation board in April 2017.At the center of a galaxy cluster, 1 billion light years from Earth, a voracious, supermassive black hole is preparing for a chilly feast.
For the first time, astronomers have detected billowy clouds of cold, clumpy gas streaming toward a black hole, at the center of a massive galaxy cluster. The clouds are traveling at speeds of up to 355 kilometers per second -- that's almost 800,000 miles per hour -- and may be only 150 light years away from its edge, almost certain to fall into the black hole, feeding its bottomless well. The observations, which will be published in the journal Nature, represent the first direct evidence to support the hypothesis that black holes feed on clouds of cold gas.
The results also suggest that fueling a black hole -- a process known as accretion -- is a whole lot messier than scientists had once thought.
"The simple model of black hole accretion consists of a black hole surrounded by a sphere of hot gas, and that gas accretes smoothly onto the black hole, and everything's simple, mathematically," says Michael McDonald, assistant professor of physics in MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. "But this is the most compelling evidence that this process is not smooth, simple, and clean, but actually quite chaotic and clumpy."
Given the new observations, McDonald says black holes probably have two ways of feeding: For most of the time, they may slowly graze on a steady diet of diffuse hot gas. Once in a while, they may quickly gobble up clumps of cold gas as it comes nearby.
"This diffuse, hot gas is available to the black hole at a low level all the time, and you can have a steady trickle of it going in," McDonald says. "Every now and then, you can have a rainstorm with all these droplets of cold gas, and for a short amount of time, the black hole's eating very quickly. So the idea that there are these two dinner modes for black holes is a pretty nice result."
McDonald is a co-author on the paper, which was led by Grant Tremblay, an astronomer at Yale University.
Seeing shadows
The researchers made their detection using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA -- one of the most powerful telescopes in the world, designed to see the oldest, most distant galaxies in the universe. The team focused ALMA's telescopes 1 billion light years away, on the central galaxy in the Abell 2597 Cluster, a galaxy that is some tens of thousands of light years across. This particular galaxy is among the brightest in the universe, as it is likely producing many new stars.
The team originally wanted to get a sense for how many stars this cluster was churning out, so they mapped all the cold gas within the cluster. This cold gas has cooled and condensed out of the diffuse halo of hot gas surrounding a cluster, forming clumps. It is the collapse of cold gas that creates new stars, especially in the cluster's central galaxy.
"In the center of a cluster, there's a single massive galaxy, the big daddy galaxy of the cluster," McDonald says. "It's sitting at the bottom of a gravitational funnel, and all the gas from a thousand galaxies is available to it. These are the galaxies that are the most massive, with the most massive black holes in the universe, and the most potential for star formation."
The researchers used ALMA to map the spectral signatures, or radio emissions, from the galaxy cluster, looking specifically for signatures of carbon monoxide, the presence of which usually indicates very cold gas, of minus 200 degrees Fahrenheit and below. They mapped carbon monoxide across the entire galaxy cluster and found that as they looked further into the cluster, they encountered progressively cooler gas, from millions of degrees Fahrenheit to subzero temperatures.
At the very center, just at the edge of the cluster's supermassive black hole, the researchers discovered something quite unexpected: the shadows of three very cold, very clumpy gas clouds. The shadows were cast against bright jets of material spewing from the black hole, suggesting that these clouds were very close to being consumed by the black hole.
"We got very lucky," McDonald says. "We could probably look at 100 galaxies like this and not see what we saw just by chance. Seeing three shadows at once is like discovering not just one exoplanet, but three in the first try. Nature was very kind in this case."
A high-energy feast
The team estimated the velocities of the three clouds to be 240, 275, and 355 kilometers per second, with all three headed toward the black hole. McDonald says these three cold gas clouds will likely not stream straight into the black hole but instead be absorbed into its accretion disc -- the massive disc of material that will eventually spiral into the black hole.
He adds that while ALMA was only able to see three clouds of cold gas near the black hole, there may be even more in the vicinity, setting the black hole up for quite a feast.
"We're only seeing this tiny sliver," McDonald says. "If there are three clouds in just our line of sight, there might be millions of clouds all around. And there's a tremendous amount of energy in just these three clouds. So if we were to look at this thing a million years later, we might see that the black hole is in outburst -- much brighter, with more powerful jets, because all this high-energy material is landing on it."
This research was funded, in part, by NASA, the European Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council.Photodisc
This past May, MTV News reported that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had sent out letters to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, and the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, with evidence of what the ACLU refers to as "overt sex stereotyping and implicit bias" within Hollywood studios, networks, and talent agencies. And as of today, it appears that at least one of those agencies is listening.
Indiewire reports that the EEOC has begun sending letters to female directors, asking them to come in and meet with them in October to discuss the discrimination they've faced working in movies and television. (And the numbers, by the way, support the fact that they have experienced discrimination: A University of Southern California study found only 1.9 percent of the top-grossing 100 films from 2013 and 2014 were directed by women, and a Directors Guild of America study found that only 14 percent of 220 TV shows -- 3,500 episodes in total -- had women at the helm.)
"We have received the ACLU's letter which contained information documenting underrepresentation of women directors in the film and television industry and have had further discussions with the ACLU about their data and conclusions," the EEOC told MTV News in an email. "Federal law does not permit EEOC to confirm or deny the existence of a charge, and it would be inappropriate to comment on any potential or ongoing enforcement actions. EEOC will continue to vigorously enforce Title VII's nondiscrimination requirements. Title VII prohibits covered employers from discriminating on the basis of sex. Individuals who believe they have been discriminated against at work can file a charge of discrimination with EEOC. We also encourage the industry to publicly address the serious issues raised by the ACLU and to take proactive steps to address these issues."
Of course, Indiewire also confirms that the conversations the EEOC has with these directors will be strictly confidential, but what comes out of them could potentially mean big changes for diversity behind the camera. The EEOC's job is to investigate discrimination complaints then administer and enforce civil rights laws if necessary, so what they find regarding gender bias in Hollywood could actually lead to legislation that'll put more fabulous female filmmakers behind the camera.A member of the Islamic State tweets that the organization will soon use unmanned drones to attack Israel.
A member of the Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS) has threatened that the organization would soon use unmanned drones to attack Israel.
The IS member, a Canadian who left his country to fight alongside the IS in the areas of Iraq and Syria it declared to be an Islamic Caliphate, claimed on Twitter that the group was developing these drones and that they would be unveiled in the near future.
He further said that engineers who studied in the West are working on the drones.
IS, he wrote, is expected to make use of these drones to attack targets in Baghdad, Kurdistan, Syria, "occupied Palestine" and the United States.
He added that the drones used to attack targets in the United States would be launched from Mexico.
Other activists of the Islamic state recently repeated the message that the group would soon carry out attacks against targets in the United States and Europe.
It is already known that the IS has a presence in Gaza. Two Gazan terrorists recently eliminated in an Israeli Air Force (IAF) precision strike were members of a jihadist terrorist cell linked to the the group.Senator Elizabeth Warren, the millionaire Massachusetts class warrior who has made the vilification of Wall Street bankers her second-favorite pastime (right behind prospering on the largesse of Wall Street lawyers, the gentlemen and scholars who funded her very generously compensated position at Harvard and fill her campaign coffers) did not exactly make the issue her hill to die on, but the fight did provide her an excellent opportunity for grandstanding.
No doubt aware that 99 percent of those who look to her for guidance on financial regulation could not explain what a derivative is, Senator Warren did her usual dishonest shtick, engaging in her habitual demagoguery without every making an attempt to actually explain the issue, which is a slightly complicated and technical one, to the rubes who make up the Democrats’ base. Angrily insisting that the reform is about nothing more than ensuring that “the biggest financial institutions in this country can make more money” is cheap, and it’s easier than trying to explain why many midsized banks believe that the rule puts them at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis the big Wall Street firms, to say nothing of exploring the convoluted question of why agricultural swaps are covered by the rule while interest-rate and foreign-exchange swaps are not. This led Maggie Haberman of Politico to admire Senator Warren’s “authenticity,” the choice of precisely that word being the cherry on this sundae of asininity. Senator Warren is as much an authentic champion of ordinary working people as she is an authentic Cherokee princess — and Mel Brooks and those Yiddish-speaking Indians from Blazing Saddles were more convincing in that role.
Bailout politics is still very much with us: People resent — rightly — what was done and how it was done. Many on the Tea Party right and the Occupy left intuit that there exists a dysfunctional relationship between Wall Street and Washington, though Senator Warren et al. maddeningly believe that the way to ameliorate this is to invest Washington with even greater powers, enabling even worse misbehavior and even more remorseless rent-seeking. And those who bother to keep up with such things know that neither Dodd-Frank nor anything else that has happened in Washington since the financial crisis has in fact eliminated, or even reduced, the phenomenon of financial institutions’ being considered — inevitable phrase — “too big to fail.”Disclaimer: RWBY and all affiliated characters/titles belong to Rooster Teeth, those wonderful geniuses.
Penny spun back and forth, checking herself in the mirror. She was wearing the same clothes she usually wore, her overall dress and the fruffy blouse. She especially liked the way the sleeves bunched up at her wrists where the cuffs buttoned, they were so pooffy.
Finally she tied her pink bow into place. She let her fingers linger on the soft lace for a moment. This bow had been a gift from her father and she wore it every day, no matter what. Even on days when she had to dress up and be all fancy for something, Penny made sure she wore her bow. It was a little faded now, not the bright pink it was when she first got it, but that didn't change anything for her. It was still her bow.
With one last smile at the mirror Penny spun in a happy little circle and skipped out the door.
Yesterday had gone wonderfully.
She was very nervous about everything that was going on though. Being out in the gardens all day would make Ciel ask a lot of questions and whenever she did that it usually led to more rules that Uncle Ironwood made Penny follow. Luckily the garden was special and Penny would just say she had wanted to be out there. She knew that Uncle Ironwood kept the garden around for her and her mother's sake and she hoped that meant he would appreciate her spending a lot of time out there.
After thinking about it all night, Penny had decided to go for it and walk in the gardens until she found Ruby, the new gardener. The garden was so big and Penny was certain when she started out that it would take her quite a while to just stumble on her. That way she would have time to figure out what she was going to say and plan something. The problem was that Penny found Ruby right away. So quickly in fact that she had no plan ready when she did.
That's when she started to get nervous because Penny did not like doing things without a plan. Usually Uncle Ironwood or Ciel had very specific guidelines for when they did things. Her instructors always came over at the same times every weekday and that never changed. Dinner was always at seven in the evening, no matter what. So, not having a plan for dealing with Ruby had made Penny very nervous.
The longer she watched her and tried to come up with a plan the worse her nervousness got. Ruby was working and looked very focused and Penny did not want to disturb her. Then she realized that when Ruby was at work was like when Penny was in her lessons. It was part of her schedule and she probably didn't want to be disturbed. So Penny just started walking around the garden and kept checking back on Ruby. A few times it seemed like she was going to get up and Penny waited, eager to get her chance to talk to her. But, she never did.
Finally after working so hard all day, Ruby got up and started eating lunch. It seemed perfectly reasonable to try and talk to her while she ate so Penny went for it.
That had been very nice.
They didn't really get to talk a lot and Penny wasn't even sure what they should talk about, but it was nice anyways. Just sitting with Ruby was nice after wanting to talk to her all day. Finally Penny realized she should introduce herself and she did. Ruby seemed very worried about being dirty or offending Penny but that was okay. Lots of people acted like that and it was probably just because they weren't friends yet. Once she and Ruby became friends she hoped she would be able to relax a little more.
"Good morning Penny," Ciel greeted Penny as she entered the large dining room.
"Good morning Ciel," Penny replied, waving happily. "Isn't it a wonderful day?" Penny turned towards the high, arched windows and opened her arms. The sun was high enough already that its warm beams came pouring through the glass.
"The weather is quite nice, yes," Ciel pulled Penny's chair out for her which Penny happily took and then sat herself across the table from her. "How was the garden yesterday? I noticed you spent quite some time outside."
"Oh yes, it was wonderful," There was no breakfast quite yet so Penny let her hands rest in her lap.
"Did anything in particular catch your eye?" Ciel tilted her head just slightly and Penny knew that she was suspicious.
"No, no, there was noth- Oh, excuse me," Penny covered her mouth as she hiccupped, "No there was nothing in particular."
Being nervous always did this to her. Hiccupping was so embarrassing and it just added to how nervous she was about lying to Ciel. Somehow, Ciel always knew when she was telling a fib.
"Are you absolutely certain Penny? If there was something you liked we could tell the gardeners to plant more of them or to trim the bushes a certain way," Ciel smiled politely and Penny was certain she was still trying to find out about her secret.
"Well, maybe there was something…umm red that I liked," Penny was very careful to not tell a lie but not say too much either.
"Was it tulips? Or maybe some of the lilies are red? Wait I know, it was the roses right?" Ciel turned and nodded as the wait staff carried in a few trays of food.
It was nothing too fancy since it was just the two of them. A few bowls of diced fruits, hot porridge and oatmeal, scrambled eggs and bacon made from turkeys. Penny wasn't sure why they always pointed out that the bacon was made out of turkey. Was it ever made from anything else?.
"Yes. Yes, I did like the roses," Penny nodded happily. That was good because it wasn't a lie. Penny did like the roses in the garden. It was also true that Ruby's last name was Rose.
"That's great to know," Ciel smiled and spooned some oatmeal into her bowl.
Penny reached for the fruits and scooped a small pile onto her plate. She saw, mixed among the cantaloupe and apple wedges, a few pieces of strawberry. They were neatly sliced into small, bite size pieces and had their tops cleanly removed. She picked up one with her fingers and held it out to Ciel.
"Ciel, why do we cut these up?" Penny rotated the bit of fruit around as she examined it.
"What do you mean Penny? They are sliced that way so they are easier for us to eat. We also, use a fork or a spoon to eat them, not our hands."
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ions linebacker Jarrad Davis was knocked out of Monday night’s win over the New York Giants after being hit from behind by Odell Beckham Jr.
The hit appeared questionable, and Davis grabbed his head right after the hit, was on the ground for a couple of minutes before being helped off and eventually was placed in concussion protocol. Asked about the hit Tuesday, Caldwell initially said he didn’t know what the question was about.
“There was no flag thrown,” Caldwell said. “…I believe that the officials do an outstanding job, actually. When you go into a ball game, players make the most mistakes, coaches make the second-most and then officials make the fewest.
“So they do the best they can.”
Caldwell wouldn’t say whether or not the Lions would send the play to the league to review. He called discussing that possibility “inappropriate” and that the NFL has advised teams against discussing what plays are sent in.
He also wouldn’t answer if Davis remains in concussion protocol a day after taking the hit.
Caldwell won't disclose if/when he gets extension
The Monday Night crew spent some time talking about Caldwell and his lack of a contract extension in the final year of his initial four-year deal with Detroit. Caldwell said he heard there was some buzz about his contract during the television discussion but once again said he doesn’t think about it.
And he made it clear he won’t tell the media if and when he signs an extension.
“No,” Caldwell said, pausing. “That’s the honest truth.”
He went on to say his contract status is not important -- something he’s said often the past few months.Platforms: Xbox One PlayStation 4 PC
In the magical land of Khalea, heroes are in no short supply. Alas, there is a woeful shortage of dragons to slay, or princesses to rescue. Thus, the heroes of Khalea find their adventures on the fields of Arenas across the land, in battles waged for the spectacle of common folk and nobles alike. Those hungry for adventure sell their swords on the open market, joining promising teams in exchange for a chance at coin and fame. Tides of townsfolk flock to the Arenas to free themselves from the drudgery of the mundane, and to watch their favorite teams of fearless fighters pit themselves against one another in epic battles for glory, riches, and the hearts of legions of fans. Beyond the arena walls toils another class of hero, busy banging dents from armor, mending bruises and broken bones, or teaching and training the newest recruits. These often forgotten heroes are the backbone of every team. Fighters move on, and contracts expire but these hardworking individuals remain, paving the path to glory for their warriors. Challengers of Khalea is a tactical RPG, with deep management and strategy elements. It can be likened to:
● The Banner Saga meets Football Manager ● XCOM meets Pillars of Eternity ● Baldur’s Gate meets Blood Bowl Challengers of Khalea is currently in development by Tampere, Finland-based studio Dreamloop Games. It is anticipated that Challengers of Khalea will be released on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC/Linux/Mac devices via Steam.
Challengers of Khalea is the tale of a band of misfits - near strangers, brought together by chance to manage a team of Arena fighters and fight their way to the Khalean Cup in the storybook-esque realm of Khalea. You are the team’s manager, a young Perkerian, thrust into the world of Arena Fighting by the drunken mischief of your reckless best friend, Jade. Together, you and your staff travel the realm of Khalea on the challenger’s circuit, getting to know them and their stories as you lead your team to the Championship! As you explore the realm, you will encounter fantastic locations, intriguing characters, and exciting events in the Terry Pratchett-esque world of Khalea.
Negotiate Warrior Contracts
Arena Fighters in Khalea sell their skills with arms on the open market. As a team manager you must negotiate contracts for warriors. The reputation of your team, the skill of your staff, the length of your offered contract, and of course the amount of coin on the table all factor into the attractiveness of your offer.
Manage Your Team
As you roam the realm of Khalea, you will manage the staff of your team. You'll instruct them to train your warriors, take care of their equipment, tend to their physical condition, and outfit them for battle. As the game progresses, you will get to know your staff on a personal level; each has their own unique personality and ambitions, and will develop as characters based on how you interact with them.
Train Your Warriors
Assign each of your warriors a class, providing them a selection of unique abilities to tailor a team fit for any possible scenario. No two warriors will be identical - customizing from a wide range of class abilities means you can fine tune to create your own style.
Infantry Classes Flanker Agile fighters clad in light armor, Flankers are opportunists that are not above attacking enemies from behind or using poison. Brawler
Specializing in breaking enemy ranks and countering their blows, Brawlers are always found in the front lines of every battle.
Warden
Hulking masses of heavy armor and often wielding a shield, Wardens specialize in protecting the more vulnerable members of your team. Specialist Classes Lancer
The epitome of travelling knights in shiny armor, Lancers are experts of area control, utilizing their superior reach with brutal efficiency. Archer Swift as the wind, yet deadly in equal measure, Rangers rely on mobility and range to outmaneuver their opponents. Arbalest Capable of taking down weaker opponents with a single, well-placed bolt from their massive crossbows, Arbalests are the undisputed masters of long-range combat. Alchemist Both mysterious and revered, Alchemists are capable of unleashing arcane concoctions from their cauldrons, both to aid their allies and hinder their foes. Enter The Arena
When your team is trained and outfitted, you will guide them in combat in the Arenas of Khalea. Put your tactical expertise to the test in turn-based Arena matches - fight for glory and the gold needed to sustain your fledgling team on your path to becoming champions. Challengers of Khalea’s turn-based arena combat will be the culmination point of your careful planning and cunningly crafted strategies.
Explore the Realm of Khalea
Your adventures will find you spirited across the storybook realm of Khalea - a charming magical land, home to fantastic creatures all bound by mutual love for the exciting combat sport of Arena fighting. Through the tale woven into the fabric of Challengers of Khalea, you will uncover a fabled world of wonder, and perhaps even shape its future forever...
In Challengers of Khalea, you will explore the realm, manage your team, and control your fighters in tactical turn-based combat. Some key features include: ● Purchase warrior contracts from a variety of Warrior Markets around the realm of Khalea ● Manage your staff to equip and train your warriors, as well as to keep them in top physical condition ● Experiment with and tailor your team’s composition and abilities to perfectly fit your strategies ● Engage in visceral and cerebral turn-based combat in the Arenas of Khalea ● Explore a charming storybook world filled with fascinating characters and intriguing locales
Coach Ryker
Ryker is a former gladiator turned barkeep. After his involvement in a tragic accident, he entered into self-imposed exile - vowing to spend his days tending to his countryside inn. He has come out of his retirement to keep your team from what he believes to be certain failure. Under his watchful eye, you will shape your team’s tactics on the battlefield. Jade, The Scout
Your best friend, the mischievous Perkerian lass Jade, is the reason your team is off on its grand adventure. Her drunken antics resulted in using the last of your coin to register a new arena fighting team with the Guild of Heroes - your team! Her penchant for guile and quick-witted ways make her the perfect Scout for your staff. As your Scout, Jade digs up information on the competition to help you prepare for your matches. Samessu, The Trainer
Samessu is a cryptic and mysterious Zurahi, that appears to be of a simple-minded nature. For years, he has studied the comings and goings of patrons at the Pretty Pig - Ryker’s tavern in the Perkerian town of Quarry. He reveals to you a certain aptitude for training warriors (though it is not immediately clear how he has obtained this knowledge), and insists on joining you to teach your warriors in the ways of combat. Nicholas, the Medic
Nicholas is a Kritan Royal Academy dropout with a shady reputation, he is largely suspected to be supplying Kritan soldiers with contraband while he lays low in the small village of Quarry. When he spots an opportunity to get back into society under the guise and protection the status of being an Arena Fighting team staff member offers, he jumps at it, and joins your team as medic. Naileen, the Masseur
Naileen is a Vathosi masseuse, skilled in the healing arts of massage. She is of dour disposition, and is quick with a sarcastic quip - frequently preferring the company of a wineskin to that of her companions. When she sees an opportunity to get back on the road after time spent in the backwater village of Quarry, she offers her services in exchange for coin and passage on your team’s barge. Grunt, the Quartermaster
Grunt is a rough and rowdy, peg-legged Makapoa tribesman. He also happens to be one of the most skilled smiths that Quarry has ever known. After finding his fascination with mainland culture unfulfilled in the backwater town of Quarry, he seeks the excitement of travel, and sells his services as your traveling quartermaster. He relishes the opportunity to work on swords and armor, rather than the usual plows and spades.In Far Cry 2, Thompson points out, even those players who finished the game are likely to disagree about who was the hero and who was the villain.
And with each new game, the developers push that idea further.
In Far Cry 3, players take on the role of Jason Brody, a guy on a vacation adventure with a bunch of friends. Out of his element, he's too busy partying in places like Bangkok, Thailand to notice the dangers he and his friends are drifting further and further into.
Finally, when things go wrong on some unknown island in the middle of nowhere, it's up to Jason to become the hero. That's not because he's particularly adept at saving people, or surviving, it's simply because he's the one who happened to get away.
"In order to get his friends back, Jason has to do some things that some people would look at say, ‘Is he a bad guy?,'" Thompson said. "He's not being a bad guy. He's just doing the things he needs to do to survive and rescue his friends.
"It's not about right and wrong or good and bad," he said. "That's why the Far Cry games don't have morality systems, there isn't this rigid dichotomy of good and bad in the world, so why reflect that in the game?"
It's important for Thompson and the developers at Ubisoft Montreal that the game doesn't condescend to players. Not the way many other games sometimes do. Not the way television and movies sometimes do. It's an interesting distinction Thompson is making when he explains what he means by that.
He knows, the development team knows, that ultimately they are making a game about killing people and rewarding players for killing people. Killing lots and lots and lots of people. More people than any television show or movie you are likely to ever watch. But they also want to tell a story, a story that doesn't ignore that, or really embrace it.
So when I question the game's ability to tell a story about a man becoming a hero, when that man is destined to slaughter so many, Thompson doesn't shy away from the answer.
"We don't say whether something is good or bad. We don't judge players. Ultimately the game is about killing, and we know that, so we don't want to condescend," Thompson said. "The game asks you to shoot. The game is about killing people to win. So we wanted to make sure we wrote a story that understood that. The story is about killing, the story is about Jason... Jason comes to the island and he's never fired a gun before, he's never killed before. So the story really explores what it means to become, the things he has to do to become a hero.
"The game is about what is the cost of becoming a hero. What is the personal toll that is exacted upon someone who becomes a hero."
Does Thompson worry when he sees gamers questioning the many people thatUncharted 3's Nathan Drake kills in that game?
No, but he says he has a lot of respect for gamers who start to ask those questions
"It means that the audience is maturing and we as developers, we have to respect the people who consume the content," he said. "We have to respect that the palates of people are becoming a little bit more sophisticated.Photo via Assoicated Press
It seems like the impossible has happened: Alabama lost a national championship. I was shocked, to the point where I had already written an anticipatory article about Bama’s win in the National Championship game.
Next year, however, I can’t see any other teams winning. Bama’s recruiting class has an incredible amount of talent coming in including 7 of the top 40 players in the nation. They have five “5-star” recruits that have already enrolled at the university—on the offensive side, Najee Harris (RB), Alex Leatherwood (OT), Dylan Moses (OLB), Jerry Jeudy (WR), and Tua Tagovailoa (QB/DUAL). Tagovailoa is an excellent quarterback, and Bama may have an interesting dual threat with Jalen Hurts–only a sophomore–and Tagovailoa.
The QB situation must be watched closely, because some would say having two quarterbacks is equal to having none. Who will they start? Will they move either of the versatile players to another position? Until very recently I would check up on the Sarkisian’s past, but of course the Tide just lost him–this raises another important question: who will replace him, and how will they handle this offensive conundrum? It’ll be interesting to watch this develop, because it most definitely has implications for how well the Tide play this season.
Defensively, they have also picked up LaBryan Ray, who has signed a letter of intent.
Let this sink in: these are only the 5-star recruits. They have countless other players in the recruiting class that are performing better than anyone in high school football and should show a lot of promise going into next season.
If anyone was to take a look at the recruiting classes from other top teams, they will realize that Bama absolutely dominated this year. Clemson, the defending national champions, only picked up two top-40 players. They still have a talented squad returning, but it will be without their heart and soul from last season, Deshaun Watson.
Ohio State has the 2nd best recruiting class with 5 top 40 players coming in this year. In addition, the greatness of Urban Meyer and an increase in motivation from their recent disaster in Glendale (losing 31-0 to Clemson in the semi-final), they should prove to be the biggest threat to Alabama’s title hopes.
Remember, Nick Saban is one of the best coaches in history, and he excels in molding recruits into the best players they can be. The Tide’s team cohesion is the envy of all of college football, and with these new recruits to bolster their ranks, they could prove unstoppable.
Alabama is also retaining a good amount of their very talented team from last year. The first name that comes to mind is Jalen Hurts, who wowed everyone with his poise and clear-headedness at the age of 18 by driving down the field to score the go ahead touchdown with just over 2 minutes left against Clemson and throwing 0 interceptions in the game. He played like a champion all season, and it is not hard to believe that he will continue to improve.
For the sake of brevity I won’t go into every impact player that’s staying on the team, but suffice to say that they’ll be formidable next year.
Clemson, FSU, USC, Oklahoma, and Ohio State should all expect to have great seasons (Washington and Penn State not so much). If Alabama can overcome the first hurdle, a season opener against the Seminoles, they’ll be right on track. Realistically, a loss wouldn’t eliminate them from the college football playoff, but it would put them in a hole forcing them to win out to insure their spot in the playoffs.
However, a win against FSU would provide the perfect confidence boost for Alabama to go on a tear throughout the entire season and win the 2018 National Championship.
Nicholai Babis is a sophomore International Studies major at Vassar College. He specializes in College Football. He is a lifelong Seminoles fan, as well as a Rays fan and a Tampa Bay Bucs fan. He grew up in Tampa, Florida. He is a co-owner of the JR report and works for Athletics at Vassar College. He is the college football contributor at the JR Report. Follow Nicholai on twitter @nibabis. Hit him up if you want to discuss CFB, NFL, golf, tennis, and more.
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Like this: Like Loading...I recently laid out the year’s most oddball interview questions. The Glassdoor list included queries from companies like Google, Bain & Co., and Amazon, which are notorious for their perplexing and unusual job interview questions.
In 2012, the search giant asked a candidate, “How many cows are in Canada?” while Bain challenged an interviewee to estimate the number of windows in New York. Amazon asked a candidate, "If Jeff Bezos walked into your office and offered you a million dollars to launch your best entrepreneurial idea, what would it be?"
The moral of the story was that job seekers need to anticipate less conventional interview questions, and that they should think of oddball queries as an opportunity to demonstrate their thought process, to communicate their values and character, and to show the prospective employer how they perform under pressure.
But as it turns out, most companies will ask more common interview questions like “What are your strengths?” and “What are your weaknesses?”—and it’s important that you prepare well for those, too.
Glassdoor sifted through tens of thousands of interview reviews to find the 50 most common questions.
The 50 Most Common Interview Questions:
What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Why are you interested in working for [insert company name here]? Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? Why do you want to leave your current company? Why was there a gap in your employment between [insert date] and [insert date]? What can you offer us that someone else can not? What are three things your former manager would like you to improve on? Are you willing to relocate? Are you willing to travel? Tell me about an accomplishment you are most proud of. Tell me about a time you made a mistake. What is your dream job? How did you hear about this position? What would you look to accomplish in the first 30 days/60 days/90 days on the job? Discuss your resume. Discuss your educational background. Describe yourself. Tell me how you handled a difficult situation. Why should we hire you? Why are you looking for a new job? Would you work holidays/weekends? How would you deal with an angry or irate customer? What are your salary requirements? Give a time when you went above and beyond the requirements for a project. Who are our competitors? What was your biggest failure? What motivates you? What’s your availability? Who’s your mentor? Tell me about a time when you disagreed with your boss. How do you handle pressure? What is the name of our CEO? What are your career goals? What gets you up in the morning? What would your direct reports say about you? What were your bosses’ strengths/weaknesses? If I called your boss right now and asked him what is an area that you could improve on, what would he say? Are you a leader or a follower? What was the last book you’ve read for fun? What are your co-worker pet peeves? What are your hobbies? What is your favorite website? What makes you uncomfortable? What are some of your leadership experiences? How would you fire someone? What do you like the most and least about working in this industry? Would you work 40+ hours a week? What questions haven’t I asked you? What questions do you have for me?
WATCH: The Theory Behind John Paul DeJoria's Hiring Practices
In Pictures: How to Prepare for Common Interview Questions
How to prepare for common job interview questions:
Do your homework. “One of the biggest complaints of hiring managers is that many job interview candidates know very little about the company they're interviewing for,” says Andy Teach, author of From Graduation to Corporation: The Practical Guide to Climbing the Corporate Ladder One Rung at a Time, and host of the YouTube channel FromGradToCorp. Google the company you're interviewing with and read some of the articles that pop up; study the company's website; know the company's mission, its products and services, its locations, and who their top executives are. Go to the Public Relations tab on their website and print out some of their latest press releases. "Study them so that you can talk in the interview about what's going on with the company now," he says.
Prepare a list of likely questions. Shweta Khare, a career and job search expert says getting a list of common questions for an interview is easier than ever before. "You can never underestimate the importance of preparation. It's the first step and the most important," she says.
Identify what the organization wants and needs. “While the focus of ‘Why should we hire you?’ (and other similar interview questions) is on ‘you,’ the interviewee, it’s important to remember the answer isn’t all about you,” says Miriam Salpeter, job search coach, owner of Keppie Careers and author of Social Networking for Career Success and 100 Conversations for Career Success.
The most successful interview responses focus on the hiring manager’s needs. “Framing replies that demonstrate you understand their problems, or ‘pain points,’ makes a big difference when competing with many other qualified candidates.”
Prepare by identifying the skills employers are looking for. "Use their in-depth job descriptions, view videos the employers post about their organization, and visit their Facebook page and Twitter feeds," she suggests.
Google yourself. Find out what the company knows about you, Teach adds. “See what they see. If there's anything negative about you, have a response ready as to why it's negative but don't get too defensive. Respond and then move on.”
Interview yourself for the position. Before every interview, ask yourself: “Why am I a good fit for this job?”
“I tell my clients to post the question, ‘Why should we hire you?’ on their bathroom mirror, refrigerator or anyplace they will see it during the day,” Salpeter says. “I instruct them to answer, out loud, keeping different companies in mind each time. Rehearsing this way will help you hone in on what you have to offer.”
Identify what is unique or special about you. How have you gone above and beyond the call of duty? What did you accomplish that no one else managed to do? Did you volunteer to tackle a problem and solve it? “Don’t underestimate the value of looking at yourself, your skills and your accomplishments and outlining the key points you will want to share with a prospective employer.”
Practice and plan. Role play answering typical interview questions with a friend, colleague, or coach, says Anita Attridge, a Five O’Clock Club career and executive coach. “Be prepared for the typical interview questions by thinking about what your response would be to them before the interview,” she adds.
If you are a college student, set up an appointment with your career center and have them conduct a mock interview with you. “Even if you're a recent graduate, many college career centers will conduct mock interviews to help alumni," Tech says. “Request that your interview is filmed so that they can critique you and you can study the film. Don't worry if you're nervous or you screw up. You're much better off screwing up in a mock interview than in the real thing.”
You don’t necessarily want to memorize responses—but try to have a general strategy for answering common interview questions. “Today many organizations are using behavioral interview questions to better understand what you have done,” Attridge says. “They usually begin with, ‘Tell me about a time when…’” She suggests briefly describing what the situation was; how you handled the situation; and what the result was.
To prepare for these, you’ll want to think about workplace experience stories that describe your accomplishments or show how you dealt with a tough situation, Khare says. “If you don't have any stories that you can recall now, set aside a few hours to think and write down at least two or three stories. A simple question like, ‘Tell me about a time you made a mistake,’ can take you off-guard and it is not easy to recall unrehearsed. Having a repository of work experience stories written down before an interview will make it easier to recall.”
Reflect on previous interviews. Keep a computer or paper record of your interviews, Teach says. “Keep a record of the time of your interviews, how long they are, your impressions of the hiring manager, and perhaps most importantly, what questions were asked of you, what answers you gave, and record any questions they asked you that you felt could have been answered differently. “ Study these elements and your interview skills will improve, he says.
Figure out how to articulate your goals. Most of the commonly asked questions during an interview either dig into your previous experience or want to explore your future goals, Khare says. “Prepare and articulate your goals, and remain honest here. Inconsistent answers won't get you the respect and credibility that is a must to impress an interviewer.”
Be positive. When preparing for an interview and anticipating likely questions, plan to answer all questions positively. “Even if you were in a bad situation, think about how you can talk about the situation positively,” Attridge says. You always have a choice. It is much better to talk about a glass being half full then to talk about it being half empty. It’s all about your perspective, and in an interview being positive counts.
Never say anything negative about your prior employers or bosses, either--no matter how bad the situation may have been. “A negative answer actually is a reflection about your judgment and business acumen, and not about the employer or manager.”
Get comfortable. “Preparation and practice aside, the most important tip I would like to suggest to job seekers is to feel comfortable with the interview process,” Khare says. “You can read all the advice in the world about acing the interview, but none of the tactics will work out of you are not yourself during the process.”
Feeling comfortable and relaxed positively influences your confidence. “And interviewers always appreciate a relaxed and confident candidate, as opposed to a heavy promoter and edgy one,” she adds. Practice calming your nerves, and focus on how you can prove you’d be a valuable asset to the company.
How to answer 7 of the most common interview questions:
"Tell me about yourself." While this isn't exactly a question, answering this the wrong way could really hurt your chances of getting a job, Teach says. "I was once told by an HR executive that this can actually be a trick question. Hiring managers can't ask you certain questions legally but if you go off on a tangent when answering, you may tell them some things about you that are better left unsaid." The worst way to approach this request is to tell them your life story, which is something they're definitely not interested in. The best way to approach this is to only discuss what your interests are relating to the job and why your background makes you a great candidate.
"What are your strengths and weaknesses?" It's easy to talk about your strengths; you're detail oriented, hard working, a team player, etc.--but it's also easy to get tripped up when discussing your weaknesses, Teach says. Never talk about a real weakness unless it's something you've defeated. "Many hiring managers are hip to the overused responses, such as, 'Well, my biggest weakness is that I work too hard so I need try to take it easy once in a while.' The best answer is to discuss a weakness that you've turned around, such as, you used to come in late to work a lot but after your supervisor explained why it was necessary for you to come in on time, you were never late again."
"Where do you want to be five years from now?" “What employers are really asking is, ‘Is this job even close to your presumed career path? Are you just applying to this job because you need something? Are your long-term career plans similar to what we see for this role? How realistic are your expectations for your career? Have you even thought about your career long-term? Are you going to quit after a year or two?’” says Sara Sutton Fell, CEO and founder of FlexJobs.
Show them that you’ve done some self-assessment and career planning. Let them know that you hope to develop professionally and take on additional responsibilities at that particular company. “Don’t say something ridiculous like, ‘I don’t know,’ or “I want your job,” she says.
Teach says no one can possibly know where they'll be in their career five years from now but hiring managers want to get a sense of your commitment to the job, the company, and the industry. “In fact, I would even mention that it's hard for you to know what job title you may hold five years from now but ideally, you'd like to have moved up the ladder at this company based on your performance. You're hopeful to be in some management position and your goal is to help the company any way you can.” If you give the impression that this job is just a stepping stone for you, it's unlikely the hiring manager will be interested in you.
"Please give me an example of a time when you had a problem with a supervisor/co-worker and how you approached the problem." "I think that the hardest thing about work isn't the work, it's the people at work," Teach says. Most employees have a problem with a supervisor or co-worker at some point in their career. How they handle that problem says a lot about their people skills. If you can explain to the interviewer that you were able to overcome a people problem at work, this will definitely help your chances of getting the job, he says.
"What are your salary requirements?" “What employers are really asking is, ‘Do you have realistic expectations when it comes to salary? Are we on the same page or are you going to want way more than we can give? Are you flexible on this point or is your expectation set in stone?'" Sutton Fell says.
Try to avoid answering this question in the first interview because you may shortchange yourself by doing so, Teach says. Tell the hiring manager that if you are seriously being considered, you could give them a salary range--but if possible, let them make the first offer. Study websites like Salary.com and Glassdoor.com to get an idea of what the position should pay. “Don't necessarily accept their first offer,” he adds. “There may be room to negotiate.”
When it is time to give a number, be sure to take your experience and education levels into consideration, Sutton Fell says. “Also, your geographic region, since salary varies by location.” Speak in ranges when giving figures, and mention that you are flexible in this area and that you’re open to benefits, as well. “Be brief and to the point, and be comfortable with the silence that may come after.”
"Why are you leaving your current job?" Hiring managers want to know your motivation for wanting to leave your current job. Are you an opportunist just looking for more money or are you looking for a job that you hope will turn into a career? If you're leaving because you don't like your boss, don't talk negatively about your boss--just say you have different work philosophies, Teach says. If the work was boring to you, just mention that you're looking for a more challenging position. "Discuss the positives that came out of your most recent job and focus on why you think this new position is ideal for you and why you'll be a great fit for their company."
If you've already left your previous job (or you were fired), Sutton Fell suggests the following:
If you got fired: Do not trash your last boss or company. Tell them that you were unfortunately let go, that you understand their reasoning and you’ve recognized areas that you need to improve in, and then tell them how you will be a better employee because of it.
Do not trash your last boss or company. Tell them that you were unfortunately let go, that you understand their reasoning and you’ve recognized areas that you need to improve in, and then tell them how you will be a better employee because of it. If you got laid off: Again, do not trash your last boss or company. Tell them that you were let go, and that you understand the circumstances behind their decision; that you are committed to your future and not dwelling on the past; and that you are ready to apply everything that you learned in your last role to a new company.
Again, do not trash your last boss or company. Tell them that you were let go, and that you understand the circumstances behind their decision; that you are committed to your future and not dwelling on the past; and that you are ready to apply everything that you learned in your last role to a new company. If you quit: Do not go into details about your unhappiness or dissatisfaction. Instead, tell them that while you valued the experience and education that you received, you felt that the time had come to seek out a new opportunity, to expand your skills and knowledge, and to find a company with which you could grow.
"Why should I hire you?" A hiring manager may not ask you this question directly but every question you answer in the interview should contribute to helping them understand why you're the best person for the job. "Stay focused on why your background makes you an ideal candidate and tell them how you are going to contribute to that department and that company," Teach says. "Let the interviewer know that one of your goals is to make their job easier by taking on as much responsibility as possible and that you will be excited about this job starting on day one."
Salpeter suggests you print and highlight the job description, looking for the top three or four most important details. "Do they include terms such as, 'cross-functional team,' 'team work,' and 'team player' several times?" If so, your answer to, "Why should we hire you?" (asked directly or as an underlying question) should mention and focus on your abilities as they relate to teams.
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Follow me on Twitter, Forbes, and Google+.It has been nine months since our last Web Inspector update and we have a lot of cool things to talk about. If you diligently use the Web Inspector in nightly builds, you might have seen some of these improvements, while other subtle changes might have gone unnoticed.
Some of the Web Inspector improvements were contributed by members of the WebKit community. We really want to get the whole community involved with making this the best web development tool available. Remember, most of the Web Inspector is written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, so it’s easy to get started making changes and improvements.
Redesigned Interface
First and foremost, the Web Inspector is now sporting a new design that organizes information into task-oriented groups — represented by icons in the toolbar. The toolbar items (Elements, Resources, Scripts, Profiles and Databases) are named after the fundamental items you will work with inside the respective panels.
Console
The Console is now accessible from any panel. Unlike the other panels, the Console is not just used for one task — it might be used while inspecting the DOM, debugging JavaScript or analyzing HTML parse errors. The Console toggle button is found in the status bar, causing it to animate in and out from the bottom of the Web Inspector. The Console can also be toggled by the Escape key.
Error and warning counts are now shown in the bottom right corner of the status bar. Clicking on these will also open the Console.
In addition to the visual changes to the Console, we have also greatly improved usability by adding auto-completion and tab-completion. As you type expressions, property names will automatically be suggested. If there are multiple properties with the same prefix, pressing the Tab key will cycle through them. Pressing the Right arrow key will accept the current suggestion. The current suggestion will also be accepted when pressing the Tab key if there is only one matched property.
Our compatibility with Firebug’s command line and window.console APIs has also been greatly improved by Keishi Hattori (服部慶士), a student at The University of Tokyo (東京大学) who tackled this area as a summer project.
Elements Panel
The Elements panel is largely the same as the previous DOM view — at least visually. Under the hood we have made number of changes and unified everything into one DOM tree.
Descend into sub-documents — expanding a frame or object element will show you the DOM tree for the document inside that element.
— expanding a frame or object element will show you the DOM tree for the document inside that element. Automatic updates — the DOM tree will update when nodes are added to or removed from the inspected page.
— the DOM tree will update when nodes are added to or removed from the inspected page. Inspect clicked elements — enabling the new inspect mode lets you hover around the page to find a node to inspect. Clicking on a node in the page will focus it in the Elements panel and turn off the inspect mode. This was contributed by Matt Lilek.
— enabling the new inspect mode lets you hover around the page to find a node to inspect. Clicking on a node in the page will focus it in the Elements panel and turn off the inspect mode. This was contributed by Matt Lilek. Temporarily disable style properties — hovering over an editable style rule will show checkboxes that let you disable individual properties.
— hovering over an editable style rule will show checkboxes that let you disable individual properties. Style property editing — double click to edit a style property. Deleting all the text will delete the property. Typing or pasting in multiple properties will add the new properties.
— double click to edit a style property. Deleting all the text will delete the property. Typing or pasting in multiple properties will add the new properties. Stepping for numeric style values — while editing a style property value with a number, |
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